Systematic Reviews

The Press Health Professions Division Library and Tampa Bay Regional Campus Library offer two levels of support for systematic reviews, scoping reviews, integrative reviews, and other knowledge synthesis requests: 

Level 1: Consultations

Please note: at the Consultation Level, researchers are responsible for the search strategy, its translation, and citation management. 

• Available to HPD faculty & students
• Maximum three (3) meetings (60 minutes each)
• The initial consultation can be adapted to the stage of the process the researcher is at in their review.

Examples of what may be covered in the consultation meetings:

• Overview of review process
• Overview of standards and/or best practices (JBI, PRISMA, Cochrane)
• Overview of resources and tools
• Identification of databases for searches
• Identification of resources on advanced searching
• Guidance on EndNote citation management software

Fill out the Systematic/Scoping Review Application to consult with a librarian.

Level 2: Partnership  

• Only available for HPD faculty principal investigators (PIs) 
• In-depth collaboration using appropriate guidelines
• Contribute to protocol development
• Develop the comprehensive search strategy in indexed databases with input from the team
• Translate the search across multiple databases.
• Download and de-duplicate results
• Deliver citations in citation management software
• Recommend sources for hand-searching and other gray literature, if applicable
• Provide basic guidance on screening process including pilot testing
• Instruct how to obtain full text of articles through ILL, if necessary
• Provide publication documentation (Methods section, search strategy for appendix, etc.) 
• Run update of searches prior to publication (as required by standards)

Library Policies for Partnership Level:

• The Primary Investigator (PI) must be an NSU HPD faculty member. 
• This application does not require a completed protocol. However, a full protocol will be required before being added to the waitlist.
• A systematic/scoping review project will require a team of committed members. An assembled team is required in order to be added to the waitlist.
• Creating the search requires an active collaboration between the team members and the librarian. Additional to the initial consultation, other meetings may be required. All meetings & communication for a review project must include the PI.
• The librarian assigned to your project may need anywhere from 1-3 months to develop and test your search strategy, translate it to additional databases, de-duplicate, and deliver the results.
• The entire project must follow established guidelines for conducting as well as reporting the review (JBI, PRISMA, Cochrane).
• The librarian reserves the right to resign from the team if standards for the search and review process are not followed, or if the PI becomes non-communicative.
• It is expected that the librarian will be listed as an author on any publication resulting from the knowledge synthesis. As such, the librarian reserves the right to: (A) review the final draft of the manuscript before it is submitted, and (B) remove their name from the manuscript if desired.
• The application may be declined due to limited librarian availability, concerns about project feasibility, and/or failure to address librarian's comments, requests, or questions.

Fill out the Systematic/Scoping Review Application to partner with a librarian.