Systematic Reviews & Evidence Synthesis
This is a cross-disciplinary guide providing training materials and resources for conducting systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis projects like scoping reviews, evidence maps, and more.
Statements in this guide should be recognized as generalized advice for broad audiences. Consult relevant methodological and reporting guidance documents.
- Cochrane Infographic - What Authors Do in a Systematic Review
What Authors Do
1) Identify the issue and determine the question
2) Write a plan for the review (protocol)
3) Search for studies
4) Sift and select studies
5) Extract data from the studies
6) Assess the quality of the studies
7) Combine the data (synthesis or meta-analysis)
8) Discuss and conclude overall findings
Resulting in a systematic review for dissemination.
You can check out this and more infographics from Cochrane at their website.
Before You Start
Seven Starting Steps
Before you start the evidence synthesis process, you need to work through initial steps to identify project viability, scope, and type.
- Team - Systematic reviews and most other evidence synthesis require a research team
- Timeline - Evidence synthesis projects generally need 6-24 months to complete
- Exploratory Searches - Locate existing and planned evidence synthesis reviews on the topic, "seed articles" for the review, and get a sense of the project's scope
- Type - Select an evidence synthesis project type that matches your research goals, resources, and the available evidence
- Tools - Identify tools including a citation manager, screening software, and text editing software that all team members can access
- Guidelines - Identify both the appropriate methods and reporting guidelines for your project type
- Publication - Identify a potential publication venue and their requirements
- Evidence Synthesis Review: Work PlanUse this work plan to guide and document your project planning from conception through initial search design. This is not a replacement for a formal protocol.
This work plan was created by Elizabeth Yates, Kymberly Ash and Jessi Robinson under the terms of a CC-BY-SA-NC license. The search table content is based on a mining seed papers and search development template created by Alix Hayden and Zahra Premji, also licensed CC-BY-SA-NC-4.0. This work plan was altered by Anna Ferri and shared under a CC-BY-SA-NC license.
Graduate Students
If you're a graduate student thinking about a systematic review, scoping review, evidence map or other evidence synthesis project for your thesis/dissertation, identify your plan for dealing with these starting steps.
Acknowledgment
This guide is informed by materials created by Sadie Skeels (formerly at CSU) and the Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guide from Cozette Comers and the University Libraries at Virginia Tech.
This work was developed by Anna Ferri (anna.ferri@colostate.edu) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License unless otherwise noted on a specific visual or other content item.
Did you use this guide or materials from it for teaching your class, lab team, research group or other people how to do an evidence synthesis project? Do you have a suggestion or did you notice a problem? Please let us know!
Evidence Synthesis Librarian
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1019
(970) 491-1146
anna.ferri@colostate.edu
Get Expert Help
The CSU Libraries offers expert evidence synthesis project support for systematic reviews, scoping reviews, evidence maps, and more.
- Request a consultation on methods and process
- Request a search strategy review
- Request a classroom, lab group, or other small group training
- Attend a scheduled workshop
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