What You'll Learn:
- Why A&I databases remain essential for finding credible scholarly research in the age of AI.
- How human-curated indexing, controlled vocabulary, and metadata improve research discovery.
- How AI-assisted search can work alongside A&I databases to help users navigate complex topics.
The research landscape is changing. Artificial intelligence is transforming how students and researchers discover, interact with, and utilize information. More than ever, people are using AI-powered search tools to find research content, explore questions, and summarize complex topics.
Despite the evolving environment of research, finding the right information remains an essential part of the research process.
Abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases provide the foundation to scholarly literature, helping students and researchers alike find credible, relevant information that can open doors to further exploration.
Human Expertise Still Matters
The strength of A&I databases comes from the human-curated indexing behind the scenes. Subject experts use content organization, controlled vocabulary, and structured metadata to make literature easily discoverable for students and researchers alike. Human-curated indexing connects information based on concepts making relevant research more accessible to users.
With changing terminology and vocabulary that varies between disciplines, having human expertise makes identifying relationships across related research streamlined and efficient.
A Foundation for AI-Assisted Research
A&I databases can work together with AI technologies in the research process.
AI can help make interacting with information faster and more accessible. A&I databases provide end users with a clear pathway to scholarly resources, allowing researchers to explore a general field of study and refine their search to specific topics. These databases also help students and researchers find the original source of information.
Within EBSCO Discovery Service, end users can use AI-assisted search when researching within A&I databases. This new feature lets students ask a question or describe what they are looking for and uses AI to interpret the inquiry and identify relevant information.
For researchers looking for answers to complex questions, AI-assisted discovery can work alongside the human-curated indexing of A&I databases to support the research process. Many topics such as climate change or agriculture exist across multiple disciplines – meaning researchers must look across different subjects and collections to find all related literature. Human curated databases connect scholarly journals and articles across fields, while AI-assisted tools can help researchers navigate relevant information.
Supporting Research in an Evolving Landscape
Produced by CABI, CAB Abstracts provides access to the world’s applied life sciences literature. Through specialized, human-indexing, specialized thesaurus, controlled vocabulary, and filters, CAB Abstracts helps students and researchers navigate core scientific journals in the life science space.
As AI continues to evolve and may change the way researchers search, the foundations of good research remain essential. In the age of AI, human-curated A&I databases like CAB Abstracts can help students and researchers explore multifaceted research topics and provide a strong basis for meaningful discovery.
