Excel Workbooks and User Guides for Systematic Reviews
Updated: May 19, 2022
The workbooks are in the process of being revised. Note that the user guides are not following the same version as the workbooks.
February 28, 2022
Which workbook(s) should you use?
All Excel workbooks are available online.
If you are working on a systematic review by yourself, then the ONLY workbook you will need is One-person-review_Project-name-Excel-workbook.
If you are working on a systematic review and need a means of tracking your literature searches ONLY (i.e. you are using Distiller SR, Covidence, or something similar for study selection), then the workbook you should use is Project-Name-PRIMARY-workbook-lit-searches.
Otherwise, for 2-person reviews, use the:
Project-name_PRIMARY-Excel-workbook-for-two-people;
Cohens-kappa-for-two-people_Project-name_Compiled;
Screening-workbook-for-two-people_Project-name_Compiled;
Reviewing-workbook-for-two-people_Project-name_Compiled.
You will also need special styles for RefWorks or EndNote, depending on which citation management system you use. You can create your own if you know how by customizing the export fields so only the citation ID, item title, and abstract export in a tab-delimited text file.
User guides
All user guides are available online. These include:
EndNote style for Excel SR workbooks
User instructions for EndNote
RefWorks for Excel SR workbooks
User instructions for RefWorks
Excel workbook to track literature searches ONLY
Track literature search user guide
Excel workbook for a one-person review
PRIMARY Excel Workbook for a 2-person review
Cohen's kappa interrater reliability user guide
Screening workbook user guide
Full text review user guide
Additional materials
Resources for reporting findings are also available online, including:
PRISMA flowchart in MS Word
Search strategies template in MS Word