Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar is a comprehensive and free research tool developed by the non-profit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. It is specifically designed to assist in the exploration of scientific literature across various domains. Unlike some other search engines, Semantic Scholar is freely accessible and does not require payment to access its features.

The tool employs artificial intelligence to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of research by extracting meaningful information from scientific literature. This AI-powered approach allows users to navigate and comprehend research more easily than traditional search engines. As of 2018, Semantic Scholar's database included over 40 million papers from fields like computer science and biomedicine, and by the end of 2020, it had indexed around 190 million papers.

Semantic Scholar offers several user-friendly features. It enables users to understand papers at a glance, stay up-to-date in their field, manage reading materials, and gain deeper insights into the topics they are researching. The tool includes functionalities like powerful filter and sort options, highlights of relevant authors, quick actions at the article level, and the extraction of key results, citations, figures, tables, and topics from articles. These features allow users to quickly scan research and understand its impact.

Users do not need an account to use the search engine, but having one allows access to additional features like personalized recommendations, email alerts for authors, papers, and topics, and the ability to build a personalized library of papers.

Semantic Scholar also addresses the growing literature in all scientific domains, helping scholars navigate the ever-expanding body of knowledge more efficiently. The tool stands out for its ability to provide at-a-glance understanding of papers, which is a significant aid in managing the vast amount of scientific literature available today.

1. Academic Research: Researchers across various disciplines can use Semantic Scholar to quickly find relevant literature for their studies. The AI-driven search allows for efficient exploration of specific topics, authors, or papers, making it an invaluable tool for literature reviews and staying updated on the latest research trends.
2. University Students: Students, particularly those at the undergraduate and graduate levels, can leverage Semantic Scholar to find scholarly articles for their assignments, projects, or theses. The tool's ability to filter results and provide summaries can help students efficiently sift through large volumes of information.
3. Data Analysis and Meta-Studies: Professionals conducting meta-analyses or systematic reviews can use Semantic Scholar to gather a comprehensive set of research papers. The tool's AI capabilities help in extracting and analyzing data trends, citation patterns, and key findings across numerous studies."
4. Professional Development: Industry professionals can use Semantic Scholar to stay abreast of the latest developments and innovations in their field. By regularly reviewing relevant literature, they can ensure their knowledge and practices are up-to-date.
5. Educators and Lecturers: Educators can utilize Semantic Scholar to enhance their teaching materials with the most recent scientific findings, providing students with current and relevant information. It also serves as a resource for developing course content and research projects.
6. Librarians and Information Specialists: These professionals can use Semantic Scholar as a reference tool to assist patrons in finding academic papers and resources, especially for complex or highly specialized queries.
7. Policy Makers and Think Tanks: For those involved in policy development and analysis, Semantic Scholar provides access to a wealth of scientific literature that can inform evidence-based policy decisions.
8. Healthcare Professionals: In fields like biomedicine and healthcare, Semantic Scholar can aid practitioners and researchers in finding the latest studies, clinical trials, and reviews, which is critical for evidence-based practice.

These use cases demonstrate the wide applicability of Semantic Scholar as a research tool, catering to a variety of users from academic researchers to industry professionals.

Semantic Scholar offers a variety of features and services, all of which are available at no cost. As a free AI-powered research tool, it provides users with access to a wide array of functionalities to enhance their research experience. These include:

1. Library Management: Users can store and organize papers of interest in an online library, accessible from anywhere. This feature allows for the organization of papers into customized folders and the ability to bulk export citations.
2. Research Feeds: Semantic Scholar offers personalized AI-powered paper recommendations based on the user's interests. After adding papers to the library, users receive regular recommendations to stay updated with the latest research in their field.
3. Alerts: The platform provides automated email alerts for new papers or citations. Users can set up alerts for specific papers, authors, or their research feeds, ensuring they stay informed about new citations and papers relevant to their research interests.
4. Research Dashboard: A personalized homepage when signed into an account, displaying the latest recommended papers and new papers from alerts. For authors, it also shows recent citations for their papers and quick links to their author page.
5. Topics Exploration: Semantic Scholar utilizes AI to help users explore topics of interest, offering AI-generated definitions, papers often cited for the topic, recent papers, and related topics.
6. AI-Driven Features: Features like "Ask This Paper" allow users to get AI-generated answers to their questions with supporting statements from the paper, enhancing their understanding of specific research works.
7. Citation Tools: The platform provides an easy way to cite any paper in multiple citation formats, including BibTex, MLA, APA, or Chicago.

All these features are available without any subscription fee, making Semantic Scholar a valuable tool for researchers, students, educators, and professionals across various fields. Users can create a free account using an institutional email, Google, Facebook, or their email and password.

The team at Semantic Scholar consists of a diverse group of professionals with expertise in various domains such as research, engineering, and product development. Key members include Aakanksha Naik, Alex Buraczynski, Alice Wang, Amal Hassan-Ali, Amanpreet Singh, Amber Tanaka, and Angele Zamarron, among many others. Each team member brings a unique skill set to the table, contributing to the development and enhancement of Semantic Scholar as a powerful AI-powered research tool. This team is instrumental in driving the tool's mission to facilitate scientific literature discovery and research.



Aakanksha Naik

CS PROFESSIONAL



Alex Buraczynski

Engineering



Alice Wang

Product



Amal Hassan-Ali

Engineering



Amanpreet Singh

Research



Amber Tanaka

Engineering



Angele Zamarron

Engineering

Semantic Scholar, developed by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), has recently partnered with a new startup called Consensus. This collaboration aims to make information in research studies more accessible to the general public. Consensus operates on the infrastructure provided by Semantic Scholar, which boasts a vast library of over 200 million publications.

Consensus is designed to cater to the needs of nonspecialists, in contrast to Semantic Scholar, which primarily serves researchers. It works by scanning research literature to identify studies that best answer queries entered on its website. This functionality makes it particularly user-friendly and accessible to a broader audience.

The foundation of Consensus was inspired by the personal experiences of its CEO, Eric Olson, who, as an avid science enthusiast, found it challenging to access research studies that interested him. Together with his former teammate from the Northwestern University football team, Christian Salem, Olson founded Consensus during the pandemic. They began working on this project from Olson’s apartment in Boston, with Olson having a background as a data analyst at DraftKings and Salem as a product manager at the National Football League.

Consensus started with a team including a Turkey-based machine learning engineer, Ali Farid, and has grown to have five full-time employees. The startup has been funded with $1.25 million from Winklevoss Capital and individual investors such as Michael Walsh, founder of Quotient Technology, and Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle.

Semantic Scholar has been enhanced over the past two years to integrate with bolt-on applications like Consensus. Joe Gorney, the manager of strategic partnerships at AI2, highlights the role of Semantic Scholar in providing a corpus of semantically analyzed papers for building innovative experiences. Semantic Scholar supports nearly 600 researchers and applications, including tools like Connected Papers and The Collaboratory, among others.

Since its launch, Consensus has attracted a diverse user base, including undergraduate science students and health enthusiasts. The tool is specifically designed to interpret questions in plain English and return the most relevant results. It focuses on providing complete, clearly written answers, considering factors like publication date and citation count. However, it mainly emphasizes the relevance of the answer to the specific question posed.

Consensus plans to generate revenue through a premium subscription or a usage-based model as it continues to develop its product. The startup also emphasizes the need for due diligence when users search for answers to medical questions, acknowledging the varying quality of papers in its broad library. Future versions of Consensus aim to include additional quality indicators and partnerships with organizations like SciScore and CORE to enhance the reliability and comprehensiveness of its offerings.