Systematic reviews, a long-established element of Health and Medicine academic output through organisations such as Cochrane Collaboration and the Joanna Briggs Institute, is less prevalent in science and technology subjects. This however has changed, possibly due to two reasons:
Development of protocols much of the discussion around Systematic Reviews is focused on Health research, however, a recommended multidisciplinary introductory paper is MacFarlane, A., Russell-Rose, T. and Shokraneh, F. (2022) ‘Search strategy formulation for systematic reviews: Issues, challenges and opportunities’.
Protocols are a guide to the methodology used in a systematic review, and it is highly recommended to use at least one (or even elements of multiple protocols) to produce your review. Many of these protocols have their origins in health based methods so you do not have to follow all the guidance in a science and technology paper. Some elements like the PRISMA Flow Diagram are always recommended.
Assembling the Pieces of a Systematic Review : A Guide for Librarians.
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The elephant in the room. Non-health databases!
One issue that many researchers new to systematic reviews in non-health subjects discover is that the search interfaces on health databases are more tailored towards a highly sensitive search strategy, with usable interfaces, thesaurus/dictionary/subject term lists, and no limits on the number of results or complexity of searches.
Search interfaces in other fields however lack many of the 'quality of life' features you could take for granted. To lessen the impact of this (but sadly by no means eliminate completely) it is recommended to perform a scoping search using a cross-discipline search such as Academic Search Ultimate. You can select from the wide array of subject terms, and then use them in your other searches as 'free text.
This strategy will mean you gain some benefit from the subject term lists and can produce a reproducible search.
In the case of IEEE Xplore there is a limit of 20 search terms and 7 wildcards. A good search strategy would certainly exceed this limitation, therefore some modification of the search strategy is needed to ensure reproducibility and maintain sensitivity.
What database to include? this matrix highlights some (but not all) of the possible databases for inclusion in a Science and Technology Systematic Review. We have also highlighted some of the issues that may be encountered in the interfaces.
The complete list of Databases can be found at the A-Z Databases List
| Name | Help Pages | Publisher | Subject Term List | Unlimited Search Strings | Proximity Search | Coverage |
| Academic Search Ultimate | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Limited |
| Scopus | Yes | Elsevier | No | Yes | W/? | Multi-Disciplinary and Preprints |
| Greenfile | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Environment |
| Web of Science | Yes | Clarivate | No | Yes | NEAR/? | Multi-Discipline |
| IEEE Xplore | Yes | IEEE | No | No | NEAR/? | Computing |
| ACM Digital Library | Yes | ACM | No | No | No | Computing |
| ERIC | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Education |
| SOCindex | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Sociology |
| Business Source Complete | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Business |
| British Education Index | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Education |
| Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? |
Communication and Linguistics |
|
| Applied Science and Technology Full Text | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? |
Science and Technology |
| Environment Complete | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Environment |
| EconLit | Yes | EBSCO | Yes | Yes | N? | Economics |
| CAS SciFinder | Yes | CAS | Via CAS Lexicon | Yes | No | Chemistry and Biochemistry |
| Lens.org | No | The Patent Lens | No | Yes | No | Multi-discipline, Open Access, Worldwide Evidence |
Publisher. This is the provider of the interface. Adding databases from the same publisher is a shrewd policy as it allows you to quickly reproduce searches across databases (the boolean and proximity operators remain the same, you only need to select subject terms)
Subject Term List: Does this database have a browsable subject term/thesaurus list?
Unlimited Search Strings: Does this database allow searches to be as complex as desired, with multiple nesting brackets and boolean operators.
Coverage: Is the database known to be multidisciplinary or limited in coverage? Is it limited to a specific subject?
You should select multiple databases from this list, as no one database (even multidisciplinary databases) have complete coverage. A good paper discussing how this impacts non-health search is Wanyama, S., McQuaid, R., & Kittler, M. (2022). Where you search determines what you find: The effects of bibliographic databases on systematic reviews.
A combination of multiple EBSCO databases + Web of Science + Scopus, with additional Citation Tracking could be considered an effective search. It is always recommended to search for previously published Systematic Reviews to see if there is existing best practice.
Grey Literature
Many systematic reviews, especially qualitative or realist reviews, also now include a search of the Grey Literature, valuable Non-Journal resources such as Policy and Guidelines. Our Grey Literature LibGuide includes a range of Grey Literature databases useful in a search strategy.
Decolonising Literature Searching
Are you producing a search for a topic focusing with a worldwide or non-EU/US subject. Searching can be improved with adding unique, country specific databases to your search strategy. Our Decolonising Literature Searching LibGuide has further information.
