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Searching for a dataset with AI

An AI will suggest datasets, but it also invents links, sends you to charts instead of numbers, and suggests questions with no natural line. Give it the rules first: copy this prompt, fill in the two lines in square brackets, and paste it in.

The prompt

I am an IB ESS student. I need a secondary dataset for my individual investigation.
My issue: [write your issue here]
My place and years: [write them here]

1. First read this list of datasets that a teacher has already downloaded and checked, and suggest from it first: https://ess.alltheway.ing/datasets.md

2. Then suggest others. For each one, tell me:
- who collects the data (the original publisher, not a website that copies it)
- the web address of the page where I download it. If you are not sure the page exists, say so. Never make up a link.
- what one row of the file is, in one sentence
- which years and places it covers
- whether each column measures what people do (human) or what happens to nature (natural)

3. Check each one against these four tests, and say which it fails:
- It has to be numbers you can change, not a picture of numbers.
- You have to be able to say what one row is, in a sentence.
- It has to cover your years and your places. Both, not one.
- You have to be able to have it on screen in ten minutes. Today, not in two weeks.

4. My research question must be on three lines: what people do, what happens to nature, and somebody's plan (a law, a target or a programme). For each dataset, say which line it gives me, which other file could give me the other line for the same places and years, and a real plan for line 3.

Put your answer in a table. Then list what I must check myself before I trust it. Do not tell me what the data will show.

Before you trust what it says

  • The prompt sends the AI to this catalogue as a plain list it can read: ess.alltheway.ing/datasets.md.
  • Open every link it gives you yourself, and find the download. A link it made up looks just like a real one.
  • Check what it suggests against the four requirements, and against the three lines of your question.
  • The coach, at the top of every page, already knows every dataset in the catalogue and the three lines.
  • Found a good dataset? Send it with the Suggest button, and it may join the catalogue.
  • If you use an AI, say so in your method: the IB expects AI tools to be acknowledged.
Searching for a dataset with AI | ESS all the way