Personas

Personas

Val has a wide range of personas available to offer specialised support with specific tasks. Learn about the personas and how to use them.

Personas help you tailor how Val works with you. By choosing or creating a persona, you give Val a specific role, style and set of instructions to support a particular task. 

For example, you might use a persona that acts as a study coach, an editor, or an administrative assistant. Each persona is designed to respond in a way that matches its role, helping you get more relevant and useful results. 

Personas are powered by a system prompt. This is a set of instructions that tells Val how to behave, including its tone, expertise, workflow and the way it responds to your questions. 

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Personas in Val

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Description: Get help with Canvas enquiries, troubleshoot and find solutions quickly. 
When should I use this (examples):

  • Canvas support: When you need assistance navigating the Canvas learning platform.
  • Technical support and troubleshooting: To get assistance with common Canvas technical issues and providing guidance on how to use Canvas features effectively.
  • Instructor contact: If you need guidance on how to contact your instructor or teaching staff.

Description: Upload an essay to receive feedback 
When should I use this (examples):

  • Idea generation: If you're looking for inspiration or brainstorming ideas for your essay topic.
  • Understanding essay types: For guidance on writing different types of essays, such as argumentative, descriptive, or analytical essays.
  • Thesis and argumentation: If you're working on formulating a strong thesis statement and developing compelling arguments.
  • Editing and proofreading: For reviewing your essay to ensure it is free from grammatical errors and flows logically. 

Description: Design and participate in a scenario-based role-play 
When should I use this (examples):

  • Enhancing knowledge: When you're looking to enhance specific skills or knowledge areas through practice and example.
  • Role-play practice: If you need to prepare for interviews, presentations, or other real-life situations, practising with role-play can give you confidence.
  • Deep problem exploration: To work through complex problems or decisions in a controlled environment where you can safely explore different outcomes.
  • Performance evaluation: When you need feedback on your communication style, decision-making, or other competencies. 

Description: Writing Help provides detailed feedback on grammar, structure, word choice, and overall writing flow. It helps improve clarity, organisation, and sentence-level expression.  
How to use: Submit your text or question. Writing Help will confirm what type of support you need. It gives a summary, then provides clear, numbered suggestions on areas such as structure, clarity, transitions, language use, and writing flow. You can ask Writing Help to expand on any suggestion or provide examples. 

Create and share your own persona

Creating a persona allows you to customise your Val experience by testing features and building tailored AI models to suit specific needs. This makes your use of generative AI more efficient and powerful.

You can create and share up to five personas at once, and you can easily update or delete existing personas to create new ones as needed.

If you'd like to refine your persona's outputs, improve your prompts with The RCTCO Framework.

How to do it

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To create a persona: 

  • Select ‘My Studio’ from the left-hand sidebar. 
  • Click the ‘Create Persona’ button (top right)
  • Name your persona. 
  • Fill in the necessary fields to create your persona. 
  • Finalise by clicking ‘Save & Create’. 

Once your persona has been created, select it from the persona menu in the chat box and choose ‘Private’.

For more to get you started, see this Val quick reference guide - private personas (PDF, 218KB). 

Sharing supports collaboration and alignment within teams. When sharing, you control access and set up usage guidelines, with the option to add extra conditions. This feature makes it simple to reuse personas while ensuring everyone follows the correct protocols. Steps to take to share a persona: 

  • Edit the persona you have created 
  • In the ‘Share links’ section, click the ‘Create Link’ button 
  • Acknowledge and agree to the terms and conditions 
  • Give the link a title 
  • Add any additional guidelines 
  • Click ‘Create Link’ button to save 

See the Val quick reference guide - Sharing a persona (PDF, 375KB) for more information. 

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Learn more about our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples