NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 11, 2022 / In today’s era of immediacy and hyper-efficiency, we often presume that the younger generations are the primary beneficiaries of these digital advances. However, for some reason, the digital revolution seems to have so far largely evaded a particular section of society – the researcher.
You can find them in any library, their bloodshot eyes straining in the flickering 2am glow of their laptop screen, as they lean their heads back in frustration as yet another hypothesis proves incorrect.
Currently, researchers have to rely on search engines such as Google Scholar or institution-specific portals to find literature to support their work. After evaluating dozens of articles and the few that seem useful, they will then work their way through the list of references at the end of the article to try and broaden their scope and understanding of what else is happening in that particular domain. To finish the search, they’ll often replicate the discovery process on another database or two.
Credit: Jamie Reilly
This laborious, inefficient means of compiling a literature search can entail hours of wasted due diligence that produces no tangible results. Given the fact that new literature is being produced at an unprecedented rate, institutions are being faced with a crossroads. Either they have to devote more funds towards providing their researchers with access to additional resources; or, they have to find intelligent solutions to make better use of their current pool of available literature, much of which is open source.
James Reilly, CEO and founder of Latent Knowledge, is making it easier for researchers and due diligence professionals to opt for the latter. Reilly has created an entirely new search engine designed for a deep search of technical documents, which aims to streamline the research process. The platform, LitView, enables people to search for materials based on more than a simple keyword or single search string. Instead, they can embed their own content and launch a search based on a multitude of search keywords, then match newly found articles to their source document. For instance, if a PhD student has been compiling work on the intricacies of Huxley’s universalism, they could upload the notes they have so far, and LitView will collate a series of relevant papers, articles and resources related to that document.
LitView presents search results in 3D space, allowing clusters of documents to form based on concepts found in the article title and abstract. This provides a more dynamic visualization of the bodies of work, compared to the traditional, ranked list-based system. In creating this new platform, Reilly is aiming to tackle the systemic inefficiencies that he experienced when web searching to support novel projects not previously discussed in the literature.
Having obtained a double-major in Psychology and Physiology, Reilly proceeded to gain a Master in Education at Boston University. It was during this time that Reilly developed his qualitative research skills, before leaving to work at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Here, Reilly audited classes in the Chemistry and Life Sciences department, contributing towards a variety of projects.
However, despite moving into a new field, he found that his qualitative research mindset had followed him to West Point. “I would be reading about arthritis biomarkers, and then would read through a project on photonics, and it would strike me how many overlaps there were between the two disciplines – despite the fact that a biochemist and a physicist would beg to differ,” Reilly recalls.
Reilly continued to apply his birds-eye-view perspective while working on projects across various disciplines. After being asked to serve on the Critical and Creative Thinking Assessment committee at West Point, he gained a deeper understanding of what successful pedagogy truly involved. Further, he began identifying new techniques rooted in search engine UI/UX and natural language processing that would change a person’s ability to interact with new knowledge.
LitView is the product of all of these experiences. Through this invention, James is setting out to establish a new interdisciplinary, semantic search engine, which is aimed towards the main purpose of fostering critical and creative thinking.
By incorporating artificial intelligence into this process, Reilly is pushing the boundaries of the traditional search-engine model. LitView is not merely a tool for data retrieval; it is an iterative method that enhances a person’s ability to process new information.
Reilly underlines that this will prove particularly useful for those working in interdisciplinary fields, due to the difficulties currently faced when attempting to search across multiple data sources for articles that combine two or more sub-disciplines. As the number of interdisciplinary studies graduates in the workforce continues to rise each year, there is a growing shift towards cross-disciplinary collaboration in industry, as opposed to the rigidity of confining new graduates to one region of the existing workforce. Research best practice shows that firms need interdisciplinary collaboration to create the next generation of technology to meet global sustainability goals.
“We’ve rolled out LitView at West Point with great success, and we’re now trialing it across high-profile institutions such as the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the University of Geneva, King’s College London, and more. This represents an exciting shift in the way that we think about interdisciplinary research. These methods have the potential to enhance collaboration and creative output of research teams, which will be accessible for students and innovators across the globe,” concludes Reilly.
Name: James Reilly
Email: [email protected]
+61 402 661 734
SOURCE: Latent Knowledge
View source version on accesswire.com:
https://www.accesswire.com/724978/The-Man-Creating-a-New-Search-Engine-Designed-to-Reform-Interdisciplinary-Research