NAU 415 Transportation Security

Welcome to the NAU 415 guide!

• Use the navigation on the left to move through the guide.
• The guide includes
  • information on finding relevant sources and working with LLMs in research
  • citation help.

Here are some tips for getting more out of ChatGPT or other Large Language Models (LLMs):

• LLMs work best for research when you have expertise, which you do! 
• Remember that LLMs work by predicting the most likely next thing, which may lead to results that are either obvious or rely too much on the words of your prompt.
• Check the results to make sure they exist, and that you can get access. Ask ChatGPT for links.
• Check the sources against your knowledge. Are any important organizations or people missing?
• Scholarly or scientific sources probably reflect what's available online instead of what is the best research, so it's best to check OneSearch, Google Scholar, and/or specific databases.
• Avoid preprints unless you have a strong reason to use them. 
• LLMs can't look into anything behind a login, and so they don't search OneSearch or databases. Repeat your searches there.

There are several research-focused LLMs, such as Research Rabbit, Perplexity.ai, and Semantic Scholar. Most require you to create an account, or make it difficult to interact with sources outside their framework. If you feel like exploring, please do!

The Library offers general and focused databases which may lead you to good sources on issues in transportation security. Using these databases can save you time and effort.

A couple of librarian hacks can help you quickly get better search results.

• Use "quotes" around words or phrases to make the databases look for your exact word or phrase. Example: if you want the exact word Oceanos, not Oceano or Oceans, put it in quotes: "Oceanos." Example: "Coast Guard" looks for those two words together, instead of "coast" in one place and "guard" in another.
• Use an asterisk* to tell the databases to look for all the words that start with your base word. Example: Ship* will look for ship, ships, shipping, and any other words that start with "ship."

These tips will work almost anywhere you look for information, including Google as well as library databases.

The Library offers several ways to get free access to the full text of news articles.

Source: Sebastian Münster, "Sea Monsters (1600) upper left), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons