Poster Abstract

1. Teaching systematic reviews
Clare Crowley, King's College London, clare.crowley@kcl.ac.uk
John Gale, King's College London, john.r.gale@kcl.ac.uk
At the start of 2012 Library Services at King’s College London will launch a training
programme to support staff and students conducting systematic reviews. There is an
increasing level of demand for help with reviews from students on taught
postgraduate, final-year undergraduate courses and NHS staff. Information Specialist
are already providing individual guidance for students and researchers so the course
arises naturally out of this and the training materials we already provide. Further
research for the course was carried out by attending academics’ teaching sessions on
systematic reviews and by commissioning a course from York University’s Centre for
Reviews and Dissemination and the Cochrane Library. Teaching sessions will be
three hours long and will comprise:
• a short Powerpoint presentation explaining the background to systematic reviews
• a demonstration of some of the databases students might use to search for
information
• analysis of a Cochrane search strategy
• a ‘beyond Medline’ section on sources of grey literature, conference proceedings etc
• information about how students might use bibliographic software to organise their
search results
• tips on how students can document their search strategies
• practical exercises throughout the session
Students have courses on statistics as part of their studies so the aim of the course was
to concentrate on the search process and its documentation. The teaching sessions will
fit in well with other Library Service training sessions on Information Retrieval,
Bibliographic Software and Critical Appraisal to form a coherent package of courses
and will be supported by a web page and training materials. Pilot courses will be held
in November and December with the courses being launched as an integral part of the
College’s training programme in the New Year. Our poster will contain material from,
and evaluation of, the course and feedback from students.