Looking for a RefWorks alternative? Scholise is a free AI research workspace with source finder, citation checker, and evidence tables. No institutional access required.
RefWorks is an institutional reference manager from ProQuest, primarily available when universities pay for campus-wide access. Students who rely on it often ask whether anyone using RefWorks can keep their library after graduation — in most cases, they cannot without a new institutional subscription.
Scholise is built for active research, not just reference storage. If you need to replace RefWorks with a tool that works outside your university portal, Scholise offers a free plan with source finding, AI synthesis, and verified citations.
RefWorks only works while your institution subscribes. When you graduate or change universities, you lose access to your library. Scholise is free to start, not tied to any institution, and goes beyond reference storage with AI source finding, evidence tables, and draft citation checking.
Anyone using RefWorks through a university portal often discovers the same problems after graduation: institutional lock-in, lost libraries, no AI features, and no way to search academic databases from inside the tool. RefWorks stores references — it does not help you find or understand literature.
Scholise is a strong RefWorks alternative for students who need verified academic sources without institutional access. It combines source finding, AI research synthesis, evidence tables, and citation export in one free-to-start workspace.
RefWorks access is tied to your university subscription. When you graduate or leave an institution that pays for ProQuest, you typically lose access to your RefWorks library. Scholise keeps your projects available with a free plan that does not depend on institutional licensing.
RefWorks is a reference manager for storing citations your library already provides access to. Scholise is a full AI research workspace that finds peer-reviewed sources, builds evidence tables, checks drafts, and exports references — without requiring institutional access.
RefWorks only makes sense if your university pays for ProQuest access and your workflow is reference storage only. For AI source finding, evidence tables, and post-graduation access, most students have moved to free tools like Zotero or Scholise.
RefWorks usage has declined significantly since ProQuest acquired it and moved to subscription-only pricing. Most students who previously used it through institutional access have switched to free alternatives like Zotero or AI-powered tools like Scholise that work without any institutional subscription.
I lost access the month after I finished my degree. Everything I'd saved over three years was gone unless I exported beforehand. That's why I moved to Scholise — my projects stay with my account.
Scholise is free to start and doesn't need a university licence. I use it to find papers and build evidence tables, then export references when I need them.
Only if your library pays and you never leave the institution. I switched to Scholise for lit reviews because RefWorks couldn't search databases or help me synthesise findings.
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