Evidence Synthesis Reviews (Systematic, Scoping, etc.)

Librarian involvement in evidence synthesis reviews including systematic/scoping/rapid reviews is a practice recommendation by the leading sources of evidence-based information including Cochrane, JBI and the Institute of Medicine (IOM).  Research has shown that librarian involvement in reviews increases the quality of search strategies. Involvement may take the form of consultation/guidance on evidence synthesis review searching, or where appropriate, co-authorship as a member of the review team.

To book a consultation with a librarian about support for your review project, please use our online booking form. Librarians support specific faculties and departments, and your request will be routed to the person who supports your research area. Please do not contact multiple librarians about the same project.

Before the first consultation with a librarian, you will be asked to complete and provide the following, at least one (1) weekday before the scheduled meeting:

• If this is your first review, complete the review roadmap to orient yourself to systematic and scoping reviews (approximate time: 20 minutes)
• Complete and return the review consultation questionnaire below.

If this is a supervised student project/thesis/dissertation, ensure your supervisor is available to attend the consultation. It is strongly recommended that faculty supervisors attend the initial consultation along with the student.

Librarian Support for Evidence Synthesis Reviews

Librarians offer advisory consultation on evidence synthesis review searching to faculty, staff and students at the University of Calgary. Please be aware that crafting and running search strategies for students, trainees, staff and/or faculty is not a service Libraries and Cultural Resources provides.

Librarians will advise on how to:

• discover whether a review or protocol on the same topic already exists
• formulate the review question
• determine appropriate databases/resources to search
• develop a comprehensive search strategy including translation across databases
• perform a search update
• conduct grey literature searches
• report search methods according to PRISMA

It is out of scope for librarians to:

• provide step-by-step guidance on how to conduct evidence syntheses.
• provide supervision/mentorship; staff and students will be redirected to their PI, instructor or supervisor.
• provide guidance on meta-analysis, quality appraisal or data extraction and analysis.
• interpret assignment instructions for students or review their assignment/project outputs.
• retrieve full-text articles for review and screening
• conduct searches for projects on which we are not co-authors
• conduct formal peer review of search strategies using PRESS
  

The final search is the responsibility of the team, and therefore the team should be knowledgeable about how to conduct systematic searches.  If you would like to name the librarian who provided support for your review in an acknowledgement or the search methods, you must discuss with the librarian first.

Librarians primarily provide guidance on the searching aspect of reviews. If students or their supervisors do not have previous experience in evidence synthesis reviews, we strongly recommend taking one of the following free online courses:

• Advanced Research Skills: Conducting Literature and Systematic Reviews.  A short free online course book published by Ryerson University for graduate students to develop proficiency in literature and systematic reviews.
• Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis free course from Johns Hopkins University. This course focuses on systematic reviews and meta-analysis of clinical trials.
• Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis – free open course from Carnegie Mellon University, developed with the Campbell Collaboration. This course is a good option for those whose review topics are more aligned with social sciences than with medicine.

The Library also offers systematic review workshops from time to time. Check our workshop calendar and under the "Category" filter select "Systematic Reviews."

As academic staff, librarians may choose to join a review team as a co-author, where the PI is a UofC faculty member. Such collaborations are at the discretion of the librarian and are based on their availability and interest in the topic of each review. Librarians follow ICMJE guidelines where collaboration shall include authorship.

Acknowledgement: Some of this content was adapted with permission from Queen's University Library.