Many tools are available to help with different steps in an evidence synthesis project. Some tools are free, some tools are free but have additional components that may have a fee involved, and some are only fee-based tools. The university does not subscribe to any tools. Any subscription fees would need to be covered by faculty, departments/colleges, or grants.
Below are three tools representative of the types of tools available.
Covidence is one of the more comprehensive resources as it allows for title/abstract screening, full-text screening, data extraction, and quality assessment. Covidence is a fee-based tool; however, if you have a project with no more than 500 records, Covidence can be used for 1 evidence synthesis project.
Rayyan is another comprehensive resource. Unlike Covidence, it doesn’t help with the data extraction or quality assessment. It supports scoping and literature reviews more effectively than Covidence. There is a free option with a limit of 3 reviews and unlimited reviewers. This is a good option to learn about Rayyan.
Colandr is an open-source tool. It overlaps with Rayyan and Covidence by covering gaps that each tool individually has. It doesn’t provide the critical analysis element that Covidence provides. As an open-source tool, it is free to use.
There is a chart with many of the tools available to assist you with your evidence synthesis projects. This chart is not updated or reviewed on a specific schedule.
