Get help from a medicine librarian
Before you book an appointment about your review, please check our support policy further down this page to understand what we can and cannot help with.
Systematic reviews - Community of Practice
Doing a systematic review? Join our Microsoft Teams site. Its aim is to provide an online community space for researchers to advise and support each other. Ask questions about your review, comment on the articles & resources we suggest and help answer the questions of others.
The site is open to experienced reviewers from across Imperial as well as those who are new to the process.
Covidence - better systematic review management
Covidence is a web-based systematic review management platform with an intuitive interface suitable for students and experienced reviewers alike. It streamlines the processes of citation screening, full text review, risk of bias and data extraction and export, all in an online collaborative environment.
Join under Imperial College's institutional license for unlimited reviews.
Systematic review guidance
Systematic review guide
This guide has been created by the Medicine Liaison Librarian team to support all staff and students at Imperial who are involved in conducting systematic reviews.
- Each section of the guide introduces the activities involved in that step of a systematic review and highlights any necessary documentation or mandatory reporting items relevant to that step.
- Every section provides links to further resources to support the review activities such as specific chapters in guidelines, more detailed guides or useful journal articles.
- Where relevant, tools to manage or support systematic reviews (such as Covidence) are discussed in relation to each review step
NHS staff conducting reviews will also find it useful. Those conducting Scoping and other types of research reviews will be able to use many of the sections to guide activities such as systematic searching and there are further resources on doing these types of reviews. While it mainly focuses on review methods for healthcare contexts, much of the guidance is applicable to reviews in other disciplines.
Systematic review support
The Cochrane Handbook recommends that ‘Review authors should work closely, from the start of the protocol, with an experienced medical / healthcare librarian or information specialist’. Due to the amount of time required to provide these services, and the need to respect course requirements, levels of service for academic staff and students are outlined below and apply for other types of knowledge syntheses such as scoping reviews, rapid reviews and umbrella reviews.
Type of user
Outline of librarian involvement in the process
There are many steps to the process of conducting a systematic review.
The time required to complete a systematic review varies widely. Student projects will have limited time to complete the research, which should be considered when formulating the research question and deciding on the scope/scale of the topic.
For doctoral students, master’s students, and undergraduate students, where the review project is part of your dissertation, thesis or coursework, librarians are available for consultation on the following aspects of systematic reviews; additional help may be available on a case-by-case basis:
- Formulating a suitable research question
- Providing resources to answer other questions about the review process
- Checking for published or in-process reviews on the same topic
- Designing and building the search strategy (including MeSH, Filters etc.)
- Searching grey literature (the librarian may be able to suggest suitable sources and provide guidance on how to search these sources, as well as advice on citation searches, hand searching, or contacting key individuals/organizations/companies in a subject area)
- Reviewing keywords, syntax, MeSH/Subject Headings, wildcards etc.
- Advising on reference management, screening and deduplication of search results
Five steps to systematic review / project support:
- Start: Research Methods (VLE)
- Explore: Subject Support – Medicine & Medical Biosciences (e.g. systematic review flowchart, literature searching tutorial )
- Engage: MS Teams – Community of Practice
- Questions: Email – lib-med-liaison@imperial.ac.uk
- Consult: Online Consultation * – Book a 1:1 appointment
*Once the literature is scoped and you have begun your searches, you may need more in-depth advice relating to your specific search strategy and question, this is the time to book a 1:1 consultation with a Medical Liaison Librarian.
Consultation
Before the first meeting with the librarian, students will be expected to have consulted the Library’s Literature searching tutorial.
If available, a draft review protocol with the following information, should also be provided:
- Background justification for the review
- Draft research question
- Draft inclusion and exclusion criteria
Information about the review process, including links to many external sources of advice and support, can be found in Systematic review guide.
Using this service
If you require a consultation, please book an online appointment.
Outline of librarian involvement in the process
There are many steps to the process of conducting a systematic review.
Researchers are encouraged to visit the Systematic Reviews Community of Practice, where questions, answers, experiences and best practice can be posted among fellow peers engaged in the review process.
Librarians may be available for consultation on the following aspects of systematic reviews; additional help may be available on a case-by-case basis:
- Formulating a suitable research question
- Providing resources to answer other questions about the review process
- Checking for published or in-process reviews on the same topic
- Designing and building the search strategy (including MeSH, Filters etc.)
- Searching grey literature (the librarian may be able to advise on searching suitable sources, citation searches, hand searching, etc.)
- Reviewing keywords, syntax, MeSH/Subject Headings, wildcards etc.
- Advising on reference management and deduplication of search results
- Advising on screening of results and the PRISMA flow
- Signposting for information on publishing, Open Access etc.
Consultation
Before the first meeting with the librarian, staff will be expected to have consulted the Library’s Literature searching tutorial.
If available, a draft review protocol with the following information, should also be provided:
- Background justification for the review
- Draft research question
- Draft inclusion and exclusion criteria
Information about the review process, including links to many external sources of advice and support, can be found in the Systematic review guide.
Follow up
Librarians can provide ad hoc feedback on the strategy and advise on; issues with search terms, syntax, and structure; translation of the search strategy to other databases; citation management (e.g., exporting and deduplication of search results)
Nb. EndNote is the default software recommended for Systematic Reviews
Librarians can also advise on the use of Covidence, systematic review management software for screening and review of search results.
Updating systematic reviews
As a systematic review may take many months, it is likely that any searches conducted will need to be rerun in order to capture relevant articles published in the intervening period. The librarian can advise on this process as necessary.
Systematic review software
Covidence (Imperial resource)
Covidence is a web-based systematic review management platform created in collaboration with Cochrane to manage screening and data collection, for individuals or multiple authors.
Key benefits include:
- Streamlines production of systematic reviews by supporting collaboration and keeping decision making and documentation in one place, safe and easy to access for the whole team
- Students and experienced reviewers alike will find it intuitive to use and it can be used to do a full systematic review or support a literature review done in a systematic manner
- Imperial users can invite external reviewers (e.g. from an NHS Trust or other university) to be co-reviewers, even if those reviewers do not have access to Covidence via their own institution
The key steps supported by Covidence are:
Import of citations from a range of reference managers and de-duplication of study citations (with manual override), title and abstract level screening, full-text review, risk of bias assessment, extraction of study characteristics and outcomes, export of data into RevMan and Excel and of references into reference management software.
Join under Imperial College London institutional licence for unlimited reviews.
