Skip to Main Content

Conducting STEM Research Utilizing Open Access Tools: Cool Tools

This guide is a supplement to the North Carolina Community College Library Association's 2022 Conference presentation "Conducting STEM Research Utilizing Open Access Tools."

Things that I've played with and love

I'm going to make a list now and add additional content later . . .

Browser

I’ve moved to using Vivaldi as a browser for my research. Game changer and secure as well!!! For browser extensions, search for and install Chrome browser extensions.  Hold my smoothie …

Browser Extensions

  • Scholarcy Google Chrome, Vivaldi, & Edge browser extension. . . life for summarizing articles online!
  • Summari is another browser extension that you can add to Chrome, Vivaldi, and other browsers.
  • Unpaywall . . . an open database of over 32 million free scholarly articles
  • Scite.ai (free browser extension) see the scite badge in your browser as you're searching and viewing articles online or want to fact check information on social media.  See how many citations are contrasting (We don't agree with you.), supporting (We agree with you.), and/or mentioning (We have reviewed this and found that.).

Cool Tools/Databases

Database/Tool

What is it used for?

Where can I find additional training?

  • Research
  • Examination of the scholarly conversation
  • In depth citation analysis (supporting, contrasting, and mentioning)
  • The blog post on the scite.ai trial outlines different features within scite and training (videos and written explanations).
  • However, scite.ai is developed based on the Agile iterative approach e.g. you may see changes to the interface and functionality every month.
  • Inciteful connects citation research to bibliographic coupling and co-citations to visualize connections between research and recommend similar articles and so much more!
  • You can search for a single paper to draw a graph and view the copious amounts of information related to the article as well as relevant articles, top authors in the area in the field, etc. etc. etc. etc.
  • Put it this way. I use Inciteful when I'm searching for an esoteric topic as well as when I'm starting research in a new area/field.
  • Inciteful.xyz is intuitive for the initial search.  However, to take advantage of the full capabilities in Inciteful will take time.
  • Help on Inciteful.xyz's website:  https://help.inciteful.xyz/

  • Anything involving research for patents as well as scholarly works
  • Indepth analytics for a topic and/or search
  • Find the top scholars, publishers, etc. for a topic and/or search
  • Connected Papers deviates from citation research by using a similarity matrix centered around co-citation and bibliographic coupling. You can start with a paper, keyword search, or Boolean search. Once you do, build a graph and view the results.
  • With very little effort, you can create a graph to visualize connections.
  • All things research
  • Find similar papers as well as seminal papers for a given collection of resources
  • Trace the connections between papers and the authors
  • Indepth citation research and analysis
  • In their own words, "Litmaps is a browser-based research platform designed for clarity, comprehensiveness, and collaboration. Visualize, expand, and communicate yTheir research expertise."
  • LitMaps similar to Inciteful.xyz in that you can get started and figure out how to use it with little to no training. 
  • However, to take advantage of the power behind the simplicity, I would advise deep diving into training and/or seeing how others have used the tool. 
  • Check out the videos on the LitMaps YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXR6ETBi7ZZKLFE_7ongiTg.
  • If Boolean logic, phrase searching, truncation, and grouping are not yTheir proverbial cup of tea, build a visual search using 2D search.
  • This is not an immediately intuitive interface!
  • Run the search on PubMed, Lens.org, Google Scholar, ERIC, IEEE Xplore, ACM Guide, IDEAS, and other databases/tools

“Elicit is a research assistant using language models like GPT-3 to automate parts of researchers’ workflows. Currently, the main workflow in Elicit is Literature Review. If you ask a question, Elicit will show relevant papers and summaries of key information about those papers in an easy-to-use table.”

  • Their mailing list shares feature launches. We launch a feature every week. You can see a log of the most recent 20 feature launches here.
  • Their Twitter account shares feature launches and conversations with different Elicit users.
  • Their YouTube channel has Elicit tutorials and talks by members of the team.
  • Their Slack Workspace has feature launches, organizational announcements, shared resources, and conversations with Elicit users.
  • The Ought page has more information about the team building this and their mission. Some particularly relevant posts:

Creative Commons License