Journal Lens

Journal Lens is an AI-powered research discovery platform built to simplify how users explore academic journals, papers, and authors in one place. It brings together structured research browsing, secure access, and contextual AI assistance to reduce the friction of finding relevant scholarly content.

Designed for an academic workflow, the platform helps students, researchers, and faculty move from broad journal discovery to detailed paper exploration through a clean and guided interface.

Live Demo

https://journal-lens.vercel.app/

Snapshots

• Home page

  

• Provider cards

• Footer

  

  • Topics page

    

  • Papers under specific topic

    

  • Research paper overview card

    

• Detailing page

  

• Chatbot sidebar

  

Features

• Browse journals and open-access research papers in a structured UI.
• View journal detail pages, paper details, and deeper paper metadata through protected routes.
• Explore author-related research information through the backend API.
• Use the integrated AI chatbot for contextual research help.
• Sign in with Clerk-based authentication for protected content.
• Load and manage data with React Query for smoother client-side fetching.
• Track production usage with Vercel Analytics.
• Use a clean, responsive interface built around the project's blue visual theme.

Frontend Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose	Icon
React 19	Component-based user interface
Vite	Fast development server and production build tooling
React Router	Client-side routing
TanStack React Query	Server-state management and caching
Clerk React	Authentication and user session handling
Tailwind CSS	Utility-first styling workflow
Vercel Analytics	Production analytics
React Loader Spinner	Loading indicators
UUID	Unique ID generation where needed
Axios	API requests from the frontend

Backend Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose	Icon
Node.js	Runtime environment
Express.js	REST API server
Clerk Express	Backend authentication middleware
OpenAlex API	Research paper and author data source
Groq SDK	AI chat and generative responses
Axios	External API requests
CORS	Cross-origin request handling
dotenv	Environment variable management
pdf-parse	PDF text extraction support
node-fetch	Fetch support inside backend flows

Project Structure

Journal-Lens/
├─ README.md
├─ backend/
│ ├─ index.js
│ ├─ package.json
│ ├─ configs/
│ │ └─ corsOptions.js
│ ├─ middlewares/
│ │ └─ requireAuth.js
│ └─ routes/
│ ├─ author.js
│ ├─ chat.js
│ └─ researchpapers.js
└─ frontend/
├─ index.html
├─ package.json
├─ vite.config.js
├─ eslint.config.js
├─ public/
│ └─ media/
│ ├─ banners/
│ ├─ fields/
│ └─ publishers/
└─ src/
├─ App.jsx
├─ App.css
├─ main.jsx
├─ Contexts/
├─ configs/
└─ components/
├─ auth/
├─ ChatBot/
├─ Footer/
├─ Hero/
├─ Navbar/
├─ loaders/
├─ pages/
│ ├─ Custom_journals/
│ ├─ Detail/
│ ├─ journals/
│ └─ More_detail/
├─ publishers-card/
├─ researchCard/
└─ utils/

Local Setup

1. Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ recommended
• npm installed
• Clerk, Groq, and OpenAlex API credentials

2. Clone the repository

git clone <your-repo-url>
cd Internship_project_IDEA_LAB

3. Backend setup

cd backend
npm install

Create a .env file inside backend/ with the required variables:

PORT=8080
OPENALEX_API_KEY=your_openalex_api_key
OPENALEX_BASE_URL=https://api.openalex.org
FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:5173
GROQ_API_KEY=your_groq_api_key
CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=your_clerk_publishable_key
CLERK_SECRET_KEY=your_clerk_secret_key

4. Frontend setup

cd ../frontend
npm install

Create a .env file inside frontend/ with the required variables:

VITE_BACKEND_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/api
VITE_LOGO_DEV_PUBLIC_KEY=your_logo_dev_public_key
VITE_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=your_clerk_publishable_key

5. Run the application locally

Start the backend in one terminal:

cd backend
npm start

Start the frontend in another terminal:

cd frontend
npm run dev

NOTE

Journal Lens is an AICTE IDEA Lab internship project built for the LNCT campus. It is designed to make academic research discovery easier by bringing journals, open-access papers, author details, and AI-assisted guidance into a single research-focused platform.

The project aims to support students, faculty, and researchers with a cleaner way to explore academic content, filter relevant material, and move from journal-level discovery to paper-level detail without unnecessary friction.