Automation tools to support undertaking scoping reviews

Khalil, Hanan; Pollock, Danielle; McInerney, Patricia; Evans, Catrin; Moraes, Erica B; Godfrey, Christina M; Alexander, Lyndsay; Tricco, Andrea; Peters, Micah DJ; Pieper, Dawid; Saran, Ashrita; Ameen, Daniel; Taneri, Petek Eylul; Munn, Zachary

doi:10.1002/jrsm.1731

Automation tools to support undertaking scoping reviews

journal contribution

posted on 2024-11-13, 04:43 authored by Hanan KhalilHanan Khalil, Danielle Pollock, Patricia McInerney, Catrin Evans, Erica B Moraes, Christina M Godfrey, Lyndsay Alexander, Andrea Tricco, Micah DJ Peters, Dawid Pieper, Ashrita Saran, Daniel Ameen, Petek Eylul Taneri, Zachary Munn

OBJECTIVE: This paper describes several automation tools and software that can be considered during evidence synthesis projects and provides guidance for their integration in the conduct of scoping reviews.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: The guidance presented in this work is adapted from the results of a scoping review and consultations with the JBI Scoping Review Methodology group.

RESULTS: This paper describes several reliable, validated automation tools and software that can be used to enhance the conduct of scoping reviews. Developments in the automation of systematic reviews, and more recently scoping reviews, are continuously evolving. We detail several helpful tools in order of the key steps recommended by the JBI's methodological guidance for undertaking scoping reviews including team establishment, protocol development, searching, de-duplication, screening titles and abstracts, data extraction, data charting, and report writing. While we include several reliable tools and software that can be used for the automation of scoping reviews, there are some limitations to the tools mentioned. For example, some are available in English only and their lack of integration with other tools results in limited interoperability.

CONCLUSION: This paper highlighted several useful automation tools and software programs to use in undertaking each step of a scoping review. This guidance has the potential to inform collaborative efforts aiming at the development of evidence informed, integrated automation tools and software packages for enhancing the conduct of high-quality scoping reviews.

Funding

No funding was received for this work. ACT is funded by a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Synthesis. ZM is supported by an NHMRC investigator grant APP1195676.

History

Publication Date

2024-06-17

Journal

Research Synthesis Methods

Volume

15

Issue

6

Pagination

12p. (p.839-850)

Publisher

Wiley

ISSN

1759-2879

Rights Statement

© 2024 The Author(s). Research Synthesis Methods published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.