Hello,
I'm hoping that someone on this list may be able to help.
I've received a question from a patron regarding a reviewer's comments on an article submission. The article uses systematic map methodology, and reports the search/screening process in a PRISMA diagram.
The reviewer commented that: "In the survey of articles published, have authors looked at false discovery rates is not clear in the manuscript. It may be good to indicate somewhere in the text about rate of false positives/negatives in the search method."
The patron isn't sure what is meant by "false positives" and "false negatives", and I'm not sure either. My initial thought is that "false positives" are those articles retrieved in the search that did not meet the screening requirements, and that "false negatives" are relevant articles that were not retrieved by the search. If this is the case, "false positives" are reported in the PRISMA diagram, but I'm not sure how to address the "false negatives."
If anyone has insight into what the reviewer might be asking, or possible methods to address their concerns, I would be very grateful.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Best wishes,
Jocelyn Boice
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Jocelyn Boice
Associate Professor | Liaison to: Natural Resources, Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science
Colorado State University Libraries
1019 Campus Delivery
Fort Collins, CO 80523
970-491-3882 | jocelyn.boice@colostate.edu