A work plan for systematic review and other synthesis library support is available to facilitate your consultation with a librarian.
Librarian involvement in systematic reviews is a practice recommendation by the Institute of Medicine and leading sources of evidence-based information including Cochrane, the Joanna Briggs Institute and the Campbell Collaboration. Research has shown that librarian involvement in systematic reviews increases the quality of search strategies (Koffel, 2015) and reporting (Meert et al., 2016; Rethlefsen et al., 2015). |
"Work with a librarian or other information specialist trained in performing systematic reviews to plan the search strategy." Standard 3.1.1 of Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews (Institute of Medicine, 2011).
"Expert searchers are an important part of the systematic review team, crucial throughout the review process—from the development of the proposal and research question to publication" (McGowan & Sampson, 2005, p. 74).
Advisory consultation is available to all faculty, staff and students. Additionally, collaboration may be available to faculty, or research teams that include faculty, at the discretion of the librarian based on research quality measures such as whether or not a protocol for the research exists, and other considerations such as the proposed timeframe for the project (see table below).
To meet with a librarian about support for your knowledge synthesis, please complete the consultation request form.
A librarian can advise on the following:
Before your first consultation with a librarian:
You will be asked to complete/provide the following (please give the librarian ample time to review the required documentation).
Please note: the following levels of knowledge synthesis support should be negotiated up-front as to whether the librarian’s contribution will be formally recognized through manuscript acknowledgement or co-authorship.
A librarian may agree to do the following (see table below for review characteristics for librarian collaboration consideration):
Review characteristics for librarian collaboration consideration:
Is the review being conducted under the auspices of a systematic review collaboration (i.e. Cochrane, JBI, Campbell)? |
Has a simliar review already been published recently? |
Can the researcher(s) clearly describe the research question? |
Has the researcher(s) established inclusion and exclusion criteria? |
Does the research question seem manageable in scope (not likely to yield too many eligible studies)? |
Does the research question seem worthwhile (not likely to yield no or too few eligible studies)? |
Does the review type match the research purpose? |
Can the researcher(s) clearly describe the rationale and planned methods of the review? |
Has a protocol been prepared? Will it be registered (e.g. PROSPERO) or published? |
Does the review team plan to follow best practice standards for conducting and reporting reviews such as PRISMA? |
Does the review team agree to a comprehensive search approach (i.e. searching all key databases, employing relatively broad search strategies etc.)? |
Will the screening process involve the decision of two screeners for each item reviewed (at the citation/abstract level and full-text level)? |
Does the research project seem manageable for number of review team members? |
Are the review timelines realistic and feasible? |