Ebling Library's Systematic Review Service offers support for systematic  and scoping reviews, as well as other evidence synthesis projects to those affiliated with a UW-Madison health sciences school (SMPH, Pharmacy, or Nursing) or UW Health. We offer two tiers of support for reviews, each with different levels of effort and expectation. 

Tier 1: Consultation Services

For our consultation services, we appreciate an acknowledgement in the final research product(s).

Eligibility: All current faculty, staff, residents, fellows, and students affiliated with a UW-Madison health sciences school (SMPH, Pharmacy, or Nursing) or UW Health are eligibile for this level of service. 

Librarians will provide up to 5 hours of support to advise or consultation on the following:

• Best practice resources for the review process and reporting.  

• Database selection. 

• Search strategy creation and reporting. 

• Your team's search strategy approach, including a general look at search structure and syntax, and completeness of the strategy. Please note that we will not assist in creating or translating the searches, or conduct a formal peer review of the search strategy. 

• Using Covidence for the management of the systematic review process. 

Tier 2: Collaboration as a co-author

When participating at this more involved level of service, librarians fulfill the ICMJE criteria for authorship and therefore would be listed as a co-author on any resulting research product(s).

Eligibility: Ebling's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlines the full criteria for librarian collaboration. We will review the MOU during the initial consultation with your team. Please note that any exceptions to the eligibility criteria will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. To request an exception, please contact Ebling's Systematic Review Team.

In addition to Tier 1 services, Tier 2 includes all or some of the following activities:

• Assistance with adhering to standards for conducting and reporting systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis projects.

• Search strategy development based on the research question.   

• In conjunction with the review team, selection of appropriate databases based on the research question.

• Writing the information sources/database list and search strategy sections of the protocol.  

• Conducting the literature searches and providing search results in an agreed upon format.   

• Deduplicating records prior to screening.  

• Assisting in the organization of retrieved references, and management of reference and/or review software.   

• Maintain records of search results and follow up with alerts and updates as needed during the project timeline.   

• Performing automated full-text retrieval (Covidence full-text bulk upload) upon request.  

• Training project team's administrative staff or designated team member on methods for manual full-text retrieval (i.e., accessing additional full text articles or utilizing UW-Madison's interlibrary loan service).   

• Documenting all work and assisting with the manuscript writing process, particularly the search methods section, PRISMA flow diagram, and other relevant documentation (e.g. search strategies for supplemental material).