Our Services
Our team of information specialists use established guidelines when advising research teams about the systematic review process. The Library offers two service levels for systematic reviews: basic support (free) and full support (charged). Both services start with a free of charge intake interview. Not sure which service is right for you? Don’t worry. Your information specialist is happy to discuss which one is most suitable for your needs during the intake interview.
Please complete the form below and one of our information specialists will contact you to schedule an intake interview (without costs). We aim to respond within 1 working week. If you haven’t received a response two weeks after submission, please contact us by email (ub-sysrev@maastrichtuniversity.nl).
NOTE: This service is only available for staff. Bachelor and Master students working on a review for their thesis can make use of our online walk-in support hours (via this Zoom-link) on Fridays 10.00-11.00.
Systematic review support request form
Basic support
This option offers a free consultation on the following topics:
- development of an effective research question
- discuss your search term selection optimized for one database
- recommend databases to include in the search
- review your search strategy
- provide instruction on advanced database searching techniques
- provide instruction on the use of citation management software (Endnote) for organizing retrieved references.
Note that the information specialist does not perform the search, (s)he only provides guidance and feedback. In order to develop a decent quality search strategy within the basic support, a reasonable level of experience with systematic literature searching is required. You can prepare by working through our modules on scientific literature reviews and advanced literature searching and attending our search strategy workshop (only related to biomedical/health science for now).
Full support
The second option expands significantly on the basic support. Similar to the basic support package, the information specialist will help you to:
- develop an effective research question
- develop a search strategy optimized for one database
- select other appropriate database to include in the search
- review the overall search strategy.
Moreover, the information specialist will advice and help you to:
- translate your optimised search to other databases
- run the final searches in the selected databases
- combine all search results in one Endnote library.
The final product of the full support is an Endnote library containing all bibliographic records identified in the search.
Background
Academic reviews serve as a solid basis as to establish the latest state of affairs on a specific topic. Authors of scoping reviews, systematic reviews and meta-analyses should aim to include all available relevant studies. The systematic literature search therefore needs to be of the highest quality.
Strict guidelines for literature search are laid out in the Prisma Statements, Cochrane Handbook, JBI Reviewer’s Handbook and PRESS process in the PRESS statement. These guidelines dictate that, at the very least, two databases need to be searched with a highly sensitive and complete search strategy.
The UM Library Information specialists are experts in the efficient execution of systematic literature searches. Research indicates that support by an information specialist increases the quality of the literature search and reporting of the search (Meert et al., 2016; Roffel, 2015; Rethlefsen et al.,2015).
“Librarians bring expertise to the review process based on their understanding of the medical literature, search methods, and review guidelines and standards. Their neutrality and expertise can help minimize bias in the review process, leading to more robust and unbiased review articles”
Rethlefsen, Murad & Livingston (in JAMA, 2014, p. 1000)
Testimonials
Unfortunately, not all PubMed-fights could be resolved but I’m still more confident about the search that we ended up with!
At the end of my scoping study, I presented it again to the librarian. I found his tips and assessment of my work, in a relatively short time, very valuable.
The librarian came to the rescue by suggesting some useful ways of tracing relevant publications (snowballing) but also helped me brush up on my search strategy and offered tips on making it more efficient.
It is recommendable to consult the library when starting a systematic review.
