Feature Deep Dive: Scholarly Assistant

Imagine having instant access to everything you need to know about your institution’s faculty—all through a chat-based interface similar to ChatGPT. Now, with the Scholarly AI Assistant, that’s exactly what you get.

In our newest video, Kelly Sutton, co-founder and CTO of Scholarly Software, provides an in-depth look at how the Scholarly Assistant transforms faculty data management. Below is a summary of the key highlights from the video—watch it to see how it all works in real time.

What is the Scholarly Assistant?

The Scholarly Assistant is a new feature built into the Scholarly platform, which you can think of as an operating system for managing faculty at colleges and universities. Much like other AI chat tools (e.g., ChatGPT or Claude), the Scholarly Assistant answers questions and generates content using a simple interface. The difference? It’s securely plugged into your institution’s real data—so you don’t have to worry about incorrect “hallucinations” or data leaks.

For Administrators

1. Real-Time Data Access
   Institution admins can query their faculty data directly. Instead of exporting CSVs or writing complex queries in Excel or SQL, admins can simply type a question:

   “How many faculty members do we have in the Anthropology Department?”
   Within seconds, the Scholarly Assistant returns accurate counts, trends over time, and even visualizations like stacked bar charts—all with real data pulled from your Scholarly account.

2. Rich Data Understanding
   Scholarly keeps a detailed timeline of faculty appointments (primary, secondary, and additional), so the AI Assistant automatically accounts for the correct academic year, updated department listings, and more. That means your results are never out-of-date.

3. Powerful Visualizations
   Not only does the Scholarly Assistant provide text answers, but it can also generate interactive charts. You can hover over bar segments to see exact numbers by academic year and quickly download those charts to insert into reports or presentations.

For Faculty

Faculty members themselves can also use the Scholarly Assistant, though with more limited permissions. This means:

• Personalized Content Generation
  Faculty can ask the Assistant to create succinct bios or blurbs for conference presentations, grant applications, or other professional needs. Since the Scholarly Assistant already has access to their CVs, annual reports, and syllabi (everything they’ve provided to the institution), it can generate highly accurate summaries of their expertise and accomplishments.

• Administrative Simplicity
  Instead of faculty spending time re-typing or formatting their entire academic history, they can quickly generate text for NIH biosketches, short summaries for event programs, or research profiles—freeing them up to focus on teaching, research, and service.

• Collaboration. Quickly find faculty at your institution with relevant expertise for collaboration purposes. If you're looking for an expert on a certain type of research equipment or discipline, it's now easily searchable.

Behind the Scenes: Agents

One of the unique aspects of the Scholarly Assistant is how it’s organized under the hood. Each type of query is handled by a specialized “agent”. Each agent has a specialty like answering questions about faculty demographics or generating blurbs based on the faculty member's faculty activity

Output can come in three main formats: text-based answers, graphical responses, or tabular files (such as CSVs or Excel) for further data manipulation.

Security & Permissions

Scholarly takes security and AI usage seriously. The Scholarly Assistant respects user permissions, ensuring that each person—whether an administrator, department chair, or faculty member—can only access the data relevant to their role. You get the convenience of a chat interface, backed by the rigor of enterprise-grade data protections.

Watch the Video & Get a Demo

The video is a deep dive into:

1. Live examples of the Scholarly Assistant in action

2. How administrators can generate powerful institutional reports

3. How faculty can streamline routine tasks

4. The inner workings of specialized AI “agents”

5. Future plans for AI capabilities on the Scholarly platform

We’re excited about these early advances in AI for higher ed—and we’re just getting started.

Interested in seeing more?
Watch the video to see how it all works, then head to scholarlysoftware.com to schedule a demo or learn more about how the Scholarly platform can revolutionize your institution’s faculty management.

About the Author:
Kelly Sutton is a co-founder and the CTO of Scholarly Software, where he helps build tools that empower universities and colleges to manage their faculty more effectively.

Have feedback or want to see a deeper dive on another Scholarly feature? Let us know. We’d love to share more in an upcoming video!