Welcome!
University of Galway - School of Allied and Community Health is excited to offer current staff, researchers and PhD students access to its school licence to Covidence.
What is Covidence?
Covidence is a web-based software platform that streamlines the production of systematic/scoping/ rapid/literature reviews. It supports reference 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.
Discover more about Covidence at each link:
Import references - Covidence works seamlessly with reference management software such as EndNote (Desktop or Online), or any tool that supports RIS or other file 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. Customisable extraction forms mean you only spend time extracting what you need.
Customise 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 customised 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.
Why use the School of Allied and Community Health access to Covidence?
Unlimited references for each review
Unlimited number of reviewers for each review
Full access to all the functions and features
Before you make a request, please note the following:
Please do not use the school licence to pilot or test a review. If you are exploring the feasibility of a review, please use Covidence’s free trial version instead — ability to screen 500 references/papers and invite one co-reviewer.
When you are ready to proceed with a full review, you can request to transfer your existing review to the school licence.
The number of Covidence reviews available is limited.
Reviews are open to PhD students and staff.
Only the requester will be given access. This person is then responsible for adding other team members and managing the review.
How do I submit a request to get a review started using the school licence?
Please refrain from using your requested review as a test review. You are encouraged to practice and get familiar with the Covidence platform with the 'Demo Review' feature mentioned in the Support section below.
Submit your request via this form
Name of review
Review Type (Systematic, Scoping, Rapid, Umbrella or Literature [other])
Is this your main review or a practice review?
What is the purpose of this review? (Coursework Thesis [MD/PhD], Academic Research Project, Teaching/Education, Personal Learning/Skill Development)
Once approved by the administrator, an email invitation will be sent to you to join your review (you may need to check your spam folder for the invitation if it has not appeared in your inbox): click 'Accept invitation'
Sign in to your existing Covidence account if you already have one with your university email OR sign up for a new account (make sure to use your university email address)
Once you have successfully accepted the invitation to the review, it will appear in a separate section on your account homepage:
You will be able to sign in to your account by visiting: https://www.covidence.org/sign_in
Working with review team members and from other institutions?
With your review made through the licence, you can invite University of Galway and non- University of Galway reviewers to work with you as collaborators on the review.
Support from Covidence
Covidence offers a range of available resources and support to help you along the way with your systematic review process.
To get familiar with how a Covidence workflow works, you are encouraged to try our pre-set Demo review. This will allow you to gain hands-on experience and better understand the process. You will find it at the bottom of your dashboard once you have signed in. Give it a go and feel free to explore!
Getting started with Covidence - video tutorials that guide you through the initial steps to get you started.
Covidence Knowledge Base - home to all of our comprehensive articles, instructions and advice to FAQs. This can be found in-app from the '?' icon in the upper right corner.
Covidence Academy - Learn and understand the essentials of systematic reviews and gain insight with expert-led training and content to guide you through every step of the review process.
Covidence eBook Collection - Download our step-by-step practical guides for Systematic Review Success.
Monthly Open Training Webinars - Join our Community Team for free webinars (registration required) or watch our recent recordings without delay.
Online Support Team- Contact our team directly for support on your review by emailing support@covidence.org
When logged into your account, you can also easily contact the Support Team via the chat icon in the lower left corner.
Maintaining Access to Your Work When Leaving the University
You are required to add a secondary email address before leaving, as this will ensure uninterrupted access to your Covidence account.
If you need to log back into your Covidence account but cannot because you don’t have access to your university email address anymore, please get in touch by emailing support@covidence.org.