SciSight: Combining faceted navigation and research group detection for COVID-19 exploratory scientific search

TL;DR

SciSight is a system that enhances exploratory COVID-19 research by integrating facet-based exploration of biomedical concepts with visualization of researcher groups and their connections, aiding discovery beyond targeted searches.

Contribution

It introduces a novel system combining faceted navigation and research group detection for comprehensive exploratory scientific search.

Findings

Served over 15,000 users with 42,000 page views

Enabled exploration of biomedical facets like genes and drugs

Visualized researcher groups and their ties

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked unprecedented mobilization of scientists, generating a deluge of papers that makes it hard for researchers to keep track and explore new directions. Search engines are designed for targeted queries, not for discovery of connections across a corpus. In this paper, we present SciSight, a system for exploratory search of COVID-19 research integrating two key capabilities: first, exploring associations between biomedical facets automatically extracted from papers (e.g., genes, drugs, diseases, patient outcomes); second, combining textual and network information to search and visualize groups of researchers and their ties. SciSight has so far served over $15K$ users with over $42K$ page views and $13\%$ returns.