*NEW* Online tutorial for Systematic Reviews

The Library has a brand new tutorial available now from the Information Skills Resource .

Getting Started with your Systematic Review: Finding the Evidence will give you all the best advice and guidance you need when embarking on a systematic review, in particular focusing on the literature searching process and helping you to develop your search skills. 

The tutorial covers the key stages involved in a systematic review and offers guidance on the following;

• Defining your research question and using the PICO analysis.
• Constructing a search strategy, including the use of boolean operators and advanced search techniques. 
• Searching for grey literature. 
• Managing your references.
• Critical appraisal and the hierarchy of medicine. 

Check out the tutorial here .  

Ten of the best: 1 The Cochrane Library

One of the things that I am hoping to use this blog for is to promote some of the information resources that I think provide the best evidence for students, staff and researchers in the Med School.

So, I thought I'd tell you what my top 10 resources are, including some old favourites and also a few obscure gems. Take a look and post your comments in terms of ease of use, quality of information and whether you have a preferred alternative to find the same information. I'm kicking off with the Cochrane Library because, if you haven't used this before, it's time you did ...

The Cochrane Library

What is it?

The Cochrane Library contains a number of databases, the primary one being the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. These reviews are produced by Cochrane Groups which bring together the world's healthcare experts to systematically search for and appraise every clinical trial on a given topic. Those that meet the stringent appraisal criteria will then be synthesised together to produce one document of best evidence. Cochrane reviews are widely seen as the gold standard in evidence for healthcare due to their rigorous research methods. The Cochrane Library also gives access to DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects), a resource which aims to index all other well conducted systematic reviews. Finally, a word of warning about systematic reviews. Not all have been well researched and all too often I will see a simple review being published under the guise of  a systematic review.  So, if it's not from Cochrane or DARE, make sure you appraise it well...

Connecting to Cochrane:

www.thecochranelibrary.org gives access from any network connection in the UK. No password is required.

Searching:

Simple, advanced and MeSH searches are all available but because the number of individual documents is much smaller than in a database such as Medline, retrieval is fairly straightforward.

That's all for now,

Vic