Health Sciences - Postgraduate and Research Support: Systematic and Scoping Reviews

Source: Covidence (n.d.)

Source: Mellor (n.d.)

Webinars from start to finish: Creating a Review

Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions

Covidence Knowledge Base (Support Information and Resources)

From Arksey and O’Malley and Beyond: Customizations to enhance............

JBI Evidence Synthesis Resources

Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework

Quality Assessment Systematic Review

Source: National Institutes of Health (NIH) 

Image source: JBI (2020)

Source: Covidence (n.d.)

• Open Science Framework (OSF) 

"An open source, multidisciplinary web application that connects and supports the research workflow. Researchers use the OSF to collaborate, document, archive, share, and register research projects, materials, and data. OSF can be used to pre-register a systematic review protocol and to share documents such as a Zotero library, search strategies, and data extraction forms.

Disciplines: All

Unlike other registries, evidence synthesis author teams do not submit their protocols for review by an editorial board before they are accepted and pre-registered on OSF. Instead, create your own pre-registration (instructions here).

OSF has a Generalized Systematic Review Registration Form that is designed for use across disciplines and evidence synthesis types (e.g., scoping reviews, meta-analysis). Check out an example of a pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis protocol here.

• Cochrane

  "Our mission is to promote evidence-informed health decision-making by producing high-quality, relevant, accessible systematic reviews and other synthesized research evidence. Our work is internationally recognized as the benchmark for high-quality information about the effectiveness of health care."

Disciplines: Healthcare

• Campbell Collaboration

  "The Campbell Collaboration promotes positive social and economic change through the production and use of systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis for evidence-based policy and practice."

Disciplines: Business and Management, Crime and Justice, Disability, Education, International Development, Knowledge Translation and Implementation, Methods, Nutrition, and Social Welfare

• Collaboration for Environmental Evidence

  An open community of stakeholders working towards a sustainable global environment and the conservation of biodiversity. CEE seeks to promote and deliver evidence syntheses on issues of greatest concern to environmental policy and practice as a public service.

Disciplines: Environmental issues

• PROSPERO

  An international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care. Key features from the review protocol are recorded and maintained as a permanent record. (Does not accept scoping reviews)

Disciplines: Health and Social Care, Welfare, Public Health, Education, Crime, Justice, and International Development."

Source: Cornell University (2024)

• INPLASY

"Accepts a wider variety of protocols, including scoping reviews. Retrospective protocol registration is possible but is strongly discouraged.  Protocols are usually published within 48 hours" (Covidence, n.d.). 

• International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

An International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) is a stable, unique identifier used to identify a protocol or proposal (RR1 papers) and link it to all subsequent results papers (RR2 papers). The IRRID is based on the DOI of the protocol paper (See What is a Registered Report? and Elements of an IRRID. Click link for more information.

• Research Registry

"Iincludes all types of research studies including systematic reviews. Allows prospective and retrospective registrations (Covidence, n.d.). . 

Distiller Reviews (2025)