Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, generative AI has taken center stage in technological innovation. This transformative technology is making steady inroads into all aspects of our lives, including education. We’ve witnessed a proliferation of AI tools enhancing both teaching and learning. Even established edtech platforms like Khan Academy, Kahoot, and Quizlet have embraced the AI revolution, integrating it into their systems. In essence, AI, and more specifically generative AI, is reshaping education in unprecedented ways.
As this generative AI revolution unfolded, I shifted the focus of my academic research to this emerging technology, becoming deeply interested in its educational potential. To this end, I authored a book titled “ChatGPT for Teachers,” which explains the fundamentals of generative AI, outlines practical prompting strategies for educators, and discusses the limitations of AI, especially within educational settings.
Currently, I’m working on another book that explores the use of AI in academic research. This post draws insights from this ongoing work. Today, I aim to share a collection of AI-powered academic search engines that will enable you to find research papers and journal articles with unprecedented ease. I often find myself wishing these tools had been available during my doctoral studies; they could have saved me considerable time and effort.
While these AI academic search engines are valuable at any stage of research, I find them particularly helpful in conducting literature reviews, which typically involve extensive exploration of existing scholarship. Using these AI tools will allow you to access relevant research materials more efficiently and organize your papers more effectively. You can also combine these with the PDF Chat Tools I covered in an earlier post to further streamline your research process.
AI Academic Search Engines
These AI-powered search engines are most beneficial during the initial stages of research, where you’re engaging in extensive literature review. They enable quicker access to relevant research materials and more efficient organization of papers. For an even more streamlined research process, consider combining these tools with the PDF Chat Tools I discussed in a previous post.
1. Semantic Scholar
Semantic Scholar is an AI-powered search engine for over 214 million scientific publications across all disciplines. It allows refined searches using filters such as journals, conferences, authors, publication formats, and date ranges. Results can be sorted by recency, relevance, or citation count. One standout feature is the “highly influential citations,” which identifies publications with significant impact based on a machine-learning model analyzing citations. Other features include saving papers to your library, creating author alerts for recent publications, and setting up topic alerts for new papers.
I’ve used Semantic Scholar for years, and the platform has integrated several AI features to enhance functionality. These include TLDR, which provides concise summaries for papers, and AI-powered paper recommendations based on your library. You can also explore topics with AI-generated definitions and related papers. The “Ask This Paper” feature lets you interact with a paper’s content by asking specific questions, and the Semantic Reader facilitates reading by offering citation cards, TLDR summaries, and a table of contents to help navigate between sections.
2. Consensus
Consensus is an AI-powered academic search engine that helps you quickly find relevant research papers. Simply input your research questions and enable the ‘Synthesize’ toggle. Consensus then synthesizes insights from a vast pool of academic papers and presents results in a user-friendly format, with each tile representing a single paper. Each tile includes information about the journal, authors, and citations, along with a grey box containing key insights from the paper or answers to your questions.
The ‘Study Snapshot’ is one of my favourite features. It provides an AI-generated summary of the paper’s population, sample size, methods, and outcomes. Clicking on the paper title reveals detailed information, including references, links to full texts, and quality metrics. Consensus also offers powerful research filters to refine searches by sample size, study design, methodology, and more, and includes paper quality indicators to assess credibility. This helps streamline the literature review process by extracting main insights and citing sources, allowing you to explore relevant literature and expand your research efficiently.
3. Elicit
Elicit is an AI-powered academic search engine ideal for preparing literature reviews. Simply input your question, and Elicit synthesizes insights from relevant papers, providing titles, authors, journals, citations, summaries, and external links for further exploration. You can refine your search with filters such as publication year, journal quality, study type, PDF availability, and more. For example, using the ‘Abstract Keywords’ filter, Elicit returns papers with abstracts containing your specified keywords. Additionally, you can filter papers using over 30 predefined columns or create custom ones.
Elicit offers a library service to save and organize papers and a notebook feature to capture thoughts and highlights. You can upload PDFs to extract insights, aiding in reading papers. An interesting feature is the ‘List of Concepts,’ which allows you to search for related concepts across different papers. This helps you learn more about your research topic and discover new research avenues. Elicit excels at citing sources and provides comprehensive information to streamline your literature review process.
4. R Discovery
R Discovery is an AI tool designed to assist with academic research, making it easy to find relevant papers. Start by creating an account and customizing your feed by selecting your research area and adding topics or journals. This will generate a feed of research papers tailored to your interests. Each paper in the feed includes details like the abstract, DOI link, options to export to Zotero or Mendeley, an audio version, translation, and more. The ‘Similar Papers’ feature is particularly useful, providing an AI-curated collection of papers on the same topic, helping you discover relevant materials to enrich your research.
R Discovery also features a custom GPT called Ask GPT, allowing real-time interaction with the R Discovery bot inside ChatGPT. You can ask questions, and Ask GPT will fetch and synthesize answers from its extensive database of scientific and academic papers, providing a seamless way to enhance your literature review process.
Related: Best Google Scholar Alternatives
Final thoughts
I hope you have found these tools helpful in navigating your academic research. Each of these AI-powered search engines can significantly streamline your literature review process, saving you time and effort. Stay tuned for my upcoming book on AI tools for academic research, which will be a treasure trove of resources and insights to enhance your research journey. From detailed guides to practical tips, this book will provide everything you need to leverage AI effectively in your academic work.
