Systematic Reviews & Evidence Synthesis Methods

UT librarians offer systematic review consultation services for individuals and research groups. We can help with...

• Translating a research question into an effective search strategy
• Locating existing systematic reviews and protocols to give you background information for your work
• Maximizing the balance between search precision and retrieval 
• Selecting databases for systematic searching
• Advising on grey literature search strategies
• Strategies and tools for saving, managing and exporting search results and citations

Levels of librarian support and how to credit

Much of the work a librarian does to assist researchers falls under their everyday job responsibilities. However, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses, often require greater librarian involvement and include the librarian as a partner in the research project. When these levels of assistance lead to a published paper, it is appropriate to credit the librarian. 

Note: If you would like to have a librarian's involvement as a partner in the project, you should find out in advance about the librarian's willingness/availability to participate at that level of commitment.

We've compiled some basic guidelines on what to expect as usual support and at the level of including the librarian as a co-researcher.  Also, the guidelines show how to credit the librarian at these different levels of involvement.

• Uncredited = regular librarian work
  • Overview of review process and best practices
  • Identifying keywords and databases
  • Recommending tools
  • Single consultation
• Acknowledgement or Contributor note = regular librarian work + significant support
  • Troubleshooting search strategy
  • Data management consultation
  • More than one consultation
• Authorship = one or more of the following
  • Using search strategy or filter developed by librarian
  • Help registering a protocol
  • Citation retrieval and management
  • Hand searching for articles
  • Assisting with paper's methods section
  • Section edits