[sci]mmary - when science makes sense
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
[sci]mmary is a design concept that uses a digital platform to make current research results available to people without a scientific background. By using artificial intelligence, complex scientific content is adapted to the user's level of knowledge. It enables long texts to be packaged into concise core statements, context-giving images to be generated from texts, and interwoven worlds of science to be depicted through interactive representations.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
[sci]mmary is a design concept that uses a digital platform to make current research results available to people without a scientific background. By using artificial intelligence, complex scientific content is adapted to the user's level of knowledge. It enables long texts to be packaged into core statements, context-giving images to be generated from text, and interwoven worlds of science to be depicted through interactive representations.
Scientific texts are not understood by layperson. One reason for this is the different level of information in which they find themselves. In order to be able to understand facts, the expert level is lowered and complex facts are broken down. At the beginning was examinated the historical development of science and its communication. Furthermore, involved actors were analyzed (incl. target groups) and findings were confirmed by six expert interviews, three user interviews and six visits to professional events related to science communication. We also took a closer look at possible competition at the market, current trends and scientific publishing.
[sci]mmary contains three main features. These can be divided into "Research" / "Inform" and "Discover". 1. research: Links to the main source or to further sources. 2. inform: Short version of a study (processed by [sci]mmary and published in a simplified and shortened version). 3. discover: the world of science and different fields of science For us it was important to work out a layout and navigation that would provide a seamless connection between the respective features, combined with the appearance of the animation.
Key objectives for sustainability
[sci]mmary is a concept that rethinks access to scientific information. We believe that new technologies can be used to save financial and time resources. [sci]mmary initially works with existing databases in the field of Open Access. This means drawing on existing knowledge to reach as many people as possible in a sustainable way. Written and published works will find wider use and appreciation, without scientists being additionally distracted from their work to create something new for [sci]mmary.
The concept foresees that in the next steps another pipeline for scientists will be opened. This will allow scientists to publish directly with [sci]mmary instead of with the usual publishers. So from now on both options, i.e. the possibility of publication and access to publication will be possible with us. In sum, this means that the effort of a publication for a scientist will not increase. At the same time, however, a publication on [sci]mmary will achieve a much higher reach and thus also an increasing benefit.
Apart from that, many sustainability issues and topics that are discussed need an understanding and recognition within society. With a functioning and specially designed access to knowledge like at s[ci]mmary, society can become more empowered, open and ready for change.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Vision
We are convinced that everyone has the right to scientific information and that through our platform civil society is empowered to deal with socially relevant issues.
Mission
The mission of [sci]mmary is to empower and motivate people to make scientific content more tangible and understandable through open access and an innovative information processing process to make it more tangible and understandable, so that they are able to make scientifically sound decisions in their everyday lives.
Our three beliefs:
1. We believe that today's challenges can only be solved together and with an open approach to science.
2. We believe that scientific knowledge will only be accepted if old narratives of science are broken down and replaced by new and society-oriented narratives.
3. We believe that Gestalter can help scientists to publish their work more efficiently and in a more user-friendly way in the future an therefore improving science communication between scientists and civil society.
Key objectives for inclusion
Through our research and interviews, we noticed that many people who enjoy higher academic degrees tend to have a greater interest in scientific topics and therefore do not need much prior knowledge and attention to engage with such complex issues than other groups.
The primary goal of [sci]mmary is to reach as many people as possible. By designing different levels and customizability it is possible as a platform to adapt to the user. Everyone can get information about science regardless of education, income and other factors.
Innovative character
We will provide publicly available scientific publications on our platform in the form of our own template. For this purpose, we first locate available original publications on the Internet. They are then examined for their quality and stored in our database for further processing. Once these original publications are in the database, they are then run through filter loops. These allow text and image content to be broken down into the smallest individual components so that they can then be inserted into our predefined templates and rearranged if necessary. In view of the different depths of information we offer for texts and images, various formulations and representations of texts and images are additionally calculated.
Text to text
In the last phase the system classifies the individual text components, organizes them and extracts the quintessence, the core message is summarized and presented in an easily understandable way. With the help of artificial intelligence, we can have original texts adapted to the reader's level of knowledge. If the assessment is not accurate enough in the initial phase, it is possible to use a "Refresh" button to have the text passage paraphrased again. It is possible to press this button several times until the downbreaking is exhausted.
Text to image / image to image
By fragmenting the text into individual components, they are additionally arranged hierarchically during parsing. This hierarchical structure is used to divide the foreground, middle ground and background. These are then put together to create an image. Similar to the "text to text" example, images can also be broken down and varied several times until the image library is exhausted for this purpose as well.
The graphs already available from scientific publications are often very mathematical and complex in design, so we allow for simplification to a reduced image.
