University of Pretoria is delighted to offer all current staff, researchers and students access to a 2-month trial institutional-wide licence to Covidence from 13th March 2024 to 13th May 2024.

Covidence is a web-based software platform that streamlines the production of systematic/ scoping/ rapid/ literature reviews. It supports citation screening, full-text review, risk of bias/quality assessment, extraction of study characteristics and outcomes, and the export of data and references. The platform interface is intuitive and can save time on repetitive review tasks, enabling faster review production and more time for analysis and interpretation. 

You can:

  • 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. clicks. Note that University of Birmingham reviewers are cautioned to not share a review, that would provide access to the full text of articles obtained through University of Birmingham subscriptions or inter-library loan, to reviewers who do not already have the same legal access to those materials.  Please contact the Copyright and Licensing Team in Library Services if you have any questions regarding sharing these materials.
  • 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.
 
Why join the trial licence access to Covidence?
  • Unlimited records for each review
  • Unlimited number of reviewers for each review
  • Unlimited number of reviews

How to join the trial licence:

Create your user personal account with Covidence before or after joining the trial licence account. To request your email invitation to get access, you must use your valid institutional email address (@up.ac.za / @tuks.co.za)

  1. Go to - request your email invitation to join
  2. Enter your information (using your institutional email address) and click the "Request Invitation" link
  3. An invitation will be emailed to you (you may need to check your spam folder): Click "Accept this invitation"
  4. Sign in if you already have an existing personal Covidence account with your institutional email address or sign up for a new account

After successfully joining the licence, you will be able to sign in by visiting: https://www.covidence.org/sign_in

 

Starting a review under the trial licence account:

  1. Sign in to Covidence 
  2. Select “Start a new review”
  3. Under 'Which account do you want to use?", make sure to select "University of Pretoria - Trial Access..."

Reviews created using the institutional account will be visible to Covidence subscription administrators. Reviews created using your personal account are only visible to you. 

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

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 can try our pre-set Demo review. This will allow you to have a hands-on experience and understand the process better. 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 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. New and novice users can easily navigate to find the latest ‘How to’ guides on the different types of review processes, step-by-step video tutorials on the 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.