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Evidence Synthesis

Open Access Evidence Synthesis Training Materials

Cochrane Interactive Learning provides tutorials for performing systematic reviews on health-related topics. Module 1: Introduction to Conducting Systematic Reviews is free if you sign up for a Cochrane account. 

Cochrane Crowd- “Study Design for Complete Beginners” which you can access at: https://crowd.cochrane.org

Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), offered through Coursera, describes and provides instruction for completing all stages of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

INASP provides a free search strategies tutorial to teach users how to clearly define and describe a search topic, identify suitable search terms, pick the best platform(s) on which to search, and use tools and techniques to refine and modify your search. 

Open Access Evidence Synthesis Software Tools

Rayyan: Free article screening tool 

Zotero: Free citation management tool 

RawGraphs: Free tool for creating appealing graphs

Open Science Framework Preregistration: Free, open source resource for preregistering evidence synthesis protocols, with well-documented guidance on using the tool

SnowGlobe: Free tool for "snowballing" included resources (locating their citations, and those papers that have cited them).  

Open Access Databases and Gray Literature Sources

PubMed

PubMed comprises more than 32 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. The PubMed Trainer's Toolkit contains instruction materials and short tutorials for navigating PubMed. 

SearchRxiv

SearchRxiv (pronounced “search archive”), from CABI Digital Library, is an openly accessible, moderated repository for searches which welcomes submissions from all disciplines. This resource enables individuals to create and permanently store a DOI-stamped record of their search along with key bibliographic information such as title, original date and update dates, a description of the search, keywords, validation information and database details.