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Covidence: Review & Team Settings

Covidence is a web-based platform that streamlines the process of conducting a comprehensive literature review.

How do I adjust the review settings?

After the review is created and you have added co-reviewers, you can adjust the review settings:

Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title.

Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.

Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Review Settings" and add in the desired information (as shown below) including:

  • Review name
  • Date of last search
  • Search Strategy
  • Your review citation (if updating a previous review)
  • Reviewers required for screen
  • Reviewers required for full text review

Note: You may change this information at any stage in this process.

How do I adjust team settings?

The team settings page provides you with a deeper insight into how your team has been progressing. You can configure each stage of the process to give you more control of who can do what in your review after the review is created.

Adjust the team settings:

Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title

Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.

Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Team Settings" and adjust the Rules, Screening, and Extraction details

Rules
For each stage in Covidence, you can control who performs screening or extraction.  

Full text screening
The "ALL STUDIES MUST BE SCREENED BY EITHER" option lets you define who must screen each study in the stage. You could use this functionality to ensure that an experienced reviewer(s) will screen all studies. In the case where multiple people have been assigned, you could also choose that at least one person in the group screen each study.  

The "CONFLICTS CAN BE RESOLVED BY"  option lets you control who can resolve conflicts during the screening process.  Any reviewer who is a member of this group will have the permission to resolve conflicts.  If no one is assigned to the group then everyone will be able to resolve conflicts.

How do I customize criteria and exclusion reasons?

After the review is created, you can customize criteria and exclusion reasons:

Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title

Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.

Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Criteria & exclusion reasons" and select if you wish to:

a. Manage criteria for screening and full text review
b. Manage exclusion reasons for full text review
c. Manage highlights


a. Manage criteria for screening and full text review

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b. Manage exclusion reasons for full text review

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Note: You have complete control over your exclusion list.  Covidence currently has two ways to customize the list of exclusion reasons.

One way, as shown above in the edit list function from the Settings area
Click the Settings tab, then click Criteria & exclusion reasons.  Click the Manage exclusion reasons button located towards the bottom of the screen in the Manage exclusion reasons for full text review section.
 
Another way, you can edit the list whilst performing full text review
When you vote to exclude a study you will have to select the reason why you feel this study should be excluded. To do this, first click the Exclude button for the study you want to exclude. This action will reveal a dropdown menu asking you to specify your reason for excluding the study. Select the Edit this list option from the dropdown. You'll then see a pop-up prompting you to add an exclusion reason. Enter your exclusion reason in the text box provided and click the Add button. Your new exclusion reason will appear at the top of the list below. Once you've added all of your exclusion reasons, click Done to save your work, dismiss the pop-up and return to Covidence full text screening.


c. Manage highlights

By adding keywords you are telling Covidence to highlight certain words that could indicate inclusion or exclusion. 

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Don't forget to save your changes!

How do I add study tags?

After the review is created, you can customize study tags:

Step 1. From the homepage, select the review's title

Step 2. Click on “Settings” from the review dashboard.

Step 3. On the Settings page, navigate to "Study tags". Here you can add your unique study tags. Customized tags offer a convenient way to quickly add info and keep track of studies. Here you'll see a list of all of the tags currently being used in your review. 


How to manage tags

You can also add tags from the 'Study tags' page under settings. Here you'll see a list of all of the tags currently being used in your review. Each of these has a red button to its right; clicking this button will delete the tag. Existing Covidence tags cannot be edited, only deleted.

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'Awaiting classification' and 'Ongoing study tags'

Covidence comes pre-populated with two tags: Ongoing Study, and Awaiting Classification. These tags have two special properties: First, they cannot be deleted. Second, they are automatically counted and displayed on the PRISMA flowchart. 

Viewing and using your tags

Once created and applied to studies, you can also filter by these tags. This can be especially useful to get a quick count of how many studies received each tag.

Note: The filter function counts and displays only studies in your current list. For example, if I am viewing the Title/Abstract Screening page, the filter will only display studies within the screening list, and will not display studies on the irrelevant list. 

Troubleshooting

For more information, please refer to Covidence’s Review Dashboard and Settings support page which includes further detailed information on:

  • Review dashboard
  • Team settings
  • Removing a co-reviewer from a review
  • Switching from dual- to single-reviewer mode