Microsoft Copilot

The enterprise shield symbol/icon will appear near the top right to verify you are connected to the University of Toronto Microsoft Copilot: 

If you see either “Sign in”, or a blue medal icon beside your profile icon, or the shield symbol/icon is not next to your profile icon: 

This means you are not connected to the protected version of Microsoft Copilot, and your conversation and data are part of the general public Copilot version.  

Option A: Login from existing UTORid Microsoft services.

1. Login to your Outlook email or another University Microsoft service that you regularly use (like MS Teams, Sharepoint, etc.), or directly to Microsoft 365 [microsoft365.com].
2. Select the “waffle” (the 9 dots icon at the top left corner), and choose “Microsoft 365”.
3. Choose “Copilot” located in the left side menu, just below the Home icon.

Option B: Login from the Copilot page.

It is recommended to use the Microsoft Edge browser as your Copilot application.  (These instructions will follow the process when using the Edge browser, your experience may be different if you use an alternative browser.)

1. Navigate to copilot.microsoft.com.  Select the “Sign in” near the top right corner.  Choose the “Sign in with a work or school account” option.

2. On the Microsoft “Sign in” screen, enter your University of Toronto email address and select “Next”.

3. Enter your UTORid information and select “log in”.

4. “Stay Signed in” – if you are using your own private secure computer you may select “yes”, otherwise if using a shared computer select “no”.

5. Accept or reject the cookie options.

6. Access the Copilot sidebar experience by selecting the Copilot icon at the top right corner of the Edge browser.

7. You may be asked to “Allow Microsoft to access page content”.  Select the checkbox and the “Confirm and continue chatting”.

The video below will demonstrate the login process:

Additional settings that may be required to check:
The option to “Allow Microsoft to access page content” can be adjusted anytime in the Copilot sidebar settings.

You may also receive a pop-up or warning that Copilot can not access your main browser windows because your Safe Search settings are too strict.

This can be fixed by browsing to bing.com, selecting the Bing menu (the hamburger menu beside your login name near the top right of the Bing search menu bar), and changing the “SafeSearch” option from “Strict”.

Consult the Office of the Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education: Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom: FAQ’s around topics such as Student Use of Generative AI and Instructor Use of Generative AI.

• Instructors should be clear about their expectations for using generative AI tools in their course. 
• Include your expectations in your syllabus and discuss openly with your class. Is it important to indicate how your acceptable use relates to the course learning goals, so students understand the reason why they are or are not allowed to use generative AI tools. The Sample Syllabus Statement resource, produced by the OVPIUE, provides advice and examples to include in your own syllabus. 
• Try it for yourself; you do not need to become an expert in using Generative AI tools.  Trying out a few tools for yourself will at least give you an idea of what your students are able to do when interacting with your course content.  
• Never upload or use information which may be considered confidential, sensitive, private or personal as part of prompting an AI too. And do not use material where you do not own the copyright – don’t upload other people’s work, especially student work, where you do not have written consent to do so. 
• Consult university policies and guidelines. In particular, instructors can visit the OVPIUE Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom: FAQ’s site for more information. 

A prompt is natural language text describing the task that an AI agent or chatbot should perform. Prompt writing (sometimes known as prompt engineering) is the process of structuring a prompt that can be interpreted and understood by the AI system. In the context of using Microsoft Copilot, a prompt can be a textual query such as “What is the Pythagoream theorem?”, or a command such as “Write a poem about the sun”, or a short statement such as “Your last response requires more details.”.  How to write a prompt for AI (Microsoft Education blog).

For advanced prompt ideas, consult these education focused prompt libraries:

• AI for education prompt library (aiforeducation.io/prompt-library) 
• More useful things, Prof. Ethan Mollick (moreusefulthings.com/prompts) 
• Microsoft prompts for education repository (github.com/microsoft/prompts-for-edu) 

Prompt writing guidance – 

Start with basic information: 

1. Be clear and specific.   
2. Provide relevant context and background information. 
3. Provide examples. 

or follow the 3 Ps:

1. Provide a persona – “You are a university instructor in the department of anthropology.”
2. Provide a purpose – “You are developing a 12-week graduate course on ethnographic research methods.”
3. Outline your parameters – “Generate a syllabus for this course. Start with a description, followed by five learning outcomes. The learning outcomes should follow Bloom’s taxonomy. Generate topics for each of the 12 weeks. The topics should build on each-other sequentially. This is a seminar format.”

Try some more advanced prompt writing techniques:

For most University users, a paperclip icon should be available near the bottom right of the Microsoft Copilot chat box:

This file is uploaded to your University of Toronto Microsoft OneDrive into a folder called “Microsoft Copilot Chat Files“. Copilot can then access and reference the file for any questions you ask of it.

You may be limited to only attach one file at a time, however you can additional files in the same chat session.  Copilot will have access if you refer to the file names separately.

Microsoft Copilot cannot access organizational content, users can actively provide it as part of their prompt for Copilot to use. Users can provide organizational content as part of their prompt in three ways:

1. Users explicitly type or paste this information directly into the chat.
2. Users upload a file by selecting the paperclip icon in the chat box. They can also drag and drop a file into the chat box. Uploaded files are stored in a user’s OneDrive for Business as part of enterprise data protection.
3. Users type a prompt into Copilot in Edge after enabling the ‘Allow access to any webpage or PDF’ setting, and an intranet page is open in the browser. In this scenario, Copilot may use this content to help answer questions.

In all cases, Copilot does not use your data to train foundation models and enterprise data protection (EDP) applies.

Microsoft Learn – Copilot in Edge webpage summarization behaviour

Create images from text with Copilot.

You can use the built-in image creator in Copilot to create personalized, engaging visuals for all sorts of lessons or topics. You can type in a description of an image, provide additional context like location or activity, and choose an art style. Prompts can begin with “draw an image” or “create an image.”

Get started in Copilot by prompting with “create an image…”
Then build out your prompt with adjective + noun + verb + style.
Click on your favorite image to open the result in a new tab and save the image.

What are boosts?
When signed in with a work or school account, boosts represent the number of prompts you can use to create images.

Once you run out of boosts, they replenish in a day.

Yes. Instructors may wish to use the technology to demonstrate how it can be used productively, or what its limitations are. Consult CTSI’s information and advice about how you might use generative AI as part of your learning experience design.

Yes, you can ask your students to use the protected version of Microsoft Copilot, as it is an approved and vetted tool part of the U of T academic toolbox.

However, keep in mind that asking or requiring your students to access tools other than Microsoft Copilot is complicated by the fact that they have not been vetted by the University for privacy or security.

This Microsoft Copilot edition (Commercial data protection for Microsoft Copilot) has been evaluated by the University’s Information Security team, and it has been deemed safe to use for up to Level 3 (Three) data avoiding the use of any private, sensitive, personally identifiable or confidential information.

Guidelines on using artificial intelligence (University of Toronto Information Security)

Furthermore, users should only use Copilot with their own content or content available publicly but not where the copyright holder has not granted permission. To read more about copyright and AI considerations, please visit this helpful resource from the University of Toronto Libraries. Where possible, de-identify (replace personally identifiable information fields with one or more artificial identifiers) or anonymize (remove personally identifiable data) data sets to avoid any privacy implications.