Support
Librarians at TMU Libraries provide training, expertise, and support to students, faculty, and staff who are conducting evidence synthesis projects, such as literature and systematic reviews.
To learn more about conducting reviews at TMU:
View details of our evidence synthesis support service
Consult our libguides on systematic and literature reviews
Take a self-paced online course designed to help users effectively conduct research for literature and systematic reviews
Book a research consultation with your subject liaison librarian
Covidence offers monthly training webinars (registration required), along with 24-hour methodological or technical support at support@covidence.org. Covidence Academy is also a great resource containing useful ‘How to’ guides, step-by-step videos on Covidence features, and helpful links to additional resources. Their Knowledge Base can help you with Getting Started with Covidence, or you can refer to their online video tutorials for assistance. Logged into your Covidence account and need help? Click the question mark in the upper right hand corner to access support.
What is Covidence?
Covidence is a web-based tool that will help you through the process of screening your references, data extraction, and keeping track of your work. It is particularly useful for researchers conducting a systematic review, meta-analysis or clinical guideline.
In Covidence you can:
Import references - Covidence works seamlessly with your favorite reference managers like EndNote, Zotero, Refworks, Mendeley or any tool that support 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 means you only spend time extracting what you need.
Customize risk of bias - Automatically populate your risk of bias tables by highlighting and commenting on 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.
Demo review - Covidence provides a demo review space much like a sandbox space for users to familiarise themselves with the workflow and options in Covidence.
How to join TMU’s Covidence institutional license
Help! I am new to Covidence:
Enter your information (using your @torontomu.ca email address) and click the "Request Invitation" button.
Accept the invitation in your email - check your spam folder if the invitation doesn't arrive in a few minutes. Please also keep in mind that the link is one-time use and will expire in ~30 days.
Sign up for a new account using your TMU email address, which will automatically link you to TMU. Do not use SSO to create the account.
I already have a personal Covidence account (free or paid) using my @torontomu.ca email address and want to join the TMU institutional subscription:
Do not create another Covidence account.
Enter your information (using your @torontomu.ca email address) and click the “Request Invitation” button.
Accept the invitation in your email – check your spam folder if the invitation doesn’t arrive in a few minutes. Please also keep in mind that the link is one-time use and will expire in ~30 days.
Log in to your existing Covidence account which will automatically link you to the TMU institutional subscription.
I already have a Covidence account (free or paid) with a non-torontomu.ca email and want to join the TMU institutional subscription:
Do not create another Covidence account.
Simply add your TMU email address to your existing account (sign in to your Covidence account and go to 'Profile' to do this) and make this your primary email address, as shown here. You can now request an invitation to join the new organizational subscription.
Enter your information (using your @torontomu.ca email address) and click the “Request Invitation” button.
Accept the invitation in your email – check your spam folder if the invitation doesn’t arrive in a few minutes. Please also keep in mind that the link is one-time use and will expire in ~30 days.
Log in to your existing Covidence account which will automatically link you to TMU.
You can also use this flowchart to help you decide how to proceed.
Need more help? Contact refdesk@torontomu.ca
Creating a review using the Toronto Metropolitan University Library’s unlimited license
After clicking the link “Create new review” you will have the option to use your personal account license or select the TMU account.
Reviews created under the institutional license will be visible to the administrators of the TMU Covidence account. Your personal account review(s) will only be seen by you.
If you have created a review or accepted an invitation to another institution’s account review, the title will appear in a separate section on your account homepage.
Working with review team members from other institutions?
Once a review is created, you are able to add co-reviewers.
1. From the homepage (Your reviews), select the review you wish to add co-reviewers to and click on “Settings”
From the review Settings, navigate to “Add/remove reviewers”
Click on “Invite another reviewer” and enter your reviewer’s first name and email addresses to invite them
Note: Please refer to TMU Libraries’ Electronic Resources Terms of Use for more information on copyright and licensing and sharing full-text articles.
Happy Reviewing!