University Libraries Systematic Reviews Policy
Idaho State University Libraries are committed to supporting the research efforts of students, faculty and staff of ISU. The Librarians are able to provide tiered services for systematic type reviews; Tier 1: Librarian Consultations & Tier 2: Librarian Co-Authorship. These efforts include the provision of print and digital resources, as well as a host of services.
The University Libraries acknowledge that, increasingly, Health Sciences Librarians are requested to perform some form of systematic reviews for ISU faculty and students within health sciences and health sciences adjacent disciplines. These searches, which are often required for external grant applications, constitute a specialized service and are time and labor intensive. Outlined below are the types of services and availability, given present staff levels.
Tier 1: Librarian Consultations
Subject librarians may provide up to 3 hours of consultation to the research team on:
- Methods and standards for reviews
- Sources of studies: databases, grey literature, registers, and contacting authors
- Identifying keywords and constructing an effective search query
- How to validate a search query
- Executing searches and exporting results
- Recommendations for bibliographic management (ex. Zotero, EndNote)
- Recommendations for automation tools for screening (ex. Sumari, Covidence)
Tier 2: Librarian Co-Authorship
(not available under current staffing model)
A librarian will join the research team as a collaborator and co-author who is primarily responsible for data collection (gathering studies). Secondary responsibilities and authorship will be determined by the research team. The librarian will:
- Recommends automation tools for workflow/screening (ex. Sumari, Covidence)
- Work with the research team to develop a clear and focused research question
- Work with the research team to identify keywords
- Construct and validate the search query
- Execute and document the literature search
- Export bibliographic records into a bibliographic record manager (ex. Zotero, EndNote)
- De-duplicate search results
- Present the research team with the initial data set for screening
- Contribute to the methodology section of the manuscript
- Provide supplementary materials for reproducibility of the search strategy
Eligibility
The Tier 2: Librarian Co-Authorship service is available to research teams producing and publishing scoping reviews, mapping reviews, literature reviews, systematic review or meta-analysis.
The research team must agree to register a research protocol.
The research team must agree to sign a Memorandum of Understanding which outlines the responsibilities of the librarian and establishing co-authorship.
Librarians will not co-author any piece of research or scholarship that will be submitted for a grade.