Literature Review Tips & Tools

Free online brainstorming/mindmapping tool that also has a free iPad app.

Another free online mindmapping tool.

Gives several suggestions and descriptions of ways to organize your lit review.

"The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions is the official guide that describes in detail the process of preparing and maintaining Cochrane systematic reviews on the effects of healthcare interventions. "

"PRISMA is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. PRISMA focuses on the reporting of reviews evaluating randomized trials, but can also be used as a basis for reporting systematic reviews of other types of research, particularly evaluations of interventions."

Free tool that will generate a PRISMA flow diagram from a CSV file (sample CSV template provided)

"Rayyan is a 100% FREE web application to help systematic review authors perform their job in a quick, easy and enjoyable fashion. Authors create systematic reviews, collaborate on them, maintain them over time and get suggestions for article inclusion."

Covidence is a tool to help manage systematic reviews (and create PRISMA flow diagrams).
**UMass Amherst doesn't subscribe, but Covidence offers a free trial for 1 review of no more than 500 records. It is also set up for researchers to pay for each review.

"PROSPERO accepts registrations for systematic reviews, rapid reviews and umbrella reviews. PROSPERO does not accept scoping reviews or literature scans. Sibling PROSPERO sites registers systematic reviews of human studies and systematic reviews of animal studies."

Joanna Briggs Institute at the University of Adelaide provides these checklists to help evaluate different types of publications that could be included in a review.

"The Systematic Review Toolbox is a community-driven, searchable, web-based catalogue of tools that support the systematic review process across multiple domains. The resource aims to help reviewers find appropriate tools based on how they provide support for the systematic review process. Users can perform a simple keyword search (i.e. Quick Search) to locate tools, a more detailed search (i.e. Advanced Search) allowing users to select various criteria to find specific types of tools and submit new tools to the database.

Although the focus of the Toolbox is on identifying software tools to support systematic reviews, other tools or support mechanisms (such as checklists, guidelines and reporting standards) can also be found."

Free, open-source tool that "helps you upload and organize the results of a literature search for a systematic review. It also makes it possible for your team to screen, organize, and manipulate all of your abstracts in one place."
-From Center for Evidence Synthesis in Health

An open-source tool for extracting, managing,, and archiving data developed by the Center for Evidence Synthesis in Health at Brown University

A revised Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomized trials