A work plan for systematic review and other syntheses library support must be completed and shared twenty-four (24) prior to your consultation with a librarian.
The purpose of this guide is to connect you with useful information and resources for embarking on a systematic review or other type of synthesis. Librarian involvement in systematic reviews is a practice recommendation by the Institute of Medicine and leading sources of evidence-based information including Cochrane and JBI. 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). There is a separate research guide for conducting traditional literature reviews. |
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:
Librarians will advise on how to:
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:
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 the same 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 comprehensive 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 the number of review team members? |
Are the review timelines realistic and feasible? |