Systematic Review Toolbox

Evidence synthesis projects often require a variety of tools to run smoothly. This page is not meant to be a comprehensive list of possible tools. Instead, we recommend the following resource:

The Systematic Review Toolbox is an online catalogue of tools that support various tasks within the systematic review and wider evidence synthesis process. It was developed and founded by Dr Christopher Marshall and Anthea Sutton, launching in 2014. The Toolbox is developed, edited and maintained by a small team of researchers spanning the Review and Information Services team at York Health Economics Consoritum (University of York), the Evidence Synthesis Group at Newcastle University/NIHR Innovation Observatory, and the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield.

For independent screening of records

Covidence: Northeastern recently subscribed to Covidence, the leading software for managing and streamlining evidence synthesis projects. Covidence assists with independent screening and data extraction, and integrates with citation management tools. Sign up for Covidence here. Returning users can sign in using the public Covidence website. For more information on using Covidence, see the Covidence Support page for NU affiliates.

Rayyan: A 'freemium' tool to help authors through the independent screening stages of evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews. Integrates with citation management tools, such as Zotero and EndNote. We have a series of tutorials on using Rayyan.

For citation management

Evidence synthesis projects, by their very nature, involve large numbers of citations. Using a citation management tool to save articles, format citations, and create bibliographies will save you a significant amount of time.

Which citation managers does the library support?

The Northeastern library supports EndNote, Mendeley, RefWorks and Zotero. We also support the use of BibTeX and LaTeX.

Which citation manager should I use?

While citation managers generally have the same basic functions, each one offers some specific features.

Our citation manager comparison chart (below) can help you identify the features that will work best for you. See also our tutorial on choosing a citation manager.