scite Webinar (June 15, 2021)

Josh Nicholson, the co-founder and CEO of SITE, introduces himself and the platform's mission to enhance research quality through a nuanced citation approach. He acknowledges the difficulties in scientific publishing, such as the high costs and the time-consuming nature of peer review, while emphasizing the importance of new findings in various fields. Josh highlights the challenges of staying updated with the overwhelming amount of published research and the issue of reproducibility in scientific studies, which SITE aims to address by providing detailed citation analysis.

Josh discusses the limitations of traditional citation metrics, which often lack the nuance needed to properly evaluate the impact and reliability of research. He shares his personal experience during his PhD, where the pressure to publish in high-impact journals led to the exclusion of contradictory data. SITE's goal is to move beyond mere citation counts and provide a more detailed analysis of how research is cited, including whether citations are supportive, contrasting, or simply mentioning the work.

The script explains how SITE uses a deep learning model to classify citation statements as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning. This classification helps users quickly understand the context of citations and evaluate the trustworthiness of research. The platform has been trained on a dataset of manually read citation statements to ensure accuracy, and users can provide feedback on misclassifications to improve the system.

Josh emphasizes the value of understanding the context in which research is cited, as it provides insights into the validity and impact of studies. He illustrates this with an example from his own research on chromosome segregation defects, showing how SITE can reveal the nature of citations and help users find related work and expert analyses.

The script outlines the evolution of SITE's approach from focusing solely on reproducibility to a broader aim of surfacing expert analyses and data. Josh explains that while reproducibility is crucial, the platform now seeks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of research by making citation contexts easily accessible and interpretable.

Josh introduces SITE's browser extension for Chrome, which allows users to access citation information while reading scientific literature online. The extension enables users to see citation contexts directly in reference sections and provides a visual representation of citation networks, helping users understand the relationships between different studies.

The script describes how SITE allows users to analyze citation information in aggregate, creating custom dashboards to explore topics, journals, universities, and funding sources. This feature enables users to identify trends, compare fields, and monitor the impact of research over time, providing a deeper understanding of the scientific landscape.

Josh concludes the presentation by discussing the future of citation analysis with SITE. He mentions the platform's plans to expand its analysis capabilities, including the addition of author information, reference manager plugins, and a reference check feature. He also highlights the importance of user feedback and the platform's commitment to continuous improvement.

In the final paragraph, Josh reflects on the growing adoption of SITE, with a particular increase in student users. He discusses the integration of SITE's information on the version of record for numerous publications and the strategy to embed SITE's citation analysis in various existing tools and services, aiming to make the platform an essential part of the research community's workflow.