| Tool |
What does it do? |
Does using it cost money? |
What database is it using for article information? |
Is the article information correct (based on a 10 article sample)? |
What are the potential downsides? |
| Semantic Scholar |
- Recommends articles to you based on keyword searches
- Allows you to create collections of articles and metadata on its servers
- Suggests articles based on your collections
- Suggests research topics
- Summarizes articles
|
No |
Semantic Scholar (an AI-created database) |
No |
- Suggests articles that don't exist, articles considered to be grey literature, and articles that aren't in English
- Encourages users to upload copyrighted/paywalled materials to its database (potential contributory copyright infringement)
|
| Scite |
- Provides a summary/overview of scholarly work on a topic, complete with citations
- Provides information about whether articles you search for are supported or contradicted by other articles
|
Yes, for continued use |
CrossRef (an organization that assigns Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to articles and collects those articles' metadata) |
Yes |
- Suggests articles considered grey literature (conference presentations)
|
| SciSpace |
- Suggests articles related to your search topic
- Makes autocomplete-style writing suggestions
- Suggests paper topics
- Paraphrases writing
- Generates citations
- Extracts data from articles
- Claims to detect AI in scholarly writing
|
Yes, for continued use |
Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Google Scholar, and "other trusted repositories." |
No |
- Article citation information is flawed (books misclassified as monographs, missing author information, two listings for the same article, etc.)
- Lists blog posts as sources
- Encourages users to upload copyrighted/paywalled materials to its database (potential contributory copyright infringement)
- Encourages users to upload their own work, which stores that research in SciSpace's database
- Relies on Semantic Scholar, an AI tool that contains full-text articles that haven't necessarily been uploaded by their authors, which may be a copyright concern
|
| Scholarcy |
- Summarizes research articles uploaded by users to its database through the creation of flashcards, so you can "save time" reading
|
Yes, for continued use |
None (users must provide article information) |
As correct as what users upload |
- Encourages users to upload copyrighted/paywalled materials to its database (potential contributory copyright infringement)
- Encourages users to read and study its AI-created flashcards instead of their assigned readings
|
| Research Rabbit |
- Recommends articles to you based on keyword searches
- Allows you to create collections of article metadata in its servers
|
No, but requires account creation |
Semantic Scholar and PubMed |
No |
- Suggests articles that don't exist, articles considered to be grey literature, and articles not in English
- Relies on Semantic Scholar, an AI tool that contains full-text articles that haven't necessarily been uploaded by their authors, which may be a copyright concern
|
| NotebookLM |
- Creates podcasts, mind maps, and/or summaries based on information you feed into the model
|
No, because UMaine currently pays for access |
None (users must provide information) |
As correct as what users upload; tends to leave out detail in favor of broader overviews |
- Encourages users to upload copyrighted/paywalled materials to its database (potential contributory copyright infringement)
- Encourages users to read and study its AI-created summary, mind map, and/or podcast instead of their assigned readings
|
| Keenious |
- Recommends articles to you based on keyword searches
- Suggests additional sources for you to cite if you upload your research paper
|
Yes, for continued use |
OpenAlex (an AI-created database)--only articles with DOIs listed |
Yes |
- Suggests articles from an AI database (OpenAlex) that relies on web scraping and algorithmic sorting
- Encourages users to upload their own work, which stores that research in Keenious's database
|
| Elicit |
- Provides a summary/overview of scholarly work on a topic, complete with citations
- Recommends articles related to the topic you're looking for
|
Yes, for continued use |
Semantic Scholar |
No |
- Article citation information is flawed (incorrect authors and dates listed, incomplete article information listed including lack of journal titles, book chapters not distinguished from books or article source types)
- Takes a long time to create a review
- Relies on Semantic Scholar, an AI tool that contains full-text articles that haven't necessarily been uploaded by their authors, which may be a copyright concern
|
| Consensus |
- Provides a summary/overview of scholarly work on a topic, complete with citations
|
Yes, for continued use |
Semantic Scholar and PubMed |
No |
- Suggests cited articles based on free previews of paywalled material, which leads to article content and citation errors
- Relies on Semantic Scholar, an AI tool that contains full-text articles that haven't necessarily been uploaded by their authors, which may be a copyright concern
- Does not let you delete your account
|
| Connected Papers |
- Lists papers related to a topic
- After the user selects a paper, creates a chart showing a web of relationships between that paper and others about a specific topic
|
Yes, for continued use |
Semantic Scholar |
Somewhat (the article information listed in the search results was incorrect, but the article information listed in the web charts was correct) |
- Suggests articles that don't exist, articles considered to be grey literature, and articles not in English
- Suggests articles not very closely related to the selected article
- Relies on Semantic Scholar, an AI tool that contains full-text articles that haven't necessarily been uploaded by their authors, which may be a copyright concern
|
