Primo Quick Start Guide: Research Assistant

Primo Research Assistant lets you ask a research question in your own words. It finds relevant articles and books in Primo and writes a short overview from their abstracts.

+ Use it to get oriented in a topic and to find search terms. - Do not use the overview as a source in your paper: open and read the sources it cites.

RA appears in the top menu, a side pop-up while you are running the regular searching.

The Insights label documents in ExLibris databases (ex. ProQuest) where the local RA will help in reading.

1. Open Primo and sign in with your university account.
2. Click Research Assistant in the top menu.
3. Type a full question, for example: How is the Kazakh language being revitalized in higher education? A full question works better than a string of keywords.
4. Select Available online before you send the question to search materials in the library collections.
5. Read the overview, then open the numbered sources to check what they say.

Research Assistant looks in the Central Discovery Index. This index is larger than our collection, so some sources it cites may not be available to you. To limit results to the library collection:

• View related results on your library search: opens a full Primo search with more results than the overview.
• Available online: select it for every question. It is off by default and does not stay selected, so you need to select it again each time.
• Select Full text online there to keep only items you can open. Unselect Expand my results to filter articles available in the collection. 
• If a record shows no online access, search the title in Primo or request it through ILL (Interlibrary Loan).

• The overview is generated by AI. The screen warns that quality may vary: check every claim against the cited source.
• Each question is processed on its own. Research Assistant does not remember your previous question, and the same question may return different sources.
• If the sources look off-topic, rephrase the question or select Try again.
• Make sure the cited article says what the overview claims. Open the source and read the abstract or the full text.

When View related results returns too many items, use Advanced Search to narrow them:

1. Put phrases in quotation marks: "language revitalization".
2. Group synonyms with OR in parentheses and join the groups with AND: ("language revitalization" OR "language preservation") AND (Kazakhstan OR Kazakh).
3. Write AND, OR and NOT in capital letters.
4. Turn off Expand My Results and select Full text online to see only items we can access.

Use Research Assistant to explore a topic and Advanced Search for precise, accessible results.

The history will show only the date of a search and not the text of your question, so copy your question into your own notes.

Primo RA will require you login, this allow to save up to 200 searches requests for the user account.

• How to cite AI-generated content: formats and course rules.
• Check your instructor's rules on AI tools before you use Research Assistant for coursework.
• Something does not work? Email the Library or use Ask NURIA, and include your question, a screenshot and the time of your search.