Building an academic prompt library for AI models can transform how you manage administrative tasks. While artificial intelligence promises to reduce your workload, many scholars find themselves spending more time crafting prompts than it would have taken to simply complete the task. It’s like having a very capable research assistant but spending hours explaining every task in detail. Creating a systematic collection of tested templates offers a practical solution that aligns with sustainable academic productivity.

Why you need an academic prompt library

A library of prompt templates is a personal collection of pre-written, tested prompts for your common academic tasks. Think of it like writing standard operating procedures, but for interactions with an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.

In this context, templates are not about restricting your options but about reducing cognitive overhead. When you don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every interaction, you create space for more meaningful work. And the templates you create can be modified for each task, creating a unique set of instructions for each interaction.

Building your template collection

Start by identifying 3-4 administrative tasks you frequently perform, which you might be able to delegate to AI. For example, you might create templates for the following common tasks:

• Drafting email responses to common student queries
• Formatting reference lists in different citation styles
• Creating first drafts of meeting agendas
• Summarising research papers
• Creating slideshow presentations

For each task:

• Write a basic prompt following the role-goal-instruct framework
• Test and refine the prompt until you get consistently good results
• Save the template with clear labels in a readily accessible place (I use a plain text file)
• Include notes about what modifications work well for different contexts

Caution

While an academic prompt library can be a valuable addition to your repertoire of tools, it’s nonetheless important to acknowledge that AI assistants are not silver bullets.

[Instructors] should be aware of the common mistakes of AI. It can express persistent misconceptions about a topic (based on its training data). AI may have a shallow grasp of a concept and may not easily be able to provide clear explanations, examples, or analogies. Additionally, it can be fickle and refuse to perform actions it is capable of performing and it can get stuck in a loop.

Mollick, E. & Mollick, L. (2024). Instructors as Innovators: A Future-Focused Approach to New AI Learning Opportunities, With Prompts.

The key is to treat your prompt library as a living document, frequently updating and refining the prompts. This is because you’re constantly developing a sense of taste about how you use AI, and your preferences about outputs may change over time. In addition, AI models are constantly being updated and prompts that worked well at one point may not work well in the future. A well-maintained academic prompt library becomes more valuable as your interaction with AI tools increases.

By building an academic prompt library, you’re not just saving time on individual tasks – you’re creating a sustainable system for academic productivity that grows more valuable over time.