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Click here to log into Covidence: https://app.covidence.org/sign_in
Need Help?
Go to the Covidence Help Pages
Go to the Covidence YouTube Channel
Click to request Covidence help from a Baylor Librarian
From a Baylor Librarian
Creating a Review
From the Covidence homepage, you can create a new review by clicking on the blue box in the top left that says "start a new review." You'll be prompted to create a unique title for your review as well as what type of review you are hoping to conduct. The last step will be for you to select which account you want to use to create the new review under. You should select "Baylor University Libraries" since there will be unlimited access under this account. If you accidently choose the account with your name it will allow only the trial version of Covidence which has certain limitations and you may not be able to transfer this review to the Baylor subscription.
Below is a video which walks you through setting up a new review.
Joining a Review
A systematic review cannot be completed without collaboration! Because of that, Covidence easily supports bringing teams together regardless of whether they are affiliated with Baylor.
When you create a new review you will be taken to a page and prompted to add team members vie the "invite another reviewer" button in the blue box to the right.
You will be asked to enter the person's name and email address. This does not need to be a Baylor email address since reviews are often completed by teams with members across multiple institutions. Anyone invited that is not affiliated with Baylor will have full access to the review they have been invited to but will not be able to create new reviews under the Baylor University account. You may change or invite new reviewers at anytime, however, by clicking on "Settings" from the homepage and then clicking on "Reviewers."
Those you have invited will receive an email with a link to access the invitation page. That person will need to login with the email they want to have associated with that review. This does not have to be the same as the email that was provided for the invite Once they have accepted the invitation the review will appear in their Covidence homepage.
Review Settings
To manage and establish settings for your review, click on the "Settings" box at the top right of the homepage for the review you wish to manage. From this area you can adjust the general review settings, add or remove reviewers, change team settings, record the inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as create study tags.
In the review settings, you can edit or change your review title or type, add a citation for your review, and set rules such as the numbers of reviewers required for title/abstract screening, full text review, and data extraction. This is also the area where you can record your search strategy. With just a small text box, consider adding a link to a google doc containing the search strategy instead of pasting it here. The last important part of this section is the option to change your preferred data extraction template from 2.0 to 1.0. More information on these two templates can be found at the link below.
How to decide when to use Data Extraction 1.0 vs Data Extraction 2.0
The Reviewers tab, is where you can remove team members or invite others. At the bottom you will see updates on the status of any invites you have sent, whether they may have expired or are still awaiting acceptance.
In the Team Settings you are able to monitor how your team is moving through the review as well as set certain rules for each stage. Progress bars are displayed for each step and show the number of studies completed, those that still need to be finished, and any conflicts. There are also settings here for adding rules for screening and conflicts such as selecting a team lead for resolving conflicts or that must screen every study. Further explanation of this section can be found at the link below.
The Criteria & Exclusions Reasons section is where you will add your review inclusion and exclusion criteria according to your protocol or review plan. This is an important area to fill out so that all team members my remind themselves of the criteria while screening. Once you've added these options, you'll see a "show criteria" button at the top of the screening page. Below this area is a link for your to manage your exclusion reasons for full text review and manage your highlights. The full text review option controls what reasons will appear from a drop down menu when you decide not to include a study at the full text stage, whereas "highlights" are key terms that when highlighted might make your screening processes more efficient.
More useful information about the highlights feature can be found at the link below.
The last area in the Covidence settings is the Study Tags tab. This section allows you to add tags that allow you to add important info to particular studies or keep track of certain issues such as duplicates. Important information on this feature, including how to add tags to a study once you've created them, can be found at the link below.
