AI Tools for Academic Literature Research

JSTOR's BETA Experimental Search

• BETA Experimental Search: Search using AI capabilities that look at a broader range of relationships among topics to retrieve relevant results. Unlike with traditional keyword searches, the BETA search returns only the "top 25 results."
• Selecting the Experimental BETA Search option activates the AI-enabled search. Users can offer feedback when using the BETA search.
• The image shows a sample search on ("generative AI" OR genAI) AND education using the Experimental BETA search with the explanatory box that opens.
  
  

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JSTOR's Experimental AI Chat with Your Retrieved Articles, etc.

• Chat with Your Results: Click on the title of an article or chapter to access the full-text, and JSTOR's AI Interactive research tool window opens alongside the article text. First, the text in the window explains the AI tool and offers buttons for specific functions it can perform including Summarize, Show related content, etc. A blank "Ask a question" box allows users to direct the AI to extract specific information in response to prompts. Users can download their conversation including the generated output.
• The image shows a report titled "Generative AI and engagement with reality" and the AI-generated summary produced by the Interactive Research tool, plus additional suggested questions or prompts for the AI.
  
   

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• Note: You need to set up a free, individual JSTOR log-in and access Workspace to have these features available to you.

Constellate (Part of Ithaka Alongside JSTOR) Offers AI-enabled Text Analysis and Visualization--NOTE: Access to Constellate is ending July 1, 2025

• Ithaka is the non-profit organization that provides JSTOR and what was formerly ArtSTOR
• Ithaka also offers a text analysis platform called Constellate
• Text analysis involves considering text as data to identify patterns, relationships, and more that are not discernable through reading
• Sample output from Constellate based on literature about foster care

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Faculty can register for a free, semester-long trial for Constellate

• To learn more about Constellate, visit the Constellate website
• To view the different access plans available, and to sign up for the trial, go to the Get Constellate web page

ProQuest Quick Add Keywords

• ProQuest One Academic and other ProQuest Databases offer suggested related keywords and phrases that may be helpful to the researcher's database search.
• The researcher enters an initial search and then when the results are displayed, suggested keywords to add to the search are offered below the search box.
• It is sometimes unclear why specific keywords are recommended. Searchers should analyze the recommendations and decide if any may be useful for narrowing or otherwise adjusting their search input.

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• The image shows a sample search where the search as entered was "trauma informed" assessment AND higher education. Recommended additional keywords to consider (AI suggestions) include student support, mental health, educational outcomes, policy frameworks, trauma recovery, faculty training, etc. 
• Adding an additional recommended search term, such as +faculty training, assumes the use of AND. It also seems to treat the term as a single concept by applying parentheses. 

ProQuest One Research Assistant

• When a researcher opens an article from the results list for which the full-text is available, the Research Assistant launches in a side window.
• If the Research Assistant window is more limited for some results, it may mean that the resource author or publisher has restricted its use on their materials.  

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• The Research Assistant offers the following:
  • An AI-generated key takeaway points, usually one to three bulleted items. 
  • Suggested related information sources if it finds any.
  • ProQuest One Academic refers users to related topic pages that include different types of source materials, such as specialized encyclopedia articles, etc. (does not limit to peer-reviewed only)
  • A list of subject indexing terms that were used to classify the document with the option to search using one or more of the terms
  • Sometimes other related filtering options are offered, such as location 
  • Additional options for branching off from the original search results are provided including visualize the topic, brainstorm related topics, ask your own question (beta), and more. 

Web of Science Quick Add Keywords

• Clarivate Web of Science's Quick Add Keywords offers suggested related keywords and phrases that may be helpful to the researcher's database search.
• The researcher enters an initial search and then when the results are displayed, suggested keywords to add to the search are offered below the search box.

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• The image shows the original search, "open pedagogy" and "higher education" entered as topic search terms. The AI-enabled feature generates recommended keywords to add to the search.
• In the image, examples of the Quick add keywords generated include "open pedagogy", "renewable assignments", "open educational practices", and "OER-enabled pedagogy".

Web of Science Analyze Results 

• Web of Science provides researchers with tools to analyze and visualize their search results. 

Individual Results

• From the page listing all results, some results display a Co-citation map option. 

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• Clicking on the Co-citation map option displays a visualization of how the selected paper is related to other works through citations. According to Web of Science release notes from July 2025: "The size of each node in the map reflects how frequently a paper is co-cited with the selected (seed) paper and the larger the node, the stronger the citation relationship."

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• At the top of the search results page, researchers can choose the option to Analyze Results 

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All Results from a Search

• One way to analyze the search results is by Web of Science Categories
• The user can then make other selections about how the data should be visualized. One of these is the type of visualization. The example below shows a tree map. The other option is a bar chart.

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• The pictured example analyzes the results from the "open pedagogy" AND "higher education" search.
• In a tree map, the sizes of the rectangles in relation to each other can help the viewer get an overview of distribution of results, in this case, across disciplinary categories. The number in each rectangle is the number of results that fall under that category.
• For the sample topic, the largest colored block is Education/Educational Research shown in purple with 484 results. Other, smaller, different colored blocks include Education Scientific Disciplines with 38 results, Linguistics: 26 results, Language/Linguistics: 24 results, etc.

Generate AI Insights

• When full-text articles are available, the Generate AI Insights button may appear beside the Access Options button.
• Clicking the button initiates the AI insights feature. The Insights are generally 2 - 5 bullet points that are identified as highlights or important points from the article.

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• The Generate AI Insights function has been rolled out across all EBSCO databases; HOWEVER, it's availability depends on publishers to opt in. This is why it appears sporadically in various databases. It is also important to note that it only shows up for resources that include a direct full-text file as an access option.

Analytics

• After entering your search of News, the results screen includes includes three viewing options: Title View, Full View, and Analytics View.
  The image shows a sample search on Google AI advances and the results screen with an arrow pointing to the News results (2,967) and the viewing options shown as icons on the opposite side of the screen above the sorting options.

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• Several downloadable visualizations of the set of results are presented including
  • Timeline of Publications - Timeline graph
  • Top Publications (with the most articles on the topic) - Horizontal bar graph
  • Top Companies Mentioned - Wordcloud
  • Top People Mentioned - Wordcloud
  • Top Subjects Covered - Tree chart
  • Top Industries Covered - Vertical bar graph
  • Publication Type - Donut graph
  • Publication Language - Horizontal bar graph
• See sample visualizations
  
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• The selected visualizations shown in the image are Top Industries Covered as a vertical bar graph, Publication Type as a donut graph (circle with central hole), and Publication Language as a horizontal bar graph.

News Source AI Summarization

• From the results list, click on the Preview button for the title that you are interested in.
• At the top of the preview window, above the full-text of the result, an AI-generated summary appears.

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• Notes:
  • Only news sources have the AI-generated summaries enabled, and they are only viewable in Preview mode.
  • Nexis Uni has a copyright statement prohibiting the uploading of content from Nexis Uni into other AI tools.

GALE Topic Finder

• GALE Topic Finder: Enter a keyword or simple search phrase into the Topic Finder and identify frequently co-occurring keywords and topic areas.
• The image shows the Topic Finder activated as tiles for a search on concussion AND sports.
• The size of the tiles suggests how often the words appeared in the results. NewRx, Football, Athletes, and Brain Injury are examples of the words that are shown in the different-colored tiles.
• Related subtopics appear in the larger topic tiles.

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• The Topic Finder runs a group of your top search results' titles, subjects, and first 100 words through an algorithm to retrieve results. The keywords that appear most often in these results are then featured in the visualization.

GALE Translate

• The GALE databases also have a built-in language translator which allows for translation of the article text into around 50 languages and a read aloud function.
• The image shows the report "Are Sex Differences in Collegiate and High School Sports-Related Concussion Reflected in the Guidelines? A Scoping Review." Below the Author, Publication, and Document Type information, a tool bar is available that offers options for increasing or decreasing the text size, translating the article, or reading it aloud. A user can also change the language of the overall interface, so that options to download, print, etc., would appear in their language of choice.

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EXPLORE: More Like This and Related Subjects

• When a researcher clicks on the title of a result to view it, the EXPLORE panel opens alongside the article.

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• The EXPLORE immediately displays up to 3 related articles (based on classic, programmed AI calculations) and an option to View All Related Articles. 
• Additionally, the EXPLORE panel shows related subjects, which are also clickable.