UPDATE: The trial has been further extended to 30th November 2024. 

The University of the Witwatersrand is delighted to offer all current staff, researchers and students access to a trial institutional-wide licence to Covidence from 15th August to 30th November 2024.

Please note: There is an opportunity to request an additional 12 months of access to continue and complete your work on the review you started during the trial. At the end of the trial, we'll send a survey email to users who participated and worked on a review to gather their feedback and requests for extended access. Keep an eye out for this survey email!

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.
  • 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 UotW trial licence access to Covidence?
  • Unlimited records for each review
  • Unlimited number of reviewers for each review
  • Unlimited number of reviews

 

How to join UotW trial licence account:

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 (@wits.ac.za / @students.wits.ac.za)

  1. Go to - request your invitation page
  2. Enter your information (using your university email address) and click the "Request Invitation" link
  3. The invitation will be emailed to you (you may need to check your spam folder if it does not appear in your inbox within a few minutes): Click "Accept this invitation"
  4. Sign in if you already have an existing personal Covidence account with your university email or sign up for a new account (using your university email)

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 the Witwatersrand - Trial Access..."

 

Reviews created using the institutional trial access 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 trial access 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 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 area to get you started.

Covidence Knowledge Base - home to all of our comprehensive articles, instructions and advice to FAQs.

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.

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 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.