UCF Research Guides: Systematic Reviews for Social Sciences &amp; Education: Systematic Review Planning

Guidelines & Registries (selected list for Social & Behavioral Sciences)

Several evidence synthesis guidelines, protocols, and registries are available to researchers. Resources included in this guide focus on Social & Behavioral Sciences areas. Searching protocol registries as an initial planning step minimizes the risk of multiple reviews addressing the same research questions. Developing a protocol provides the guidelines and plan for conducting and reporting an evidence synthesis project. Registering a protocol communicates the initial plans for an evidence synthesis project and reduces unintended duplication of effort by others.

Campbell.Collaboration
"International Social Science research network that publishes systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis sources in the social and behavioral sciences to promote evidence-based policy and practice."
Cochrane
"International, not-for-profit organization that collaborates to produce & disseminate trusted systematic reviews aimed at helping people make well-informed healthcare interventions."
Cochrane Handbook
"Official guide detailing the process of preparing and maintaining Cochrane systematic reviews for healthcare interventions."
Evidence for Policy & Practice Information Center (EPPI)
"The EPPI Centre’s mission is to promote and support collaborative, rigorous evidence for a fairer world .." and evidence synthesis methods. EPPI Center is based at University College London.
JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis
"The JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis is designed to provide authors with a comprehensive guide to conducting JBI systematic reviews. It describes in detail the process of planning, undertaking and writing up a systematic review using JBI methods."
Open Science Framework (OSF)
OSF i"s an open source software project created by the Centre for Open Science to increase reproducibility in research. The OSF allows users to create project folders, pre-register study protocols, and store data and code files for public access."
Preferred Reporting Items for Sys Reviews & Meta-Anayses
PRISMA guidelines aim to help authors improve reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. "PRISMA primarily focuses on the reporting of reviews evaluating the effects of interventions but can also be used as a basis for reporting systematic reviews with objectives other than evaluating."
PRISMA Checklist
"Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses."
PRESS Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies
"The PRESS Guideline provides a set of recommendations concerning the information that should be used by librarians and other information specialists when they are asked to evaluate electronic search strategies developed for systematic reviews ..."
PROSPERO
PROSPERO is an international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care, welfare, public health, education, crime, justice, and international development, where there is a health related outcome. Key features from the review protocol are recorded and maintained as a permanent record. PROSPERO aims to provide a comprehensive listing of systematic reviews registered at inception to help avoid duplication and reduce opportunity for reporting bias by enabling comparison of the completed review with what was planned in the protocol."
What Works Clearinghouse Sys Reviews
"WWC has been a central and trusted source of scientific evidence on education programs, products, practices, and policies. We review the research, determine which studies meet rigorous standards, and summarize the findings. We focus on high-quality research to answer the question “what works in education?”

Software Tools (selected list)

Covidence, JBI Sumari, and similar tools listed below are available to researchers to manage evidence synthesis projects (protocol development, reviewing/screening, populating risk of bias tables, data extraction) and interface with citation managers such as EndNote and Zotero.

Citation Management Software

UCF Librarians provide support for EndNote and Zotero citation management tools that can be used to import/export citations and full text and dedupe and organize sources.