Glasgow Caledonian University - Research Centre for Health is delighted to announce it has purchased an institutional licence for Covidence. The licence is open to all staff and students at the University. This is a 1-year pilot (24 July 2023 to 23 July 2024) to understand usage across the institution and the benefits that the tool can provide for researchers involved in evidence synthesis reviews. If you have any questions regarding this trial or the administration of Covidence please email reach@gcu.ac.uk.

Covidence is a web-based software platform that streamlines the production of systematic/scoping, rapid and evidence-synthesis reviews. It supports citation screening, full-text review, risk of bias assessment, extraction of study characteristics and outcomes, and the export of data and references.

The interface is intuitive and suitable for students and experienced reviewers. Covidence can save time on repetitive review tasks, enabling faster review production and more time for analysis and interpretation. 

In Covidence you can:

  • Import references - Covidence works seamlessly with your favourite reference managers like EndNote, Zotero or any tool that supports RIS, CSV or PubMed XML formats. Covidence can automatically remove duplicates for you.
  • Screen title & abstract - Breeze through screening with keyword highlighting & a lightning-quick interface. Covidence keeps full records of who voted and supports single or dual screeners.
  • Bulk PDF import - Transfer PDFs stored in your reference manager to Covidence in a few clicks. 
  • Screen full text - Decide quickly on studies in full text. Capture reasons for exclusion and any notes so you can resolve any disagreements quickly, with a click of a button.
  • Create forms - Be in control and stay focused on your PICO question. Customizable extraction forms mean you only spend time extracting what you need.
  • Customize risk of bias - Automatically populate your risk of bias tables by highlighting and commenting on the text directly in your PDF.
  • Conduct data extraction - Extract data efficiently with a side-by-side view of your customized form and PDF. Then, when you are done, easily compare your form with other reviewers.  
  • Export - Covidence exports to all the common formats so you can continue your review in your preferred software. 
  • Collaborate - You can invite other reviewers (including external colleagues) to work with you on the project.

 

Benefits to GCU Pilot access to Covidence?

  • Unlimited records for each review
  • Unlimited number of reviewers for each review
  • Unlimited number of reviews

Watch the bespoke 4-minute Introduction to your Covidence video with steps on how to join and start a review

How to join GCU Pilot institutional licence:

You can create your personal account sign-in information with Covidence before or after joining the institutional licence account. To request access, you must use your GCU domain email address (@gcu.ac.uk / @gcal.ac.uk / @caledonian.ac.uk) 

  1. Go to https://app.covidence.org/organizations/7Po25/signup
  2. Enter your information (using your GCU email address) and click the "Request Invitation" link
  3. An email invitation will be sent (may need to check your spam folder): Click Accept Invitation
  4. Sign in if you already have a personal account with your university email address or sign up for a new account (recommended using your university email as this will make it easier to affiliate with your university's licence) 

After creating a personal Covidence account and joining the University's licence account, you will be able to sign in from anywhere by visiting: https://www.covidence.org/sign_in

Starting a review within the GCU licence account:

  1. Sign in to Covidence
  2. Select the 'Start a new review' button
  3. Under 'Which account do you want to use?', MAKE SURE TO SELECT - 'Glasgow Caledonian University - Research Centre for Health (Pilot)'

If this was not selected, please contact support@covidence.org to request your review to be amended. 

Reviews created using the university licence will only be visible to Covidence subscription administrators at the university.

Reviews created by you are only accessible to you and your invited reviewer team.

Once you have created a review or accepted an invitation to another university account review, the title will appear in a separate section on your account homepage:

Support

Covidence offers a range of available resources and support to help you along the way with your systematic review process. 

Getting started with Covidence - Video tutorials that guide you through the initial area to get you started.

Covidence Knowledge Base - Home to all of our comprehensive articles, instructions and advice to FAQ.

Covidence Academy - Combines all of our learning material into a single space. You can easily navigate to find the latest ‘How to’ guides on the different types of review processes, step-by-step video tutorials on all stages of Covidence stages, and helpful links/tools to additional resources. 

Online Support Team - Contact our team for support on your review by emailing support@covidence.org

When logged into your account, you can also easily contact the Support Team and the comprehensive articles from our Knowledge Base within Covidence by clicking the 'Need help?' button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.