Knowledge synthesis purpose, process, tools, and resources
The Cochrane Collaboration notes that research has shown that a partnership with a health sciences librarian or information specialist increases the quality of the review's search process. Librarian support is, therefore, available to members of the York University community. One category applies to students and the other to faculty. Please note that there are two levels of support for faculty, Tier 1 and Tier 2.
For Students
General consultation. Librarian consultation for assistance with knowledge-synthesis focused course work and term projects with an objective to learn how to do systematic searching, record keeping and managing search results.
Before booking a consultation with a librarian, please be prepared to provide them with your approved research question and inclusion/exclusion criteria prior to your meeting.
Librarians, when appropriate, will instruct individuals or groups on projects requiring comprehensive searching - it might include any combination of:
constructing a comprehensive search strategy from a research question
assistance translating the strategy to other databases
alternative ways of searching for evidence such as snowball technique, cited reference searching, etc.
recording the search strategy
managing research results using citation management tools such as Zotero
Tier 1: In-depth consultation for faculty
Librarian consultation for assistance with a knowledge-synthesis focused research project with an objective to support researchers preparing for publication:
Librarian will instruct individuals or research groups on comprehensive searching for systematic or scoping reviews on:
constructing a comprehensive search strategy from a research question
translating the strategy to other databases
pointing researchers to literature to assist with record keeping
managing research results using citation management tools such as Zotero or EndNote
helping with and refering Covidence questions and issues
Tier 2: Librarian-Faculty Co-Authorships
Librarian participation as co-researcher in systematic reviews for publication (with research faculty teams)
For any involvement by a subject librarian at Tier 2, researchers will need to confer with them one-on-one. Librarian participation is dependent on availability and time, and will form part of a librarian’s research time.*
Librarian will work with the researchers and join the research team as a co-author to:
Develop a research strategy and test the vocabulary in Medline based on the research question(s) – in consultation with the principle investigator
Review the strategy and results with principle investigator
Translate the approved strategy into the syntax and vocabulary of other databases chosen for the review
Run the searches, download the results and deduplicate in EndNote or other citation manager
Send the RIS files from EndNote to the PI for downloading into Mendeley (or EndNote) for screening and uploading into Covidence
Write the Methodology section for the search
Deliverables:
RIS files
Methodology section for publication
Medline Search Strategy for the Appendix
*Please note that the significant increase in the demand for librarian expertise in systematic reviews has increased the wait time for librarian participation as co-researcher in knowledge synthesis research.