Guides: Evidence Synthesis (Systematic Reviews): Evidence Synthesis Service

Overview of the Evidence Synthesis Service

The Holman Biotech Commons offers two levels of service for evidence synthesis assistance:

For our Education-oriented service, librarians provide consultations and workshops covering the processes, best practices, and library supported tools for evidence synthesis projects.
For the Advanced service, librarians are members of the research team and co-authors of any resulting publications. They create and execute in-depth literature searches, write the literature search methodology, and review the final paper for publication.

**Librarian roles for evidence synthesis support**
Education-oriented Service	Advanced Service (also includes Education-oriented services as needed)
Consult on evidence synthesis process and guidelines	Develop a preliminary search strategy in conjunction with team members
Assist with topic refinement and initial search strategies	Conduct literature searches across multiple databases and create files of the results
Assist with defining inclusion and exclusion criteria	Advise on grey literature resources
Recommend resources to search	Refine and update searches as necessary
Assist with identification of appropriate search terms	Write the search methodology section for the publication
Advise on citation management and screening tools	Review the final manuscript for publication as a co-author

Who can use the Evidence Synthesis Service?

The Education-oriented Service is open to current faculty, staff, and students at Penn or Penn Medicine.

The Advanced Service is open to research teams under the leadership of current faculty at Penn or Penn Medicine. Staff and students cannot utilize the Advanced Service unless they are working with a faculty member serving as the primary investigator. (See additional requirements to the right)

Is there a fee for this service?

This service is free. However, priority will be given to projects supported by grants or other funds, contributing to library costs in the grant proposal's budget.

What about CHOP?

Members of the CHOP community who also have faculty status at Penn can use the service as described above. All other CHOP affiliates should contact the CHOP library.

What if I am not doing research in healthcare?

Our service supports evidence synthesis in many disciplines, including social sciences, business, education, communications, and environmental science. If you need support for an evidence synthesis project or just want to explore this type of research further, please request a consultation or contact your subject librarian.

How long does it take?

Evidence synthesis projects take between 6-18 months to complete depending on librarian and research team availability. Use the PredicTER tool to see how long the steps of a typical evidence synthesis project might take.

How do we get started?

Evidence synthesis is time intensive and requires a high level of intellectual effort. We recommend involving the librarian early in the process. Please review the Evidence Synthesis (Systematic Reviews) webpage, and descriptions for each service, then Schedule a meeting with a librarian to discuss your project.

If you are considering the Advanced Service, please see the additional requirements on the right.

What are the requirements for the Advanced Service?

A team of at least three people including a Penn faculty member. If you are planning to include a meta-analysis, there should be a methodologist and/or statistician on your research team.
A clearly defined research question
A list of possible inclusion and exclusion criteria
A research protocol must be completed before the final search results are delivered. See the Protocol section of this guide for further information on writing and registering a protocol.
Completion of the forms listed below:

Evidence Synthesis Request Form
Use this form to request to be added to the work queue for the Evidence Synthesis Service. Please review the documents below before submitting your request.

Project Plan
A brief description of your research so that librarians can get started developing search strategies.
Terms of Agreement for Systematic Review Service
If you request that librarians provide Advanced Systematic Review Service to your team, the responsibilities of both parties defined in the Terms of Agreement for Systematic Review Service are expected to be fulfilled.

Workflow for a typical Evidence Synthesis Project using the Advanced Service

Times are approximate based on librarian and research team availability, the complexity of the question, and the number of databases to be searched

Meet with librarian to discuss the parameters of the project and whether it is appropriate for the Advanced Service
Submit Evidence Synthesis Form, Project Plan, and Terms of Agreement
If necessary, the librarian will conduct a preliminary search to inform the protocol (2 weeks)
Team begins the process of writing and registering their protocol, librarian attends meetings as necessary
Librarian develops a more comprehensive preliminary PubMed search and sends to the team for review (2 weeks)
Librarian updates the PubMed search based on team feedback (1-2 weeks)
Protocol is complete and registered
Librarian translates and runs the approved PubMed search in other databases (2-4 weeks)
Librarian delivers search results and search methodology (including all strategies) (2-4 days)
Team screens, extracts data
Team writes manuscript
Librarian updates searches (if necessary) (2 weeks)
Librarian reviews manuscript (1 week)
Team submits manuscript, librarian is listed as co-author and participates in the journal review process