Rapid review methodology aims to facilitate faster conduct of systematic reviews to meet the needs of the decision-maker, while also maintaining quality and credibility. This systematic review aimed to determine the impact of different methodological shortcuts for undertaking rapid reviews on the risk of bias (RoB) of the results of the review.…

Introduction and aim: NICE guideline surveillance determines whether previously published guidelines need updating. The surveillance process must balance time constraints with methodological rigor. It includes a rapid review to identify new evidence to contradict, reinforce or clarify guideline recommendations. Despite this approach, the screening…

While geographic search filters exist, few of them are validated and there are currently none that focus on Germany. We aimed to develop and validate a highly sensitive geographic search filter for MEDLINE (PubMed) that identifies studies about Germany. First, using the relative recall method, we created a gold standard set of studies about…

When searching for scholarly documents, researchers often stick with the same familiar handful of databases. Yet, just beyond these limited horizons lie dozens of alternatives with which they could search more effectively, whether for quick lookups or thorough searches in systematic reviews or meta-analyses. Searchsmart.org is a free website that…

This study utilizes COUNTER 5 data from the University of Dayton (UD) to measure full-text retrievals of e-journal articles from five major academic journal publishers (Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Oxford, Wiley, and Springer). Usage data from these publishers' e-journals within EBSCO is compared to the same content when accessed from publisher…

We read with considerable interest the study by Gusenbauer and Haddaway (Gusenbauer and Haddaway, 2020, Research Synthesis Methods, doi:10.1002/jrsm.1378) comparing the systematic search qualities of 28 search systems, including Google Scholar (GS) and PubMed. Google Scholar and PubMed are the two most popular free academic search tools in biology…

This bibliometric study aims to map the value education model research to provide direction for future research, especially in education and teaching. It is essential because value is the core of education. After all, in addition to opening the window of knowledge, education also has a role in transferring values for internalizing them in the…

Rigorous evidence identification is essential for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (evidence syntheses) because the sample selection of relevant studies determines a review's outcome, validity, and explanatory power. Yet, the search systems allowing access to this evidence provide varying levels of precision, recall, and reproducibility and…

We researchers have taken searching for information for granted for far too long. The COVID-19 pandemic shows us the boundaries of academic searching capabilities, both in terms of our know-how and of the systems we have. With hundreds of studies published daily on COVID-19, for example, we struggle to find, stay up-to-date, and synthesize…

Background: Qualitative research in dementia improves understanding of the experience of people affected by dementia. Searching databases for qualitative studies is problematic. Qualitative-specific search strategies might help with locating studies. Objective: To examine the effectiveness (sensitivity and precision) of 5 qualitative strategies on…

Introduction: The number of systematic reviews of health economic evaluations (SR-HEs) is increasing. We aimed at providing a detailed overview of the characteristics and applied methods in recently published SR-HEs. Methods: We searched MEDLINE (03/2017) for SR-HEs published since 2015 using validated search filters. We included studies that…

The article reports on a systematic method of undertaking a literature search on the educational impact of being a young carer (16-24 years old). The search methodology applied and described in detail will be of value to academic librarians and to other education researchers who undertake systematic literature searches. Seven bibliographic…

This paper presents a financial statements analysis (FSA) project that integrates Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters in an introductory MBA accounting course. The project introduces students to leading financial databases that are used in practice and helps them to understand how such databases can be effectively leveraged to analyze both the financial…

Using text mining to aid the development of database search strings for topics described by diverse terminology has potential benefits for systematic reviews; however, methods and tools for accomplishing this are poorly covered in the research methods literature. We briefly review the literature on applications of text mining for search term…

Introduction: Registration and publication of trial protocols has become increasingly important and a requirement in some sources of funding and publication. Increased access to protocols yields many potential benefits, but there are issues regarding identification of published protocols. The aim of this investigation is to compare methods of…