Systematic Reviews & Other Syntheses

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

• Review this guide to complete the Syntheses Knowledge Check or the Synthesis Labyrinth: Racing the Outbreak escape room version.

• Complete and return the Knowledge Synthesis Work Plan document.

• Provide the protocol for your review, if available.

Librarians offer a two-tiered service for Queen’s University faculty, staff, and students conducting knowledge syntheses. Advisory consultation is available to all faculty, staff and students. Additionally, collaboration may be available to research teams that include at least one faculty member, at the discretion of the librarian.

To meet with a librarian about support for your knowledge synthesis, please book a consultation using our online system.
 

Library Statement Regarding Undergraduate Students

For syntheses undertaken by undergraduate students as part of course work or independent research, the Queen’s University faculty supervisor (or Principal Investigator) must attend the initial meeting with a librarian. This meeting will be used to discuss and decide on best practices for the review to ensure student success in the completion of the project.  

Undergraduate students should contact their liaison librarian directly to schedule consultations:

• Angélique Roy for the Life Sciences, Biochemistry, and Bachelor of Health Sciences programs.

• Amanda Ross-White for the undergraduate Nursing program.

Note: Other students may book with any health sciences librarian using our online system, but must also schedule the first meeting with their faculty advisor/PI.

Syntheses as Course Assignments

Systematic and scoping reviews are a type of literature review with a transparent, rigorous and reproducible methodology. Synthesis research intended for publication will benefit from having a full team of experts including but not limited to methodologists, subject experts, librarians, and statisticians and take an average of 1.25 years to complete (Borah, 2017). As such, there are exercises that can be incorporated into assignments to better equip students to undertake evidence syntheses in their future studies/work without the time and resource constraints of a full review. Please contact a librarian for assistance in drafting evidence synthesis assignments.

Important notes:

• It is out of scope for librarians to:
  • provide step-by-step guidance on how to conduct knowledge syntheses. 
  • provide guidance on statistical analysis for meta-analyses.
  • interpret assignment instructions for students or review their assignment outputs (outside of search strategies). 
• Librarians will meet with review members/teams in an advisory capacity for no more than five (5) total hours.
• Faculty supervisors should give methodological guidance to students before meeting with a librarian to begin the search.
• If you would like to name the librarian who provided support for your review in an acknowledgement or the search methods, please discuss with the librarian first.

Librarians will advise on how to:

• Determine the scope of the project (i.e. is the question suitable for a knowledge synthesis).
• Determine if 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.
• Conduct supplemental search methods for locating studies (hand-searching, searching reference lists and cited reference searching).
• Report search methods according to PRISMA-Search.

Please note: Collaboration with review teams that include faculty members is provided at the discretion of the librarian based on their availability and the review quality considerations in the table below. Librarians follow ICMJE guidelines where collaboration shall include authorship.

As a co-author, a librarian may agree to do the following:

• Determine if a synthesis or protocol on the topic already exists.
• Write or review the search methods for the protocol.
• Develop and execute database/resource-specific search strategies.
• Engage in Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies (PRESS) to enhance search accuracy, comprehensiveness, and quality.
• Rerun searches at a later date, when appropriate.
• Import search results into Covidence review software.
• Advise/assist with search methods for locating grey literature.
• Write the search methods according to PRISMA-Search.

Review characteristics for librarian collaboration consideration: