Tools for Academic Work
Useful tools for scientific and academic working: databases for medicine and pharmacy, statistics, reference and citation management, workflows and many more
Questions or considerations about tools: tools.ub@unibe.ch.
AI Tools
AI Tools: Position Statement Medical Library
At the Medical Library, we value ethical conduct, research integrity, critical thinking, transparency, high-quality reproducible science, and trustworthy information. Based on these values, our position on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in the production of useful scientific knowledge is that researchers must:
- Have a deep understanding of the limitations and biases of the tool(s) that they intend to use.
- Fact-check the data and information provided by the tool(s) before using it for any scientific purpose. Researchers must take full responsibility for the integrity of everything that they produce.
- Be careful about what information they share with the tool(s). Researchers must not share confidential information, including unpublished hypotheses and results, if the AI developer has access to this data.
- Document details of usage: purpose of use, software details, input(s), date and time of use, user details, raw output(s), etc.
- Think carefully about which tool(s) they want to use and why. Researchers must not use AI for AI’s sake. We recommend critically evaluating a few tools using clearly defined criteria that focus on quality, trustworthiness, and AI developer’s ethics, before deciding on which tool(s) to use. Researchers must re-evaluate their choices and outputs regularly because algorithms change.
- Assess the personal limitations and biases that could impede the objective evaluation of the outputs of the tool(s). Researchers should seek advice and training from experienced and knowledgeable users on how to use the tool(s) safely and effectively.
- Ensure that AI usage does not replace the constant improvement of one’s scientific skills, such as critical thinking, information assimilation leading to original thought, effective communication, etc.
- Disclose the use of tool(s) clearly and fully when sharing scientific information, in line with ethical and institutional guidelines.
If you need any support in the use of AI tools for your scientific literature search or scientific writing feel free to contact us: support_med.ub@unibe.ch
ChatGPT
ChatGPT
ChatGPT (GPT-3)
ChatGPT is a voice and text-based chatbot provided by OpenAI. Based on a large language model (LLM), the generative artificial intelligence produces human-like answers to questions about texts or images. The chatbot masters a variety of language-based tasks, such as writing, rewriting and translating texts. Its output needs to be fact-checked by users, and it is not recommended to share sensitive data with the system.
Elicit
Elicit
Elicit offers an efficient way to identify papers, explore existing research, and obtain an overview of a topic and key concepts. It provides feedback on research questions, and can generate structred report summaries. The tool automates phases of the literature review process, such as finding relevant papers, extracting data, and exporting results. The notebook feature allows for tracking and optimising research workflows such as: finding papers, PDF upload, data extraction, and concept mapping across papers. Results can be sorted by most/least cited, relevancy, recency, and filtered by publication dates, journal quality, study types, etc. Narrative summaries are offered with the top 4 (free Elicit Basic) or top 8 (paid Elicit Plus, Elicit Pro) references. Additional features such as "accuracy mode," "Add a step," or "Ask a new question" help improve results. Papers can be extracted using the tool's suggested columns or by user-defined queries of the text. Users can export search results into RIS, BiB, CSV file (Elicit Plus, Elicit Pro). Presently, Elicit may not offer suitable results for all disciplines/fields of study. The semantic search does not recognise advanced search syntax (e.g., wildcards, truncation).
Rayyan
Rayyan
Rayyan.ai Screening Tool
Rayyan helps to screen titles and abstracts faster during a systematic review. The free version removes duplicate titles. Inclusion and exclusion criteria can be defined and it is possible to work with up to 3 anonymised reviewers. The free version also includes AI-based functions, e.g. sorting by the most relevant titles. The paid version can be used on mobile devices. In the paid, premium plan, users can employ AI agents for autonomous screening decisions within a supervised workflow (human in the loop). A disadvantages is that it is difficult to assign subgroups of articles to different reviewers for screening in the free version.
ASReview
ASReview
ASReview Screening Tool
ASReview helps you screen titles and abstracts faster. ASReview is an open source, transparent, and educational tool. It learns to identify relevant papers during the screening process. The process starts with an initial selection of relevant papers submitted by the reviewers, which are used by the system to sort articles by relevance. Some knowledge of Python is required to install ASReview. Each user must customize their screening process to suit their needs. ASReview has released a 2.0 version with additional models and features.
ResearchRabbit
ResearchRabbit
ResearchRabbit
ResearchRabbit is a free research tool. It allows you to find publications and visualise their connections in a field of study. ResearchRabbit facilitates forward and backward searches for citations and explores connections between publications that have already been identified. ResearchRabbit's filters and options are limited, and results cannot be filtered by date or type of publication. Forward citation results are not always reliable, i.e. not all publications citing a specific title will necessarily be found.
Consensus
Consensus
Consensus.app helps you find literature and answers to your research questions. Using a customized large language model and vector search, the tool searches the Semantic Scholar corpus for relevant publications and summarizes them. The studies found can be filtered by evidence or study type. For research questions that can be answered with yes/no/maybe, the Consensus Meter shows how many studies agree in their answers. The results can be exported in RIS or CSV format. In addition, Consensus offers a chat feature, through which users can ask questions about key insights, figures, methodology regarding one or several papers. Consensus.app is available at the University of Bern through a trial period for the year 2026. The full version is available when registering with your UniBern email address.
Undermind
Undermind
Undermind.ai is a deep search tool for scientific literature. Its goal is to find the studies most relevant to the research question and to summarize the current state of research. After the initial input of a research question, the tool asks a series of queries to refine the research question. The deep search is performed in the Semantic Scholar corpus and takes several minutes. The results are provided with a relevance percentage. A university email address is required to use the service. Five queries per month are free. Several pricing plans are available.
Scientific Writing Tools
Scientific Writing Tools
AI-based writing tools can be categorised based on what they do, for example, generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT) generate text, paraphraser AI tools (such as Writefull) rewrite text. We have listed these categories below, along with some of the risks of using these tools indiscriminately and without appropriate training. While AI tools can help produce text quickly, this text is generic, ineffectively structured, and, in many instances, factually incorrect. The quality of the output depends more on the user’s experience, knowledge, and training than on the tool’s functionality. Therefore, we cannot recommend any one tool in any of the categories as the best of its class.
We strongly advise academic writers, especially new writers and those with less experience, to use AI tools cautiously and in moderation. Writing well is hard because writing is intertwined with thinking. Both our writing and thinking become clearer as we work on making our sentences more effective and our paragraphs more coherent. We urge all writers to make the effort to read a lot and to write a lot to improve their ability to synthesize evidence, summarize it, and communicate it. We ask them to not fall into the trap of accepting AI-generated texts that simply “sound good.” We insist that they use AI tools only if they are certain of what high-quality scientific writing should look like.
| Category | Example(s) | Risk(s) from indiscriminate usage |
|---|---|---|
|
Translator tools |
DeepL Write |
|
|
Generative tools |
ChatGPT, JenniAI |
|
|
Reader and summarizer tools |
Wordtune, Humata, SciSpace, Leminda |
|
|
Paraphraser tools |
Writefull, Ref-N-Write |
|
|
Academic editing tools |
ProWritingAid, Paperpal |
|
Useful databases in medicine
Further information with the subject librarian: Fachreferat Medizin
Useful databases in pharmacy
Further information you find with the subject librarian pharmacy: Fachreferat Pharmazie.
Ovid MEDLINE ALL Reference database for biomedical and related literature. Published by the National Library of Medicine, USA
Cochrane Training Learning material and online courses for conducting, editing or reading a systematic review (for some courses you need to register with a free Cochrane account and access the website via VPN)
Discover e-journals in your subject area with BrowZine. The best starting point is here: pharmacy journals
Pschyrembel Comprehensive medical encyclopedia, which also comprises the Hunnius Pharmaceutical Dictionary
PubMed Reference database for biomedical and related literature. PubMed includes references from MEDLINE, PubMed Central and the NCBI Bookshelf. Published by the National Library of Medicine, USA
DrugBasePlus Access to various databases for pharmacy and medicine, e.g. ABDA, AHFS-DI, Fiedler, Hager, Index Nominum, Normdosen, Pediatric dosage tables
Analysis, statistics and data management
R
For statistical computing
The R project
R is an excellent open-source software for statistical analyses and graphical representations.
Anaconda
Data Science Platform
Anaconda
Anaconda package manager for Python and R: Anaconda is a free toolset for data science applications. It enables easy installation and combination of a large selection of Python and R code libraries and effective management of programming environments and software packages.
Writing
SciFlow
SciFlow
SciFlow makes it easy to write and format scientific texts – whether for a specific journal or as a student paper. SciFlow offers many templates, grammar checking in German and English, an upload function for Word manuscripts and the option of citing with Zotero, Mendeley etc. For groups, SciFlow enables real-time collaboration and the shared use of all references in the text. Finished work can be exported to PDF, LaTeX and Word, among others. The Bern University Library has licensed SciFlow for the entire UniBE campus.
LaTeX
LaTex
LaTeX is a word processing system that is ideal for creating scientific texts of all kinds. It has particularly useful functions for creating complex documents, and is noteworthy for its stability, flexibility and its high typographic quality. LaTeX is open source, can be used free of charge and is available for all common operating systems.
Turnitin
Turnitin
The University of Bern uses Turnitin to detect plagiarism. The software issues detailed test reports that can be edited interactively.
Citation management
Citing made easy
Citation management programs
These programs enhance easy and correct citing:
Courses for citation management with various programs are offered by the university library
Mendeley
Mendeley
Mendeley is a free reference management software that is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is used to organise scientific articles and PDFs and to create citations and bibliographies. Mendeley makes collecting, managing and sharing literature and in-text citations simple and straightforward.
Zotero
Zotero
Zotero is a reference management software that can be used on all common operating systems. Simple to use, it is the ideal software for managing literature, even for smaller papers, and can therefore be used profitably right from the start of your studies. Zotero is free and open source. The University of Bern and the PHBern have set up a Zotero Institutional Plan for Zotero cloud storage. By registering with the institutional e-mail address, unlimited storage is available in the Zotero Cloud.
EndNote
EndNote
EndNote or EndNote Online supports you in managing references, writing papers and academic publishing: from searching for literature to collecting and organising references, formatting citations and creating a complete bibliography. Members of the University of Bern receive a discount on the product licence via the UniBE software shop.
BibTeX
BibTex
BibTeX is recommended for creating citations and bibliographies in documents created with LaTeX word processing. BibTeX is free and open source and is included in the usual LaTeX standard installations (e.g. MikTex for Windows, MacTex for Mac, TeX Live for Linux). The bibliographic data is managed in a .bib file, which can be created and modified with various reference management softwares. The open source software JabRef is specially tailored to BibTeX files. JabRef is platform-independent and runs on all common operating systems.
Citavi
Citavi
Citavi supports you in writing papers: from researching, collecting and organising references and citations to formatting citations and creating a complete bibliography. Citavi offers helpful functionalities for organising knowledge, especially for humanities scholars and social scientists. Members of the University of Bern and the PH Bern can use Citavi free of charge with a campus licence.
Publishing
Open Science
Open Access
The Open Science Team of UB Bern offers information and support for electronic publishing, research data management and more.
➜ oa.finder: https://finder.open-access.network/
➜ Open policy finder: https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/
➜ Find Open Access journals: https://doaj.org
ORCID
Orcid
ORCID iD is a 16-digit number combination that uniquely identifies researchers and their publications regardless of spelling variants or transcriptions of one’s name. You can register your personal ORCID number free of charge. The personal profile on orcid.org can be used to manage information on publications, training and employment as well as funding. It is possible to choose individual authorisation settings for each item. ORCID is a non-profit initiative supported by universities, academies, funding organisations, scientific publishers and libraries worldwide.
Altmetric Explorer
Altmetric Explorer
Altmetric Explorer is a service that can be used to measure the reception and dissemination of research results on the internet. Unlike traditional bibliometric approaches, it does not measure citations in scientific publications, but rather the dissemination of research on the internet, for example via social media channels such as X or in blogs as well as in non-academic newspapers, Wikipedia, policy documents and many other sources.
Creating and Presenting
BioRender
BioRender
BioRender provides thousands of icons and many templates for professional scientific illustrations, graphs, presentations, and posters. Ideal for visualising cellular processes, experimental setups, laboratory techniques and much more. A limited number of free licenses is available for staff and students of the University of Bern. In case of access problems or to reactivate an account contact our support via the link below.