The Thompson Library Blog

Scopus AI Available on Trial through April 11, 2024

Librarians and other information professionals are looking for ways to put artificial intelligence to use in ways that are helpful to research and scholarship as well as ethical*. Our database Scopus now offers an add-on generative AI tool that is available on a trial basis to all three UM campuses** until Thursday, April 11, 2024.

In the words of the publisher (Elsevier, which also publishes ScienceDirect), Scopus AI “synthesizes the abstracts of relevant documents into a clear, digestible and referenced summary within seconds,” as well as providing relevant citations. All documents it uses are from 2013 and later. It helps users find relevant information quickly. Indeed, in the searches I tried, Scopus AI provided answers within seconds.

Queries generate these fields:

• Summary and Expanded summary of the findings, based on a few crucial articles.
• Concept map, showing the key ideas and fields relevant to the query. (I was a bit disappointed with this feature. It would be nice if clicking the concepts listed generated new results of some kind.)
• Topic experts. A list of key scholars who have published in relevant areas.
• Go deeper: Suggestions for similar queries and topics to build on what you asked.
• References: These are citations to the articles that form the basis of the summary.
• Foundational documents, which are articles cited by at least two of the above references.

Take Scopus AI for a spin -- we'd love to hear what you think! Please contact me with your thoughts, and I can share them with the librarians evaluating this product.

* It can also be used unethically, a topic for another day.

** Librarians on all three campuses will provide feedback on whether or not to add the AI tool to our existing Scopus subscription, probably over the summer. A decision will be made to subscribe to it, not subscribe to it, or hold off pending further evaluation and/or product improvement.