Smart Papers: Weekly Research Papers Digest

Inspiration

We were inspired to create Smart Papers by the overwhelming amount of valuable research being published every week. We realized that keeping up with the latest findings and insights in specific domains could be challenging and time-consuming. Our aim was to simplify the process and make it accessible to anyone interested in staying informed about the latest research.

What it does

Our project, Smart Papers is a web application which stores the user's preferences/interests and sends them mails containing research papers relevant to their interests, on a weekly basis.

How we built it

When our page is accessed, the user is prompted to register. After registering, details such as the name, email, interests and co-domain are taken. Interests being the field the user wishes to obtain research papers of, and co-domain being the sub-category of interest, for example Interest could be Computer Science and Co-Domain could be Artificial Intelligence. After submitting, the user's details are stored in an excel sheet. This was possible by using the technologies Flask, openpyxl. After retrieving the user's details, a mail is sent to the user by accessing the details from the excel sheet and this was done with the help of python libraries including but not limited to- 'smtplib', 'EmailMessage', 'pandas' . This was automated by using the python library 'schedule' and setting the time to a week. The content of the mail includes links to the research papers, that the user wishes to acquire, with each research paper having a short About section. This short description was obtained by integrating openAI into our code, successfullt incorporating AI into our project.

The data of various domains and subdomains was first collected then created a landing page containing information about the website then the user is provided with register option to login into website and choose their interests.As per the interests provide the newsletters were sent to the user through mail weekly

Challenges we ran into

The first challenge was time constraint as it was necessary for us to prioritize our tasks, make quick decisions and manage time. Dealing with technical issues and bugs is another challenge we faced. We encountered compatibility issues, software conflicts and difficulties integrating different technologies. We had to make quick and informed decisions which includes choosing the right technologies, selecting the most efficient approach, and prioritizing tasks. Making effective decisions under pressure was challenging. While writing the code for sending the mails, we ran into errors regarding PORT numbers and loading content from the dotenv file. Accessing user data from the excel sheet and incorporating it into the mail was also challenging, scheduling the mails to go out weekly was also a tough nut to crack, along with integrating openAI into our code as including the required API key was quite the challenge. Finding the correct html tag to scrape and getting the titles of the research paper and filtering the paid research papers was also a hussle.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to create a beautiful design to incorporate into project. The mail protocol works really well and the titles and links to the pdf's of the research papers are accurate and do not get distorted, we were able to implement html type text in the mail. Successfully completing a functional project within the time constraints is a significant accomplishment. It showcases our team's ability to plan, execute, and deliver a working solution within a limited timeframe. Developing an innovative idea that addresses a real-world problem and being able to create something unique and valuable was something we are proud of. We ran into a lot of technical challenges which we were successfully able to tackle. It demonstrates our team's technical prowess and ability to adapt to different circumstances.

What we learned

The key learnings of this project were immense. The important aspect which was learnt is time management which helped us to complete our tasks in expected time.Working in a team and respecting every team mates opinion was learnt. Improving our problem solving and technical skills were another aspect we improved a lot.The important skill that was learnt is desicion making, irrespective of the bugs and other issues we were able to make proper decisions for the website. We gained a lot of exposure to modern python frameworks and libraries like flask, openpyxl, smptlib, pandas and many others. We also understood the importance of teamwork and what all it takes for 4 people to come together. We are extremely proud and happy with how the project turned out, but realize there are certain fields where the project could be improved and wish to do the same in the future.