How It Works

Two ways to explore the research evidence

Ask a question or browse the database — both draw from the same curated collection of research syntheses.

01

A curated database of research syntheses

What sets Prism-ED apart is its evidence base: every article is carefully curated by a team of educational researchers, not scraped automatically. The database contains systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and narrative reviews on language teaching. It stores only article metadata (title, author, year, journal, DOI) and freely available abstracts. No PDFs or full texts are stored. Both search modes draw from this same curated database.

02

What the database currently includes

The current database consists exclusively of research syntheses. It stores only freely available metadata and abstracts — no PDFs, full texts, or copyrighted content. It does not yet include primary studies (individual experiments, surveys, or case studies). The quality of individual research syntheses has not yet been appraised — quality appraisal is planned for a future phase of development.

03

Prism-ED ASK — AI evidence receipt

When you submit a question on the home page, our system converts it into a mathematical representation (called an embedding) using OpenAI's text embedding technology. It then identifies the most semantically relevant sections from the indexed database — finding research that matches the meaning of your question, not just the keywords.

04

Receipt generation by Claude AI

The top-matching metadata and abstracts are passed to Claude (by Anthropic), an advanced AI language model. Claude synthesises the findings into a structured receipt with: a Headline (one-sentence answer), Evidence (synthesised prose summary), Nature of Evidence (study design classification), and References. No full texts are included — the AI works only from abstracts and metadata. The AI is strictly instructed never to reproduce exact wording from source articles.

05

Prism-ED SEARCH — Search the database directly

The Database page lets you search the full article collection yourself, without AI intermediation. Use boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), quotation marks for exact phrases, and parentheses for grouping to build precise queries. Narrow results by publication year, journal, language subject, or topic tag — then read abstracts and follow DOI links to the original sources.

06

Translation on demand

After receiving a receipt, you can request a translation into any of ten languages using the Translate button. Translations are AI-generated and should be read with the same critical eye as the English original. This feature is intended to make evidence accessible to teachers in non-English-speaking contexts.

07

Read all receipts critically

AI synthesis can make errors, miss nuance, or over-generalise. Every receipt should be read as a starting point for professional reflection — not as a definitive answer. Educational contexts vary enormously. Always apply evidence in light of your specific students, school, and professional expertise.

Want to know more about how our team curates and maintains the database?

Read the technical report