Academic integrity
A tool that helps you do the work — not one that pretends you did
PassResearch is designed so that unsupported claims are visible rather than convincing. This page states plainly what the platform will and will not do.
Principles
Five rules the platform is built around
These are constraints on the product, not aspirations. Where a feature could break one of them, the feature is not built.
Evidence before eloquence
Every claim that needs support is expected to point to a source record. When the assistant cannot find relevant evidence, it says so and stops rather than writing something plausible.
Nothing is invented
No fabricated DOI, author, year, journal, volume, page range, quotation, participant response, survey finding or statistical result. Missing information is reported as missing.
States are never conflated
A discovered record is not a verified one. An abstract is not a full text. An AI suggestion is not an approved revision. The interface keeps these visibly separate.
Your work stays yours
Your private research content is treated as confidential and is not shared with other users. Uploaded files are served only through authenticated routes that check ownership.
You stay responsible
Responsibility for the accuracy of sources, the appropriateness of methods, ethical approval and compliance with your institution remains with you as the researcher.
AI assistance
What the assistant is allowed to do
Grounded generation is a constraint, not a marketing word. These rules are enforced in the server path, not merely described here.
- 01Research assistance retrieves the source records it used before generating text that needs citations.
- 02Citations suggested by the assistant are filtered against the records actually retrieved — they cannot reference something that was not found.
- 03Generated text is presented as a suggestion to accept, edit, reject or regenerate. Approved sections are never silently overwritten.
- 04No numerical confidence scores are invented. Verification labels are shown only where there is a defensible basis.
- 05If there is not enough context — no data, no sources, no methodology — the assistant asks for it or states the limitation.
Privacy & data
How your research data is handled
Your project is your work. The defaults keep it close, and every external step is something you choose and can see.
Privacy & data
Local-first by default
Running locally, your database and uploads live in the project folder on your computer. Nothing leaves the machine unless you configure an external provider and use it.
Privacy & data
Minimum necessary sharing
Where an external service is used — a scholarly provider or an AI model — only the query or excerpt needed for that step is sent, not your entire dissertation.
Privacy & data
Sensitive participant data
When research involves human participants or sensitive information, PassResearch guides you toward your institution's ethics process and keeps datasets private to your account.
What PassResearch will not claim
Start honestly
Build a project you can defend
Every source you save keeps its provenance, every figure is counted from your own records, and every suggestion stays a suggestion until you accept it.