Dimensions: A Comprehensive Research and Analytics Platform
Dimensions is a cutting-edge research and analytics platform designed to revolutionize the way researchers, academics, and organizations discover, analyze, and utilize scientific literature and related data. Here’s an overview of what Dimensions does and its key features:
What Dimensions Does
Dimensions provides access to the world’s largest connected research database, encompassing millions of publications, patents, grants, datasets, clinical trials, policy documents, and more. This extensive database is integrated with advanced AI technology and powerful visual tools to accelerate the discovery and evaluation of research, making it an indispensable resource for various stakeholders including academic institutions, government agencies, nonprofits, publishers, and life sciences and R&D departments.
Key Features and Functionality
Comprehensive Data Coverage
- Dimensions offers a vast and linked database that covers the entire research process, from funding to publication, and from scholarly attention to commercial application and policy making. This includes full-text search capabilities across over 200 million documents, grants, patents, and other research-related data.
AI-Powered Insights
- The platform is enhanced with AI technology, including the Dimensions AI Assistant and AI Summarization features. These tools provide contextualized synopses using extractive and abstractive summarization, allowing users to quickly gain insights into large volumes of research content. The AI Assistant leverages models like Dimensions General Science-BERT and Open AI’s GPT to generate summaries and extract key information.
Advanced Search and Visualization
- Dimensions features a robust search interface that allows users to search through full records or limit searches to titles and abstracts. The platform also includes advanced search capabilities, metadata filters, similarity searches, and the ability to define custom groups of entities. Results can be visualized in various formats, including heatmaps and VOSviewer networks, to facilitate deeper analysis.
Data Analysis and Export
- Users can aggregate and visualize data within the application, using tools like VOSviewer and impact metrics based on citations and Altmetric Attention Scores. The platform allows for the export of metadata for further analysis, integration into reference managers, or creation of result sets for dashboard apps.
Researcher Workflows and Integration
- Dimensions supports various researcher workflows, including the management of ORCiD records, integration with ReadCube Papers, and export options in formats like BibTeX/Ris. It also provides faster access to full-text publications through Open Access linkouts, GetFTR, LibKey, and OpenURL resolver support.
Special Instances and API
- For customized data analysis, Dimensions offers Special Instances that allow organizations to securely combine their internal data (such as grant applications and project proposals) with Dimensions’ global data in one platform. The Dimensions API provides full-text search and data retrieval capabilities, enabling complex analyses and visualizations tailored to specific needs.
Authentication and Access
- The platform ensures flexible and secure access through multiple authentication options, including IP whitelisting, EZproxy, and Single-Sign-On (Shibboleth, etc.), allowing users to access data from anywhere at any time.
In summary, Dimensions is a powerful tool that combines extensive data coverage, advanced AI-driven insights, and robust analytical and visualization capabilities to streamline research discovery and analysis, making it an essential resource for anyone involved in scientific research and innovation.