A Reproducibility and Generalizability Study of Large Language Models for Query Generation
Moritz Staudinger, Wojciech Kusa, Florina Piroi, Aldo Lipani, Allan Hanbury
Abstract
Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) are a cornerstone of academic research, yet they are often labour-intensive and time-consuming due to the detailed literature curation process. The advent of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) promises to revolutionize this process by assisting researchers in several tedious tasks, one of them being the generation of effective Boolean queries that will select the publications to consider including in a review. This paper presents an extensive study of Boolean query generation using LLMs for systematic reviews, reproducing and extending the work of Wang et al. and Alaniz et al. Our study investigates the replicability and reliability of results achieved using ChatGPT and compares its performance with open-source alternatives like Mistral and Zephyr to provide a more comprehensive analysis of LLMs for query generation.