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Systematic Reviews

Comprehensive Evidence Synthesis Service

Librarians can partner with Duke Health faculty, students, and staff to author systematic reviews, scoping reviews, or other comprehensive literature searches. Please review our policies and information below to get started.

Policies

Requirements for getting started

  • A protocol with key PICO questions delineated. If not immediately available, you can use the Literature Search Planning Form for each question.
  • Completion and submission of the Literature Search Planning Form, which should include:
    • Contact information for a content expert who can answer questions.
    • 5-10 relevant citations to articles you would expect to find from the literature search.

Policies

  • Given the expertise and significant time commitment involved in this work, it is our policy that librarians' contribution be recognized with co-authorship of manuscripts when appropriate.
  • Priority is given to current Duke Health faculty, staff, and students.
  • Projects in which there are authors from many institutions will be considered if the Duke author is the project lead.
  • For academic projects, the librarian will work with the learner and/or the faculty member to determine what parts of the project must be completed by the student to meet the learning objectives for the academic project, and how to balance librarian expertise and contributions.
  • We will consider society projects on a case by case basis and reserve the right to decline if it is not in accordance with our other policies.
  • The Library will maintain records related to a systematic review for 7 years. Research teams are responsible for complying with any data sharing or archiving policies.

Costs

  • Comprehensive searches are a specialized service that are time and labor intensive.
  • Investigators submitting requests for comprehensive literature searches for projects with external grant funding are expected to include library effort in the grant.
  •  Costs are based on librarian effort and can be covered via percentage of effort or billed hours. Note: sponsored projects can only be based on effort, not billed hours.
  • Fees are waived for individual faculty, residents, staff, and students who do not have external grant funding for the research project.

Partner with a Librarian - Tiers of Service

Role

Tasks

Tier 1: Consultative

Tier 2: Research Partner / Co-author

Topic Development

Guidance on process and steps

Yes

Yes

 

Background searching for past and upcoming reviews

Yes

Yes

Development of Eligibility Criteria

Development and/or refinement of review topic

Yes

Yes

 

Assistance with refinement of PICO (population, intervention(s), comparator(s), and key questions

Yes

Yes

 

Guidance on study types to include

Yes

Yes

Protocol Creation and Registration

Guidance on protocol registration

Yes

Yes

Searching

Identification of databases for searches

Yes

Yes

 

Instruction in search techniques and methods

No

No, librarian runs the searches

Point to resources on searching

Yes

N/A, librarian runs the searches

 

Development and execution of searches

No

Yes

 

Downloading search results to citation management software

No

Yes

Uploading results to systematic review screening software and inviting team members

No

Yes

 

Documentation of search strategies

No

Yes

 

Management of search results

No

Yes

Study Selection and Extraction

Guidance on screening methods

Yes

Yes

Screening abstracts for inclusion

No

No

 

Guidance on screening software (e.g., Covidence)

Yes

Yes

Identifying PDFs and uploading them to screening software

No

Shared with team; librarian uses full-text finder in citation mgmt tool (finds about 30%); the team locates the remaining PDFs

Writing and Publishing

Suggestions of journals to target for publication

Yes

Yes

 

Drafting of literature search description in "Methods" section

No

Yes

 

Drafting of literature search appendix

No

Yes

 

Review other manuscript sections and final draft

No

Yes

 

Librarian contributions warrant co-authorship

No

Yes