Thread by @patchedelbows

4 years of supporting these as an allied health librarian; sometimes great, sometimes a nightmare. If General advice I'd give to faculty 🧵...

https://twitter.com/bergney/status/1488560045591699457

1. Don't call them SR's, your students will freak out if they read anything about proper SRs. If you want students to go through the motions of an SR go for something like Systematised/structured Lit Review and emphasize the difference

2. Involve a librarian before thinking about setting them. Your students will need taught input but loads will need individual training and help. Do they have the capacity to provide this?

3. Structure what good librarian support should look like. Lots will need help scoping a review pre-approval (is it viable? original? etc.) and then guidance on search strategy and sifting

4a. Don't assume there's literature out there on a topic because you feel there should be. There often isn't and approving an unviable lit-based project is unfair; you're setting them up for frustration and failure

4b. And if your librarian has advised a student a project isn't viable back them up (or better be explicit that they can and should give that advice). Do not get mad at them if they tell a student a topic won't work when you've approved it - that's on you not them

5. Ask your librarian to provide example search strategies with commentary - if supervisors don't understand what they're looking at how are they going to assess it?

6. Never assume, imply or infer that lit-based projects are easier or take less time. The hours they would have spent doing data collection, transcribing etc. will now be spent searching and sifting. Give students realistic timescales for each step

7. Don't assume a more complex search strategy is better than a simple one; some topics can use a simpler search because of the nature of the question, others necessitate a really complex search

8a. Set realistic and explicit boundaries; how many papers do you expect them to include? what timescales? what types of papers? But be explicit that many of these will make this not an SR

8b. But also tell them what to do when they hit those boundaries; if after sifting they've got too many papers what should they do? Pick out most recent? Best papers? Adapt question? Change inc/excl criteria?

9. Lastly be kind, flexible and realistic. You wouldn't expect a hugely robust empirical study and you're not likely to get a highly robust lit-based study. If the point is showing they understand the design process of a lit-based study marking and feedback should reflect that

Just one more cos it's been fermenting all day
10. Saying you're only interested in outcomes/synthesis not process search (strategy doesn't matter) isn't ok. Reality is if students don't get the search right they'll either never find the papers they need or spend forever sifting