Strengthen Your Review Work with Covidence

Are you about to start a systematic review, or do you need a powerful tool for screening, data extraction, and managing your literature?
Covidence makes the review process easier, more visually accessible, and less time-consuming.

Developed in collaboration with Cochrane, Covidence supports the entire literature review workflow—from importing references and checking for duplicates to title/abstract screening, full-text assessment, data extraction, and quality appraisal. To help you get started, SDU's Library has created a Covidence guide featuring:

• Step-by-step getting-started instructions
• Best-practice tips for the screening process
• Workflow overviews and role distribution in review teams
• Answers to the most frequently asked questions
• Contact options, courses, and workshops if you need support

The guide is particularly relevant for researchers, PhD students, and students working with systematic or scoping reviews across disciplines, as Covidence is designed specifically for these review types.

“Covidence supports the structured processes required for these kinds of reviews: multi-stage screening, duplicate management, conflict resolution, appraisal, data extraction, and flow documentation such as PRISMA. But it can definitely also be used for other types of literature reviews, even if the process does not follow a full Cochrane approach,” says Mette Brandt Eriksen, Research Librarian, Department of Outreach and Teaching.

She recommends considering Covidence when you need:

• a systematic and transparent screening process
• documentation of the selection process
• reduced manual workload

Covidence is also especially well-suited for collaborative review work, offering an unlimited number of reviewers as well as built-in features for quality assessment and data flow.

“We invited the library to a research meeting in our media studies group focused on different types of reviews, as we—as PhD supervisors and in our own research—wanted to learn more about tools that support systematic reviews. It was extremely helpful to have a walkthrough from Mette Brandt Eriksen, a resource we sometimes forget is right next door,” says Anette Grønning, Associate Professor, Department of Design, Media and Educational Science. 

• Read more in The Covidence guide
• The Library offer sparring support and guidance for your review process, literature search strategies, and use of  Covidence: SDU staff and students; contact Berit Elisabeth Alving or Mette Brandt Eriksen. OUH staff; contact e-tss@bib.sdu.dk.