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Generative AI Features in Major Databases & Platforms

Learn about Generative AI-powered features currently available to the Rutgers University Libraries community in major e-resources databases and platforms.

ProQuest Research Assistant: Ebook Central

On the ProQuest Ebook Central platform, ProQuest has added a Beta feature for many ebooks, the Ebook Central Research Assistant. Within the online ebook reader, the Ebook Central Research Assistant displays traditional metadata that has always been available on the platform (publisher-provided description and subject terms) plus new AI-generated data points: chapter-level key takeaways and concepts. These are generated solely from the full text of each book chapter in order to minimize hallucinations and improve accuracy. This is a tool to aid in the research process, but it it not intended to replace thoughtful contextual reading. 
 
The Research Assistant is automatically enabled on eligible books when you open the full text in your web browser on the Ebook Central platform. You will see it on the left side of the ebook reader for PDFs or on the right side of the screen for EPUBs. It is represented by a circular purple icon with 3 stars in the middle:
The left side of the image shows the PDF view, with the Research Assistant icon at the bottom of the left side bar. The right side of the image shows the EPUB view, with the research assistant icon in the top bar in the right corner.
When you are reading a chapter and the Research Assistant is open, it offers the options to generate key takeaways and concepts for the book chapter. After concepts are generated, a magnifying glass (search icon) appears next to each concept, and you may select it to run a keyword search in Ebook Central for that concept:
The Ebook Central Research Assistant is open and is displaying concepts from the Chapter titled, Part 1: General Remarks. Next to each concept, it displays a magnifying glass, which is the link to an Ebook Central search for that concept.
 
The Ebook Central Research Assistant is not available for all books or chapters in Ebook Central because:
  • Some publishers, authors, and titles have opted out of participation. For these books, the Research Assistant is not available.
  • Even if the Research Assistant is available for a book:
    • The LLM model has built-in guardrails  to restrict generation of offensive or inappropriate content, so for chapters that contain sensitive terms, the Research Assistant may not generate key takeaways and concepts.
    • A minimum chapter length is required by the Research Assistant, so for very short chapters, it may not be able to generate key takeaways and concepts.
Please see ProQuest's Ebook Central Research Assistant FAQs for more information.
 

ProQuest Research Assistant: Dissertations & Theses

ProQuest has introduced a generative AI-powered Research Assistant tool in its dissertation databases, including ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses @ Rutgers University. The Research Assistant can help you 1) revise your search query; and 2) gain a quick overview of a full-text dissertation or thesis and brainstorm related research questions.

Searching

After you run a regular search, if your search returns many results, on your results page, the Research Assistant will suggest related terms that you may add to your search to narrow your results. These terms are generated by an LLM based on your initial query. They will appear in a row below the search bar:

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses search results screen showing a broad search with over 1300 results. AI-recommended terms to add to the search to narrow it appear below the search bar.

You may select one or more of the terms to add it to your search query to narrow your results.

Reviewing Content & Brainstorming Related Research Topics

When you are viewing a full-text dissertation or thesis in one of these databases, the Research Assistant displays in a sidebar on the right side of the screen, and you may choose from prompts to display Key Takeaways, Important Concepts, and Related Research Topics:
When viewing a dissertation or thesis in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, the Research Assistant appears on the side of the screen showing key takeaways and releated research topics.
If you run a search in a ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database and then access a full-text document in your results, its Key Takeaways will be influenced by your search to make them more relevant to your query, and a "Relationship to your search terms" section will be included in the Key Takeaways. The Key Takeaways, Important Concepts, and Related Research Topics are all extracted from the full text of the dissertation or thesis using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques; no data from other documents or from public LLMs is used to generate them. The tool also has safeguards in place to try to prevent the generation of offensive or inappropriate content, so if a document contains some sensitive terms, it is possible that the Research Assistant will not return responses for that document. ProQuest is not using the dissertations and theses to train LLMs, and ProQuest is only using generative AI with them within a secure environment.
 
For more information, please see: