Various tools and resources are highlighted on the pages of this guide. They are compiled here with simple descriptions. Additional links and resources are listed. Most tools and resources are used for greater efficiency and more accurate tracking of information. Explore them to see what will best fit your team's workflows.
Tools
Systematic Review Toolbox: community-driven, searchable, web-based catalogue of tools that support various tasks within a systematic review.
Bibliography Managers: used to track references
Spreadsheets: used for more manual method of deduplicating, screening, coding, etc.
Rayyan: free collaborative tool used for screening
DistillerSR: fee-based, collaborative tool used for deduplicating, screening, coding, and overall process management
Sumari: fee-based, collaborative tool used for deduplicating, screening, coding, and overall process management
OpenMeta[Analyst]: free software used for meta-analysis
metafor: the meta-analysis package for R
EPPI Tools: suite of systematic review tools provided by The Evidence for Policy and Practice Information
Abstrackr: a free web-based screening tool that can prioritize the screening of records using machine learning techniques.
CADIMA: a free web tool facilitating the conduct and assuring for the documentation of systematic reviews, systematic maps and further literature reviews.
Colandr: an open access machine-learning assisted online platform for conducting reviews and syntheses of text-based evidence.
Rayyan: a free web-based application for collaborative citation screening and full-text selection.
RobotAnalyst: a free web-based application that uses machine learning and text mining for literature screening in systematic reviews.
Covidence: fee-based, collaborative tool used for deduplicating, screening, coding, and overall process management.
Covidence Academy: a tutorial website for using the Covidence systematic review tool.
SWIFT Active Screener: a subscription-based online collaborative systematic review software application.
Systematic Review Data Repository (SRDR): a freely accessible collaborative, web-based repository of systematic review data.
Resources
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (step-by-step guidebook)
PRISMA Statement (see checklist and flow diagram)
PROSPERO: an international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care, welfare, public health, education, crime, justice, and international development
Campbell Collaboration: an international network publishing high quality, transparent and policy-relevant evidence synthesis and maps in the social sectors.
Cochrane Registry: an independent international not-for-profit organization, dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare readily available worldwide.
OSF Registries: a scholarly repository built for sharing, searching, and aggregating registrations of research.
Things to Consider
Databases
References
Littell, J.H., Corcoran, J., & Pillai, V. (2008). Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis. Oxford University Press.
University of Minnesota's Resources for Conducting a Systematic Review Libguide.
Siddaway, A. P., Wood, A. M., & Hedges, L. V. (2019). How to do a systematic review: A best practice guide for conducting and reporting narrative reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 747-770. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102803
Paez, A. (2017) Gray literature: An important resource in systematic reviews. J Evid Based Med. 2017; 10: 233– 240. https://doi.orr/10.1111/jebm.12266
Bramer, W. M., Giustini, D., de Jonge, G. B., Holland, L., & Bekhuis, T. (2016). De-duplication of database search results for systematic reviews in EndNote. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 104(3), 240–243. https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.3.014
Kwon, Y., Lemieux, M., McTavish, J., & Wathen, N. (2015). Identifying and removing duplicate records from systematic review searches. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 103(4), 184–188. https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.4.004
Qi, X., Yang, M., Ren, W., & Jia, J. (2013). Find Duplicates among the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library Databases in Systematic Review. PLoS ONE 8(8): e71838. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071838
Rathbone, J., Carter, M., Hoffmann, T., & Glasziou, P. (2015). Better duplicate detection for systematic reviewers: evaluation of Systematic Review Assistant-Deduplication Module. Systematic Reviews, 4(6), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-4-6
Gates, A., Guitard, S., Pillay, J., Elliott, S. A., Dyson, M. P., Newton, A. S., & Hartling, L. (2019). Performance and usability of machine learning for screening in systematic reviews: a comparative evaluation of three tools. Systematic reviews, 8(1), 278. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-019-1222-2
Gates, A., Johnson, C., & Hartling, L. (2018). Technology-assisted title and abstract screening for systematic reviews: a retrospective evaluation of the Abstrackr machine learning tool. Systematic Reviews, 7(1), 45. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-018-0707-8
Harrison, H., Griffin, S. J., Kuhn, I., & Usher-Smith, J. A. (2020). Software tools to support title and abstract screening for systematic reviews in healthcare: An evaluation. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 20(1), 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-020-0897-3
Tsou, A. Y., Treadwell, J. R., Erinoff, E., & Schoelles, K. (2020). Machine learning for screening prioritization in systematic reviews: Comparative performance of Abstrackr and EPPI-Reviewer. Systematic Reviews, 9(1), 73. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01324-7
Van der Mierden, S., Tsaioun, K., Bleich, A., & Leenaars, C. (2019). Software tools for literature screening in systematic reviews in biomedical research. ALTEX, 36(3), 508–517. https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.1902131
Foster, M. J., & Jewell, S. T. (2017). Assembling the pieces of a systematic review: Guide for librarians. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.