Behind the Scenes of “A Critical Analysis of Peer Reviewer Comments on Systematic Review Search Strategies”

Numerous studies have demonstrated the poor quality of published systematic reviews, which often includes poorly conducted and reported search strategies. While many groups (such as PRISMA) provide recommendations on how to report search strategies, it’s unclear how rigorously the search strategies are reviewed during the peer review process. At minimum, we would expect egregious search strategy issues to be addressed through peer review, but we hypothesized that this is seldom the case. We were able to explore this hypothesis through open peer review (OPR). We analyzed the search strategies of published systematic reviews, and then looked for search-related comments in the associated OPR documentation.
In this webinar, Taubman Library Talks co-hosts Mark MacEachern and Whitney Townsend will pull back the curtain on a pre-Covid research project that didn’t *quite* make it to the publishing finish line. In addition to discussing the methods and results of the project, Mark and Whitney will give an open and honest assessment of the project’s challenges, what they learned from them, and what they might do differently in the future.
Presenters: Mark P MacEachern and Whitney A Townsend, Informationists at the University of MIchigan Taubman Health Sciences Library
This FREE webinar will be held Monday June 10, 1-2:00pm EST. The recording will be available after the event. To find out more and get the Zoom link, please visit: https://guides.lib.umich.edu/TaubmanTalks/OPR_SearchMethods