ProQuest Research Assistant helps students use academic AI responsibly

Recent research reveals college students are struggling to understand how to use AI responsibly in their studies. When asked if they know when or how to use generative AI to help with coursework, more than 30% of undergraduates don’t know or are unsure. The same research shows that alleviating the confusion about when AI is okay – and when it’s not – is often falling on the shoulders of faculty, a group whose time is already stretched.

ProQuest™, part of Clarivate™, is addressing this challenge by embedding responsible AI tools across its portfolio of research and learning solutions. Developed in partnership with librarians and users, these tools sidestep the risk of misuse by introducing students to AI that upholds scholarly standards and leverages its power to drive better research and learning outcomes.

Helping students succeed with responsible AI

Last month marked the launch the AI-powered ProQuest Research Assistant beta in the ProQuest One suite of products, including ProQuest One Academic, an interdisciplinary solution. ProQuest Research Assistant seamlessly integrates AI-powered capabilities within the users’ research and learning workflows. As users reach typical trouble spots – such as interrogating documents or crafting sharp and effective search queries – ProQuest Research Assistant acts as a companion with suggestions and prompts that help them formulate next steps. AI powers users’ journeys forward, rather than feeding them answers.

How AI is used to boost engagement with documents

ProQuest Research Assistant embeds AI features within full-text documents, supporting review, analysis and interrogation of these works. AI boosts research productivity by enabling quick evaluation of the relevance of full-text documents. As researchers of all levels interact with scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, conference proceedings, news articles, reviews and more, AI-driven recommendations offer customized insights. ProQuest Research Assistant instantly provides:

• • A key takeaway of the full text document allowing users to quickly determine relevance and then guide the next steps in their scholarly journey.
  • Important concepts in the document – with an explanation of each term and why it’s relevant. Users can search any of these key concepts in one click, propelling deeper research and investigation.
  • Tailored recommendations that act as brainstorming partners, suggesting relevant research topics and prompting students with a pre-defined Boolean search that can be activated in one click.

How researchers can craft targeted searches using AI

Many researchers, particularly students, struggle to create an effective search query that delivers targeted results. ProQuest Research Assistant uses AI to help these users automatically craft a structured Boolean search that eliminates noise and delivers a tighter, more relevant list of search results. This new search tool leverages the time-tested Web of Science topic model to generate synonyms and related terms that can be added with a click.

Introducing students to the future

ProQuest Research Assistant is part of Clarivate’s larger initiative to improve student outcomes and support multiple learning styles. With a growing set of academic AI tools, Clarivate is leveraging its broad range of assets – curated content, learning and teaching workflow tools and mobile campus solutions – to connect students and faculty to trusted resources, make the learning experience more affordable and build greater classroom and campus engagement.

Adhering to rigorous academic principles

Clarivate AI initiatives for academia include Web of Science Research Assistant and Primo Research Assistant, which along with ProQuest Research Assistant, are being developed in partnership with our customer communities. They will continue to evolve and be shaped by both librarians and users, responsibly adapting and expanding with new capabilities over time, while adhering to rigorous academic principles.

Learn more about our approach to the responsible use of academic AI and watch a short video about the ProQuest Research Assistant.