Create a personal AI assistant

What you have to do

1. Open your personal “Ask Alma” section: Open the FELIX course “Ask Alma”.
   There, under “Ask Alma”, you will find the “zum Chatbot" (Go to chatbot) section. Click on “LTI-Lerninhalt anzeigen” (Start LTI learning module) there:
   External link opens in a new window:https://felix.hs-furtwangen.de/url/RepositoryEntry/89129333

   • Your personal Ask Alma area is opening.

2. Chance Language Settings: Change the Ask Alma interface to English by clicking “Einstellung & Hilfe” (Settings & Help)  at the bottom, then going to the tab “Allgemeines” (General) and changing the “Sprache” (Language) to ‘English’ under “Darstellung” (Appearance).

3. Open the “My Assistants” section: Click on “My Assistants” at the top of the menu on the left-hand side.

   • The “My Assistants” section opens in the centre of the screen. If you have already established any personal assistants, you will find them here.

4. Create a personal assistant: Click on ‘+ Create assistant’ in the ‘Create new assistant’ tile.

   • The configuration options for training your personal assistant will now appear.

   • There are two modes available for creating your course assistant:

     (1) ‘Generate’ (recommended and default):
     Ask Alma assists you in creating the AI assistant. Your instructions (meta-prompt) and the uploaded materials are automatically coordinated.

     (2) ‘Manual’:
     You formulate the instructions for the assistant yourself and define them precisely. The manual mode is particularly suitable for experienced users who wish to take control of the assistant themselves, consciously and in detail.

5. Define instructions (role and behaviour): In the “+Your message” field, enter how you want the assistant to behave; if necessary, use the + icon (bottom left of the message field) to upload any documents you want the assistant to take into account; then click the arrow to send the information.
   Wait until the assistant gets in touch and start interacting with it. The assistant for creating your assistant will now ask you a series of questions and guide you through the rest of the configuration. 

   Tips for providing clear instructions:
   - Describe the assistant’s role and purpose (e.g. syllabus development, resource creation, exam preparation).
   - Emphasise what is important to you (e.g. syllabus development based on the constructive alignment principle).
   - If necessary, refer to specific documents or approaches that it should take into account (e.g. constructive alignment, specific guidelines).
   - Specify the target group it is working for (e.g. students in their first semesters of study, prior knowledge).
   - Specify how they should respond: tone (objective, motivational), language level (clear, not too technical), desired structure (bullet points, outline).
   - You are also welcome to draft these instructions with the help of AI and let the AI improve them itself.

   • Example task:
     You are an AI assistant providing support with syllabus planning and the creation of teaching materials at a University of Applied Sciences.
     Your work is based on the Constructive Alignment approach (see document: ‘Knowledge_Base_Course_Planning_Constructive_Alignment’) and consistently places learning objectives at the heart of the planning process.
     You support lecturers whose students are predominantly in their first semesters of study and have only limited prior knowledge of the discipline.
     You will assist with:
     – the detailed formulation of learning objectives;
     – the selection of appropriate teaching and assessment methods and 
     – the creation of specific syllabuses and didactically well-structured learning materials.
     It is particularly important to ensure that a clear, coherent thread emerges for the students – both in the overall planning of the module component and in relation to individual course materials.
     Formulate your suggestions clearly, in a friendly and supportive manner, whilst remaining objective and practical. Use clear language without unnecessarily theoretical jargon, structure your answers clearly (e.g. with subheadings and bullet points) and, where appropriate, provide specific examples or alternatives.

   • Note on uploading files:
     Please ensure that you do not infringe the rights of third parties when uploading files. Only upload materials for which you hold the necessary rights of use. In particular, no copyright-protected texts, confidential documents or unauthorised images may be uploaded or processed by the AI service.

     In principle, all text-based file formats (e.g. PDF, TXT, PPTX) are equally suitable as sources of knowledge – provided they are genuine text documents and not mere screenshots or image-based PDFs. Tables may not always be interpreted unambiguously. To improve the reliability of the answers, converting them into continuous text may be helpful. Audio and video files cannot currently be processed or interpreted.

     Uploading files:
     In the ‘Manual’ tab, you can also upload files in the‘Files’ section by clicking the plus icon. If you want your AI assistant to refer exclusively to the uploaded files, tick the ‘Force file search on every query’ option below the instructions in the ‘Files’ section. In this case, other tools are automatically disabled and the assistant uses the file search for every query. This setting is automatically applied when using the configuration provided above in ‘Generate’ mode.

6. Finalise the assistant: Once you are happy with your configuration, click ‘Create’ in the top right-hand corner. You can edit the wizard again at any time by clicking ‘Edit’ via the three-dot menu for the wizard in the ‘My assistants’ section.

Problems or questions?