Automate Basics

Free short course

AI for Students

Learn more, not less — without getting into trouble

The study techniques that genuinely work, the integrity rules that actually apply, and why fabricated citations end more academic careers than plagiarism.

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Level
BeginnerNo experience assumed
Lessons
9Plus one practice brief
Content
85 minRead at your own pace
Price
FreeNo exam, no certificate

Covers Study skills · Research · Integrity

Who this is for

  • You are at school, college or university and everyone is using this without discussing it
  • You are worried about the rules and nobody has explained them clearly
  • You want to actually learn the material, not just hand something in

What you'll be able to do

This is what the course covers. Nothing else is claimed, and none of it is assessed.

  • Tell the difference between using AI to learn and using it to avoid learning
  • Use the study techniques with real evidence behind them: explanation, retrieval practice and feedback
  • Research and reference without a single fabricated citation
  • Understand your institution's rules and what detection tools can and cannot do

Where this leads: AIE-100, AI Essentials

The rules here are your institution's. The ones in AIE-100 are the workplace's, and you meet those about ten minutes into your first graduate job: what may never be pasted into a tool, how to check output nobody is going to mark for you, and when you are expected to disclose. It also ends in a credential with a verifiable ID, which is a defensible line on a CV with little else on it yet.

  • Everything in AIE-100 is free to read, and the assessment is free to sit.
  • Pass it and the certificate is yours for $49, once, never a subscription.
  • Verifiable by anyone, with no account and no login.
  • No renewal, no expiry, no annual fee.
See AIE-100How verification works

Automate Basics

Certificate of Competency

AIE-100

This certifies that

Your name

has passed the final assessment of the AI Essentials certification.

The holder declares the course’s lessons and live applications complete; the assessment result above is machine-marked by the issuer.

Assessed competencies are published with this credential at automatebasics.com/verify

Credential ID

AIE-100-2026-·······

Verify at automatebasics.com/verify

The curriculum

Every module, every lesson and every duration, before you decide. All of it is free, and there is nothing to buy on this course.

Modules
3
Lessons
9
Practice briefs
1
Total time
about 85 min

  1. Module 1: The line, and where it actually is

    Institutional rules, the difference between help and substitution, and the trap that costs you the degree you are paying for.

    3 lessons · 24 min

    1. 1.1What your institution actually saysYou can find the rule that governs your next assignment specifically, and get a written answer when the brief does not say11 min
    2. 1.2Help versus substitutionYou can place any specific use on the right side of the line before you start, rather than working it out afterwards5 min
    3. 1.3The fluency trapYou can measure what you actually know after reading an explanation, instead of trusting how clear it felt8 min

  2. Module 2: Study techniques that actually work

    Four uses with real evidence behind them, all of which make the exam easier rather than the essay faster.

    3 lessons · 11 min

    1. 2.1Explain it until it landsYou can get an explanation aimed at your actual gap instead of a general one, and prove it landed by explaining it back3 min
    2. 2.2Test yourself properlyYou can run a retrieval session on your own notes that tests application, and check its practice problems instead of trusting them4 min
    3. 2.3Feedback on your own workYou can get a marker's-eye critique of your draft without a single sentence of it being written for you4 min

  3. Module 3: Research, sources and detection

    The mistake that ends academic careers, how to research properly, and what detection tools genuinely do.

    3 lessons · 12 min

    1. 3.1Fabricated citationsYou can spot a fabricated reference before it reaches your bibliography, and research in a way that cannot produce one4 min
    2. 3.2Reading hard material fasterYou can turn a paper you cannot follow into questions that show whether you have actually understood it4 min
    3. 3.3Detection, and why you should not rely on it either wayYou can keep the evidence that answers a false accusation, and stop organising your work around what a detector might say4 min

Practice brief

A brief completed against your own work with a published rubric. Free, like every lesson.

  1. One topic, learned properly

    40 min

    Your from-memory attempt with the gaps marked, your retrieval scores, and the one-line statement of what your assignment brief permits.

No exam, no certificate

This is a short course. It is free, there is nothing to pay and nothing to sit, and it does not issue a credential.

It leads to AIE-100, AI Essentials.

See AIE-100

Start AI for Students

The first lesson is 11 minutes and needs no account. A free account, with no card and nothing to cancel, then keeps your place.

  • Your place is kept: pick up on your phone where you left off on your laptop
  • Lessons you have finished stay finished, even if you clear your browser
  • Assessment results are recorded against you, permanently
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