After the review is created and you have added co-reviewers, you can adjust the review settings:
Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title.
Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.
Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Review Settings" and add in the desired information (as shown below) including:
Note: You may change this information at any stage in this process.
The team settings page provides you with a deeper insight into how your team has been progressing. You can configure each stage of the process to give you more control of who can do what in your review after the review is created.
Adjust the team settings:
Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title
Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.
Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Team Settings" and adjust the Rules, Screening, and Extraction details
Rules
For each stage in Covidence, you can control who performs screening or extraction.
Full text screening
The "ALL STUDIES MUST BE SCREENED BY EITHER" option lets you define who must screen each study in the stage. You could use this functionality to ensure that an experienced reviewer(s) will screen all studies. In the case where multiple people have been assigned, you could also choose that at least one person in the group screen each study.
The "CONFLICTS CAN BE RESOLVED BY" option lets you control who can resolve conflicts during the screening process. Any reviewer who is a member of this group will have the permission to resolve conflicts. If no one is assigned to the group then everyone will be able to resolve conflicts.
Extraction
You can define similar rules for extraction as you can for screening with some subtle differences.
When you assign reviewers to the "must extract" group, only those reviewers will be able to act as the 1st reviewer for either quality assessment or data extraction. Everyone else in the team will be able to be assigned as the 2nd reviewer.
Reviewers who are members of the "resolve conflcts" group will be able to perform the consensus step for either quality assessment or data extraction. Those that are not members will only be able to complete their own forms or view the final consensus.
Reading the Team Progress bar:
The example below illustrates the overall progress of the team in the title and abstract stage as well as showing the relative contributions of each team member. You can see that Warren has screened 42 studies, Rob has screened 25 and Matt has screened 10. The numbers only reflect the initial screen and does not include any of the consensus votes if they are required.
After the review is created, you can customize criteria and exclusion reasons:
Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title
Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.
Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Criteria & exclusion reasons" and select if you wish to:
a. Manage criteria for screening and full text review
b. Manage exclusion reasons for full text review
c. Manage highlights
a. Manage criteria for screening and full text review
b. Manage exclusion reasons for full text review
Note: You have complete control over your exclusion list. Covidence currently has two ways to customize the list of exclusion reasons.
One way, as shown above in the edit list function from the Settings area
Click the Settings tab, then click Criteria & exclusion reasons. Click the Manage exclusion reasons button located towards the bottom of the screen in the Manage exclusion reasons for full text review section.
Another way, you can edit the list whilst performing full text review
When you vote to exclude a study you will have to select the reason why you feel this study should be excluded. To do this, first click the Exclude button for the study you want to exclude. This action will reveal a dropdown menu asking you to specify your reason for excluding the study. Select the Edit this list option from the dropdown. You'll then see a pop-up prompting you to add an exclusion reason. Enter your exclusion reason in the text box provided and click the Add button. Your new exclusion reason will appear at the top of the list below. Once you've added all of your exclusion reasons, click Done to save your work, dismiss the pop-up and return to Covidence full text screening.
c. Manage highlights
By adding keywords you are telling Covidence to highlight certain words that could indicate inclusion or exclusion.
Don't forget to save your changes!
After the review is created, you can customize study tags:
Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title
Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.
Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Study tags". Here you can add your unique study tags. Customized tags offer a convenient way to quickly add info and keep track of studies. Here you'll see a list of all of the tags currently being used in your review.
How to manage tags
You can also add tags from the 'Study tags' page under settings. Here you'll see a list of all of the tags currently being used in your review. Each of these has a red button to its right; clicking this button will delete the tag. Existing Covidence tags cannot be edited, only deleted.
'Awaiting classification' and 'Ongoing study tags'
Covidence comes pre-populated with two tags: Ongoing Study, and Awaiting Classification. These tags have two special properties: First, they cannot be deleted. Second, they are automatically counted and displayed on the PRISMA flowchart.
Note: For more information PRISMA, please see the PRISMA tab within this research guide here.
Viewing and using your tags
Once created and applied to studies, you can also filter by these tags. This can be especially useful to get a quick count of how many studies received each tag.
Note: The filter function counts and displays only studies in your current list. For example, if I am viewing the Title/Abstract Screening page, the filter will only display studies within the screening list, and will not display studies on the irrelevant list.
For more information, please refer to Covidence’s Review Dashboard and Settings support page which includes further detailed information on:
Questions?
Click the “?” icon directly in the Covidence webpage banner (see below).
E-mail Covidence directly at support@covidence.org, or e-mail a UVic Librarian, mgrenier@uvic.ca.
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