Covidence: Create a Review

To begin a new review in Covidence, click on Start a new review on the home page after signing in.

Covidence will then open a page where you can input the details of your new review. Make sure the radio button for UNC Institutional Access is selected.   

You will then have the opportunity to create your SR's settings and add reviewers to your new review. 

Once you have created your review, you can use the Settings button to change your review title and the number of screeners required, add reviewers, and add inclusion/exclusion criteria and keywords.

Under the “Review settings” tab, you can change the title of your review and other information for your records.  You may also want to change the number of reviewers if you are working on this project alone. Keep in mind, systematic review guidelines require two reviewers for a full, published systematic reviews. 

Once you have made your desired changes, remember to save your settings!

If you would like to control which reviewers will be assigned to screen studies or resolve conflicts, you can do so under the Team Settings tab.

Under the Criteria & exclusion reasons tab, you can create a list of inclusion and exclusion criteria for your title and abstract screening level. You can also manage your exclusion reasons, which will give you a customized drop-down list of exclusion criteria for use during the full text review level. 

You can also add keywords, which will tell Covidence to highlight certain words that could indicate inclusion or exclusion. 

Remember to save changes!

You can add reviewers when you first create your review, or you can add them later by going to the Settings menu.  You will need their first name and email address to send an invitation.  Your reviewers will need to accept the invitation in their email in order for the review to appear in their My Reviews list.

Reviewers do not need to be UNC affiliates, but only UNC affiliates can create new reviews under our institutional license. 

If you have been invited to serve as a reviewer on a Covidence project and would like to create new reviews, you will need to follow the steps for Creating a Covidence Account before you can create a new review.