Apata Olukayode E, Kwok Oi-Man, Lee Yuan-Hsuan
Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA.
Department of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas, Denton, USA.
Cureus. 2025 Jul 4;17(7):e87297. doi: 10.7759/cureus.87297. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Consensus App is an academic search engine designed to change how researchers access and synthesize information. It helps researchers quickly browse the growing body of academic literature by offering insights at both the topic and paper levels. We evaluate the Consensus App's potential to transform academic research, its ethical implications, and the reasons behind its underrepresentation in academic literature. We seek to provide a balanced perspective on the app's current and future influence in academic research. This paper is based on a rapid review of the literature to see how the Consensus App is used and reported in the literature. Our review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We focused on identifying applications, benefits, and ethical concerns related to the Consensus App. The search was conducted on December 23, 2024, across 210 academic databases. The databases from which articles were retrieved include Web of Science (N=6), MEDLINE (N=2), Academic Search Ultimate (N=1), and Fuente Académica Plus (N=1). In addition to the database searches, five additional editorials were identified through targeted manual searches of high-impact journals. In total, 10 papers were included in the final review. ChatGPT-4.5 was used to assist in synthesizing key themes across the articles, focusing on application, benefits, and ethical concerns related to the Consensus App and the broader use of artificial intelligence (AI) in scholarly work. The reviewed articles revealed that the use of the Consensus App is surprisingly low, which may suggest underreporting by its users. Researchers may also not be aware of it. These studies showed how the app has been limitedly used in the literature. Despite its advantages, we identified ethical concerns in the reviewed studies. Despite its potential, the Consensus App remains underutilized and significantly underreported in academic literature. Therefore, it is important for academic institutions, journal editors, and researchers to collaboratively develop standardized reporting guidelines when AI is involved in the process of manuscript development. The eventual goal is to lead to a more transparent reporting of AI usage in research.
共识应用程序是一个学术搜索引擎，旨在改变研究人员获取和综合信息的方式。它通过在主题和论文层面提供见解，帮助研究人员快速浏览不断增长的学术文献。我们评估了共识应用程序对学术研究变革的潜力、其伦理影响以及它在学术文献中代表性不足的原因。我们力求对该应用程序在学术研究中的当前和未来影响提供一个平衡的视角。本文基于对文献的快速回顾，以了解共识应用程序在文献中的使用和报道情况。我们的回顾遵循系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目（PRISMA）指南。我们专注于识别与共识应用程序相关的应用、益处和伦理问题。检索于2024年12月23日在210个学术数据库中进行。从中检索到文章的数据库包括科学引文索引（N = 6）、医学期刊数据库（N = 2）、学术搜索大全（N = 1）和学术资源库升级版（N = 1）。除了数据库检索外，通过对高影响力期刊进行有针对性的手动搜索，又确定了五篇社论。最终综述共纳入10篇论文。使用ChatGPT - 4.5协助综合各文章的关键主题，重点关注与共识应用程序以及人工智能在学术工作中的更广泛应用相关的应用、益处和伦理问题。经审查的文章显示，共识应用程序的使用惊人地少，这可能表明用户报告不足。研究人员可能也不了解它。这些研究表明该应用程序在文献中的使用有限。尽管它有优点，但我们在经审查的研究中发现了伦理问题。尽管有潜力，但共识应用程序在学术文献中的利用率仍然很低，报道也严重不足。因此，对于学术机构、期刊编辑和研究人员来说，在人工智能参与稿件撰写过程时，合作制定标准化的报告指南很重要。最终目标是使研究中人工智能使用的报告更加透明。
