Evidence Synthesis Methods Interest Group

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Charge: To promote and develop competencies around evidence synthesis including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, scoping reviews, and other related methods of research synthesis, through activities such as: Facilitating discussion and peer-support; Creating and managing a resource page; Encouraging programming and publications around systematic reviews through ACRL.
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  • 1.  Documenting Types of Duplicate Publications

    Posted Jan 23, 2024 11:11 AM

    Hello,

    I was wondering if anyone has excluded articles from a review that appear to be  "salami slicing", self-plagiarism, publication overlap, or other forms of direct publication duplication.  These articles often are published under different titles, sometimes with one author included or excluded. However the content is often just a re-hashing of what is has been said in a previous article.  I have a team that would like to exclude the articles that seem to be duplicates of an original publication.  I was curious if others usually count these as duplicates and if so if  mention is made in the review as to why two articles under different titles were deemed to be duplicates.. 

    Thank you,



    ------------------------------

    Aimee Sgourakis Jenkins
    Lead Librarian for Bibliometric Services
    Lead Librarian for Evidence Synthesis
    Liaison Librarian for Sociology, Psychology, and Geology and Environmental Sciences
    405 Hillman Library| University of Pittsburgh
    E: aimees@pitt.edu

    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Documenting Types of Duplicate Publications

    Posted Jan 23, 2024 02:20 PM

    I know in Covidence, you can merge articles into a single study and deem one of them as the primary article.  This is different from de-duplicating which is for the same article (for instance that is listed both in biomedcentral and in the actual journal) or from two different databases.

     

    --------------

    Christina Chan-Park, PhD, MPA, MLIS (she/her)

     

    Research Librarian for Science and Data

    Liaison to Anthropology, Aviation Science, Biology, Chemistry/Biochemistry, Environmental
    Science, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology/Neuroscience, Statistical Science

    Baylor University, One Bear Place #97146, Waco, TX 76798
    254-710-4538, 254-710-3116 (fax), CY_Chan@baylor.edu

    http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6047-9805

    Go to https://libcal.baylor.edu/appointments/cy_chan to make an appointment

     




    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Documenting Types of Duplicate Publications

    Posted Jan 23, 2024 08:17 PM
    I came to say this exact thing about merging in Covidence.

    Additionally..
    In some instances, if they are just summarizing previous studies, they can be excluded w/ your exclusion criteria (e.g., "No research", no data collection). Also w/ salami slicing, PRISMA flow diagram templates account for this with the distinction between reports and studies. So it's similar to when the same research is published in a journal and is also in your corpus of your results as a preprint, conference abstract, government report, etc.
    reports studies prisma.png


    --

    Amy Riegelman (she, her, hers)
    Social Sciences & Evidence Synthesis Librarian, University of Minnesota
    Information Specialist for Campbell Disability Coordinating Group




    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Documenting Types of Duplicate Publications

    Posted Jan 24, 2024 09:38 AM

    I just had a student ask about the opposite problem and was wondering how everybody else deals with it.  We use Covidence.

     

    She has a paper that has two studies in it.  I told her she should just upload the paper again into the data extraction and maybe add something to the end of the title like #2 so she knows which study is which when she exports the data.

     

    I wasn't sure how Covidence would deal with that in the PRISMA so I told her to just make sure she checks. 

    In this case the number of studies would be N and the number of reports/articles would be N-1.

     

    Thanks,

    --Christina

     

    --------------

    Christina Chan-Park, PhD, MPA, MLIS (she/her)

     

    Research Librarian for Science and Data

    Liaison to Anthropology, Aviation Science, Biology, Chemistry/Biochemistry, Environmental
    Science, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology/Neuroscience, Statistical Science

    Baylor University, One Bear Place #97146, Waco, TX 76798
    254-710-4538, 254-710-3116 (fax), CY_Chan@baylor.edu

    http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6047-9805

    Go to https://libcal.baylor.edu/appointments/cy_chan to make an appointment

     




    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Documenting Types of Duplicate Publications

    Posted Jan 23, 2024 06:15 PM

    Hello Amiee,

     

    Cochrane and PRISMA have some guidance on how to handle and report these – it falls under the difference between a "study" and a "report". You can report a study multiple ways/times (e.g. salami slicing), but all of those reports refer to one study and the study is the point of analysis for an evidence synthesis project. The Cochrane handbook addresses this in 4.6.2 'Identifying multiple reports from the same study' and 4.6.3 'A typical process for selecting studies'. Ultimately in the PRISMA flow diagram's final included box, you will list the # of included reports and the number of actual studies from those reports.

     

     

    Generally best practice is to acknowledge that you found all of those relevant reports and are aware of all the slicing they did in the reporting just in case they included some aspect of critical data in one report and not the other. But the actual point of analysis is the study NOT the report. Thus do include them as the number of "report of included studies" but acknowledge you will treat them as one thing by noting how many actual "studies included in the review" are represented by those reports.

     

    Regards,

    Anna

    --

    Anna Ferri

    Assistant Professor | Evidence Synthesis Librarian

    Book an appointment with me!

    pronouns: she/her(s) (why?)

     

    Colorado State University Libraries

     

    P: 970-491-1146 | anna.ferri@colostate.edu

    1201 Center Avenue Mall | Fort Collins, CO 80523

     

     

     




    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Documenting Types of Duplicate Publications

    Posted Jan 24, 2024 10:53 AM

    Thank you for the responses.  

    Where do you document that a report is considered "the primary report" and that a report was considered the "secondary report" (as suggested in Cochrane Handbook)?  I understand the number of studies and number of reports will be reported in Prisma Flow Chart, but then was unsure where to note which report was primary or secondary.  

    Where would the authors acknowledge that they found all of those relevant reports and are aware of all the slicing they did in the reporting or  acknowledge that they will treat them as one thing?

    Can anyone point me to a published systematic review that include or mention these types of duplications?

    Thank you so much for your assistance.



    ------------------------------
    Aimee Jenkins
    Librarian
    University of Pittsburgh
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    Original Message