This service is approved for use by Grønne according to data classification at Østfold University College. More information about data classifications can be found here.
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise) is an artificial intelligence-powered assistant developed by Microsoft that uses the same models available in ChatGPT. The tool can assist you in performing daily tasks more efficiently.
Copilot can help you with, among other things, the following:
- Write, edit and improve text.
- Translate text between different languages.
- Search and find information online.
- Explain difficult concepts in a simplified way.
- Summarize and explain documents and websites
- Can generate images
Copilot is also a good conversational partner for exploring and developing ideas.
Get started with Copilot
Getting started with Copilot is very easy. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to get started.
- Go to the website: https://copilot.microsoft.com
- Click on the "Sign in" button in the right corner
- Then select "Sign in with a Work or School account"
- Log in with Feide as normal.
- Select "Høgskolen i Østfold" as affiliation if necessary.
- Type your question and press ENTER to send it.
You are now in Copilot and can use the service.
Some recommendations
- It is recommended that you start a new conversation for each topic you want to talk to the chatbot about. This will provide the best answers to your questions.
- You can paste text directly into the conversation window from e.g. Word. Note, however, that there is a maximum limit for the length of the text of around 2000 characters.
- Copilot has 3 modes you can choose between, these are "Creative", "Balanced" and "Precise". These modes will give you different answers to your questions.
- "Creative" will give answers that are more creative and may be best suited for things like creative writing or brainstorming.
- "Balanced" is the standard setting and gives an answer that balances well between the creative and the factual. This mode works well for most questions.
- "Precise" will give more precise and shorter answers. This is a good mode if factual information is an absolute requirement. However, note that the tool may still hallucinate or give incorrect information. Source criticism is still very important with AI tools.
Functionality and limitations
Copilot offers a range of functionality which, as of today, is not available in Østfold University College's primary AI tool (GPT UiO), but has limitations due to privacy concerns. It is only permitted to share data classified as Green data with Copilot, information on data classification can be found here.
Copilot is available as a website via https://copilot.microsoft.com and via the Microsoft Edge browser. It is recommended to use Copilot in the Edge browser to access the tool on all websites.
Retrieve information from the web
Copilot has access to the internet, this means that the tool can retrieve information from the internet to give you answers based on updated information in real time. Here you only need to ask for updated information for it to work.
Read websites and documents
By using Copilot in the Microsoft Edge browser, you get the opportunity to ask Copilot questions about the content of the website or in documents you have open in the browser. This is done by pressing the blue Copilot logo in Edge.
Logo for Microsoft Copilot
You will then be able to ask Copilot questions about the content of a document or on a website, in addition to general factual information from the internet or in the tool's knowledge database.