Mar 6, 2024 |
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Research Better: 5 Best AI Tools for Research Efficiency
The increased usage of AI tools has sparked many conversations in the world of academia, which inspired the innovation of AI tools for research. The integration of technology in academia has brought innovation that introduced digital libraries, plagiarism trackers and grammar-checking softwares, this changed the way researchers write and discover academic literature. In recent years, the academic sphere has witnessed the rapid growth and implementation of AI, which we believe can be leveraged to create efficiency in research. As an AI-powered research library, Zendy provides key tools like summarisation and keyphrase highlighting to streamline the process of literature review, we also developed and launched ZAIA, the AI research assistant. These tools have been designed to create efficiency in research, which allows researchers to invest significant time in data analysis and their primary research. With the growing integration of AI products, we believe in the ethical use of AI in the world of research while also harnessing the innovative technology to streamline research processes amongst students and researchers alike. According to a study that looked at the usage of AI amongst students, it was found that every fourth student (25.2%) uses AI-based tools frequently, while almost half of the students (47.8%) use AI-based tools occasionally. Slightly more than a third of the students (36.6%) do not use AI-based tools at all. In this blog, we recommend the 5 best AI-driven tools to assist you with annotating, citing and more!1. Semantic Scholar Housing over 200 million papers from all fields of science, this tool generates a comprehensive summary of an academic paper, including the area of study the research addressed and its overall impact on the discipline. 2. ZAIA AI Assistant for Research ZAIA is a domain-specific LLM designed to assist researchers in understanding essential research concepts and finding relevant papers. This tool enhances the efficiency of the literature review process, providing answers backed by millions of academic research papers. 3. Tableau This tool generates date visualisation and analytical tools for businesses and researchers. The platform is equipped with Einstein AI which is driven by machine learning and delivers predictions and recommendations within Tableau workflows to assist with efficient decision-making. 4. Scite.ai This is a well-rounded citation tool that provides context to citations by clearly stating whether an academic paper supports or contrasts the cited claim. This helps researchers save time having to read lengthy papers and quickly determine whether the citation is relevant to their research. 5. Consensus AI This tool annotates insights about research papers using AI. It produces “study snapshots” to condense lengthy research papers by mentioning study aims, variables, and findings. The platform also provides credible responses backed by academic papers to queries, by presenting research papers that both support and contrast the query, allowing users to browse through objective responses. Limitations of AI Tools While AI tools are effective in streamlining research processes, they raise ethical concerns and can impact research integrity if misused. AI raises ethical issues including data privacy, algorithm bias and misuse of AI. However, due to the increasing usage of AI tools, policies are developing quickly to ensure the technology is adequately regulated. Tips for Using AI Tools in Research Follow these recommendations to ensure ethical AI usage: Always fact-check content generated by AI tools Do not write academic articles using AI tools. Instead, use these tools to edit and structure original research content. Do not use AI tools to generate references, instead use it to manage and store the references. Use AI tools that produce accurate results. Incorporate your own voice and style of written content as much as possible. In conclusion, AI is a resourceful innovation in academic research when used ethically. The correct and responsible usage of AI can create immeasurable efficiency in research processes, and aid in citation management, resource annotation, data visualization, literature discoverability and summarisation.Discover a comprehensive suite of AI-driven tools like summarisation, keyphrase highlighting and ZAIA - AI assistant for research on Zendy now.
See the Top Reads of December 2023
Behavior Economics This paper highlights how traditional economic models function on the assumption that people behave rationally, which is not always the case. The unification of psychology and economics introduces “prospect theory” which considers how individuals evaluate differently from standard economic theory, the paper also discusses the challenge of replacing rational principles with behavioral alternatives. Read more: Behavioral economics: Reunifying psychology and economics Sociology of Environmental Representation This paper discussed the relationship between environmental representatives and the methods of representation, how these factors contribute to the overall image of the environment. The authors argue that environmental representation goes beyond conversations and awareness and that representatives must lead by example; they propose to understand representation through the context of sociology as a way to learn how environmental politics, management and actions work. Read more: A sociology of environmental representation AI Systems Engineering AI systems engineering develops the new engineering practice in the intersection of systems engineering and artificial intelligence. This paper defines KI engineering while comparing it to historic examples of research disciplines that founded engineering while touching on the long-term challenges where further development is needed. Read more: KI-Engineering – AI Systems Engineering Surgical Site Cytology to Diagnose Spinal Lesions This paper places emphasis on diagnosing specific diseases causing spine lesions as early as possible. The authors propose cytological evaluation alongside regular tissue biopsies to discover these diseases. The study gathered samples from 44 patients from suspected cancerous areas in the spine, these samples were prepared in 2 methods; detailed tissue analysis and microscopic examination for cytological evaluation. Read more: Surgical Site Cytology to Diagnose Spinal Lesions Origamics in Architecture Japanese origami is a valuable tool in developing various engineering and design applications. Origamics is widely applicable as it is currently utilised in mathematics, engineering, biology, manufacturing medical equipment and vehicle parts. This paper discusses the potential of origamics in architectural study as an interface to gain cognitive experience on spatial transformation. Read more: Origamics In Architecture: A Medium Of Inquiry Or Design In Architecture Discover millions of e-books, journal articles, proceedings and more on Zendy now.
Zendy and IntechOpen's Joint Webinar: Addressing Accessibility, Discoverability and a Sustainable Future.
We hosted a joint webinar with IntechOpen in November that addressed emerging technologies across different industries that contribute to sustainability and research accessibility and discovery. The webinar was titled, “Emerging Technologies - Partnering for Accessibility, Discoverability and a Sustainable Future.” The session featured 3 key speakers, Dr. Jo Havemann representing AfricArXiv, Professor Tatiana Morosuk from Technical University of Berlin and Zendy’s Head of Marketing, Monica Chinsami. Each speaker articulated how their organisation works to increase sustainable practices through research dissemination. Zendy’s Head of Marketing, Monica Chinsami highlighted our library’s initiatives to advance the accessibility and discoverability of scholarly literature. In an effort to break geographical barriers in research, Zendy partners with leading publishers to ensure their content reaches regions with limited access via our global subscription. Additionally, Professor Tatiana Morosuk from the Technical University of Berlin placed emphasis on the transionary period the energy sector is experiencing as it moves away from fossil fuel and towards technology focused on sustainability. The professor stated the importance of innovation to advance sustainable practices and energy use. Finally, Dr. Jo Havemann stated how AfricArXiv is on a mission to make African research more discoverable as this is in line with SDG 4 (Quality Education), the organisation announced their collaboration with Ubuntunet which is a network provider that assists with connectivity and infrastructure for research and education institutions. Advancing research dissemination catalyses SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). As equitable research platforms emerge and partner to expand their reach, the more academic research is democratised to create knowledgable societies. We look forward to hosting more webinars in 2024, to tackle and highlight the initiatives in the world of academia. Discover millions of e-books, journal articles, proceedings and more on Zendy now.
23 Reflections to Recap Zendy's 2023 Journey
Welcome to Zendy’s annual recap, where we reflect on another year of milestones. The ever-evolving landscape of scholarly communication this year was anything but stagnant, dominated by themes of openness, integrity, inclusion, and innovation. As we reflect on 2023, we're proud to have welcomed new publishers, attended events, celebrated milestones with our users, and released some really great features to continue to support our users on their research and learning journey. How we enhanced our user experience We developed and launched ZAIA Our most anticipated and exciting feature launch this year was ZAIA - Zendy's AI assistant. Ask any question, and ZAIA will analyse millions of researchers papers to give you credible answers backed by references. If you haven't already, log in to your Zendy account and put ZAIA to the test! We launched Zendy Plus globally We launched our global subscription plan at Frankfurt Book Fair 2023! The plan allows students, researchers and professionals globally to access scholarly material from leading publishers for the monthly price of a single research paper. This was a key milestone for us as our previous Zendy Plus plan was limited to several countries. Having an affordable and equitable access model strengthens our mission to remove the barriers to scholarly literature. Keyphrase Highlighting We released an AI-powered keyphrase highlighting tool. Instead of having multiple tabs open, looking for definitions and further research on a concept, Zendy highlights keyphrases in just one click to allow readers to grasp key research concepts quickly. Summarisation We also released an AI-powered summarisation tool. This tool summarises lengthy research papers into a concise paragraph on demand. This significantly helps readers save time during literature review. Reading Lists Earlier this year, we launched a reading list feature. Reading lists can be used to organise and categorise research papers according to projects, subject areas or whichever method the reader finds simplest to navigate through. New UI coming soon The team has been working on a brand new UI to transform the user journey on Zendy. Zendy will reveal a new fresh look very soon, with additional personalisation features to further enhance the discovery of scholarly literature. Milestones we marked with our users Welcomed over 400,000 readers We’re proud to support over 400,000 readers from 200 countries and territories on Zendy! We thank our valued community for their consistent support. The trust of our community fuels our mission to keep striving for a world where equal access to research is a reality. Over a 6 million searches & 2.5 million downloads We have seen over 6 million keywords searched on the platform. Searches ranging from the neural networks, to enteric bacteria, and social impact - we’re proud to support a diverse community of students, researchers, and professionals. We marked over 2.5 million downloads on Zendy! As we continue to work with new publishers, we look forward to bringing an even better selection of content to our readers. We exhibited, presented, and attended many events! Presented at Charleston Hub 2023 Our Partner Relations Manager, Sara Crowley Vigneau presented at Charleston Hub in partnership with IGI Global. The presentation titled ‘On the Open Road: The story of an OA publication through the stakeholder journey’ looked at the journey of a publication through the eyes of each custodian. Exhibited at STEP 2023 Earlier this year, our team exhibited Zendy at STEP 2023. Showcasing our Zendy alongside various startups inspired the team to learn from other tech products in the Middle Eastern region. Sponsored and presented at the Forum for Open Research MENA We were proud to sponsor the Forum of Open Research MENA, which is an event that highlights and advances open access initiatives in the Arab region. Our head of technology, Rodrigo Pinto, presented his insightful research paper titled, "Leveraging Big Data and Machine Learning to Enhance Open Data Quality: Insights for Developing Regions." Exhibited at Frankfurt Book Fair It was a pleasure to exhibit and connect with new and existing partners at Frankfurt Book fair 2023. We hosted a launch event at this year's fair, showcasing our Zendy Plus global subscription offering. Thanks to all who attended! Presented at the MENA Panel Our co-founder, Kamran Kardan spoke at The MENA panel titled, “AI wrote this abstract: The Impact of AI on higher education and academic research.” The discussion touched on the impact of AI on higher education, dissecting how it affects teaching, learning and ethical guidelines. Attended London Book Fair We attended the London Book Fair earlier this year. Our team met with many of our partners and other key leaders in scholarly communication. We look forward to exhibiting at next year’s fair. Exhibited at UKSG 2023 We also exhibited at our first UKSG conference this year. It was a really great experience connecting with and learning from some of the best minds in our global knowledge community. Joint Webinar with InTechOpen We partnered with InTechOpen to host a joint webinar titled, “Emerging Technologies - Partnering for Accessibility, Discoverability and a Sustainable Future.” Zendy’s Head of Marketing, Monica Chinsami, presented on the panel alongside Prof Tatiana Morosuk, Editorial Board Member of IntechOpen's Green Energy and Environmental Technology (GEET) journal, and Dr Jo Havemann, Co-founder of AfricArXiv. We welcomed new partners IEEE In September, we integrated IEEE’s open access research content. This partnership has brought significant technological research across various areas of study, like aerospace, robotics and more on Zendy. IT Governance In June, we partnered with IT Governance, which is a leading publisher of books on information technology, cybersecurity and governance. IGI Global We partnered with IGI Global, a leading publisher focused on research across different specialisms under the vast umbrella of Science. This partnership saw the addition of leading e-journals as well as book content across subject areas including Business & Management; Scientific, Technical, Medical (STM); and Education. Bristol University Press We also signed an agreement with Bristol University Press. BUP is well known for producing scholarship that advances theory, knowledge and learning within and beyond academia. InTechOpen We also welcomed IntechOpen to our partner community. InTechOpen specialises in journals and books in the fields of Medicine, Technology and Science. A couple of things we published Published SDG Report This year, we published an SDG report in partnership with Knowledge E. This comprehensive report helps us keep track of our efforts in accelerating the aims of the UN’s publishers compact. With a focus on SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), Zendy progresses to ensure that academic research is accessible to everyone everywhere. An analysis of OER’s on Research Information Our co-founder, Kamran Kardan, wrote a piece on the future of Open Educational Resources and how the industry is preparing for them. In summary, with the uncapped potential of responsible AI, the future looks bright and full of innovative opportunities to positively impact societal progress. We look forward to continuing our journey together in 2024, and we thank you for your unwavering support. ol { margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; } ol li { margin-left: 2rem !important; } p { word-break: initial !important; }
Zendy Launches ZAIA, a Domain-Specific AI Assistant
United Arab Emirates, 15 December 2023 - AI-powered research library, Zendy, announced the launch of its AI Assistant, ZAIA, a domain-specific Large Language Model (LMM) developed by Zendy’s data science team. ZAIA (short for Zendy AI Assistant) exists to help researchers quickly understand key research concepts and discover research papers that specifically link to inputs. These two functions enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the literature review process. You can ask any research-related question, and ZAIA will analyse millions of academic research papers to give you credible answers backed by references. Unlike general-purpose language models, ZAIA is trained with Zendy’s own data. In the future, it can also query, in real-time, additional sources from publisher data that are not available on the public domain. There is growing recognition of the necessity for domain-specific solutions to strengthen the credibility of data. Fine tuning models on domain-specific data narrows down the LLM’s focus to improve performance in a defined context, thus reducing the likelihood of hallucinations. “We developed ZAIA to advance the usage of AI on research platforms and improve the research discovery process for researchers. ZAIA aims to assist readers on Zendy by quickly solving research-related questions. ZAIA stands out from other AI products as it is fed real-time data and information available on Zendy, which is then fine-tuned to efficiently cater to our users,” said Zendy’s Head of Technology, Rodrigo Pinto. “The first iteration of our LLM, ZAIA, is our unique AI offering for Zendy users who can now leverage the best of AI to improve their research discovery process. This is a very exciting milestone for Zendy and we look forward to the feedback from our valued users,” said Zendy Co-founder Kamran Kardan. Committed to helping foster an ecosystem of collaborative partnerships rooted in responsible AI practices, Zendy’s Large Language Model is built to be entirely customisable. It has the capacity to learn from diverse datasets with integration made simple through Restful API’s or Websocket APIs. “Bigger picture, our technology presents limitless potential for organisations and institutions yet to integrate the power of LLMs into their workflows. The potential is immeasurable, with use cases including on-demand tutoring, psychology support services, employee onboarding, the list goes on,” continued Kamran Kardan. To find out more about Zendy’s AI solutions email hello@zendy.io. You can use ZAIA now on Zendy. To access, log in or sign up to Zendy: www.zendy.io.