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Build your first project in 10 minutes

In short: Click + New Project, give the project a title, pick a research focus, choose Suggest publications for me, describe your topic and click Add Suggested Publications and Create Project. SciNodes finds publications for you, opens the project and builds your first research map, the Initial Map, automatically. From there you can click a cluster, chat with the map and open any publication.

Before you start​

1. Create the project​

  1. Go to app.scinodes.com and sign in. You land on My Projects.
  2. Click + New Project. If you have no projects yet, the New Project form is already open.
  3. The Project title field starts as "Untitled project". Click it and type your own title, for example "Microplastics in freshwater ecosystems". It needs at least 4 characters.
  4. Under Current research focus, click Literature Review (or whatever fits). You can pick up to 3.
  5. Optional: click Add a description and write a sentence or two about the topic. Click Tidy up my wording if you want AI to fix terminology, spelling and grammar. Your description is reused in the next step.

2. Let SciNodes suggest publications​

  1. Under "Let's gather your publications", click Suggest publications for me.
  2. In the box headed "What's this project about?", describe your research focus in at least two words. If you wrote a description, it's already filled in.
  3. Click Add Suggested Publications and Create Project at the bottom of the page.
  4. Watch the progress. "Searching for:" shows the searches SciNodes AI planned from your focus. It then searches the catalog with each one and merges the best results, up to 800 publications.
  5. SciNodes adds the publications and opens your new project on its own.
tip

You don't have to wait. If you leave the page while the project is building, choose Build in background. A Building card in the sidebar shows progress, and you get a "Project ready" notification when it finishes.

3. Read your Initial Map​

The project opens on the Research Maps tab and builds the Initial Map. This is a term co-occurrence map: each node is a term from your publications' titles, abstracts and keywords, and terms that appear together are linked. Small maps appear at once. Large ones fill in progressively.

  • Each colored group is a cluster. On this map type, a cluster is a topic.
  • Bigger nodes are more important terms. See Reading a map.

4. Chat with the map​

  1. Before you click anything on the map, the right-hand panel shows an overview of the map.
  2. Click Chat with this map.
  3. Type a question, for example "What are the main themes in this map?", and press Enter. Use Shift + Enter for a new line.
  4. When you're done, click the close button on the chat to go back to the overview.

5. Explore a cluster​

  1. Click a cluster on the map, or click its name in the Composition list in the left sidebar.
  2. The right-hand panel shows the cluster's top nodes and statistics such as cohesion, density and rank.
  3. Click Chat about this topic to have a research assistant explain what the cluster is about.

6. Ask a research question​

  1. Type a question into the Map queries bar that floats over the map, for example "What are the main research themes?".
  2. Click Map this question.
  3. Choose the option marked Recommended and click Explore with map.

SciNodes builds a new map for the question and opens a chat about it. See Create a map from a question.

7. Open a publication​

  1. Click the Library tab.
  2. Click any publication. Its details open on the right: authors, journal, year, abstract and identifiers.
  3. Use the PDF button: View PDF if SciNodes has a copy, Fetch PDF to get an open-access copy, or Upload PDF to add your own.
  4. Click the chat icon to ask about this publication, or Cite to copy a citation.

See Publication details.

Troubleshooting​

  • "Not enough publications — try describing your research focus differently." Your focus was too narrow or unclear to search on. Describe it in broader terms and try again.
  • "Nothing found for "…"" The searches came back empty. Click Edit the focus and describe a broader subject.
  • "Weekly complex compute budget spent." Your weekly AI credits are used up. The message says when they come back. You can still start an empty project and upload your own files. See Credits and usage.
  • "Project created without publications" (notification). The project exists but nothing was added. Open its Library tab and add publications there. See Adding publications.

FAQ​

Can I create a project without any publications?​

Yes. On the New Project form, click start empty and add publications later. SciNodes creates the project and takes you back to your project list.

I already have a Zotero or Mendeley library. Can I start from that?​

Yes. Choose Build on my existing library instead of Suggest and upload a RIS or BibTeX export or your PDFs. See Bring your reference library.

Is the Initial Map saved?​

Yes. The first map in a project is saved automatically. Later maps start as drafts until you save them. See Drafts and saving.

Can I change the title or focus later?​

Yes. Edit the name and description on the Overview tab, or change the name and research focus in Project Settings. See Project settings.