Systematic Reviews

DistillerSR is a systematic review tool that follows a 5-step process:

Load your references

• Drag and drop from any reference management software
• Upload references and full-text documents
• Search and import references directly from PubMed
• Automatically archive all searches
• Full duplicate detection and removal

Create your forms

• Build forms with skip logic, input validation, automatic calculations, and data propagation
• Create reusable form libraries

Lay out your workflow and assign reviewers

• Use any number of forms in any order
• Assign reviewers to study pages
• Set custom inclusion/exclusion protocols 
• Configure keyword highlighting
• Use boolean filters to branch your study

Monitor and tune your review

• Monitor real-time study progress (reference progress, reviewer/data conflicts, included/excluded reference counts
• Monitor the review process (Kappa interrater reliability scoring, reviewer participation reports, track time spent by participants)

Export your results

• Included/excluded study lists and reports
• PRISMA flowchart automation
• Comprehensive data tables
• Full report customization
• Single click export to Word, Excel, and reference tools

The Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship has licensed a limited number of DistillerSR projects for University of Notre Dame students, faculty, and staff for the current academic year (license end date in August, renewal decisions are made annually).

To request a project account for research or teaching purposes, please email the following information to cds@nd.edu:

• Principal Investigator or Instructor Name
• Research Assistant and/or Student Name(s)
• Project Name
• Purpose (research and/or teaching)
  • If teaching, please provide the course name/number
• Estimated project start/end dates

Help

• Help Forum
• Submit a Ticket via email
• Attend weekly Support Office Hours (registration links are sent via email to account holders; email cds@nd.edu if you cannot find the current registration email)

Training

• User Guide (accessible when logged in after you receive your project credentials from the Navari Family CDS)
• Getting Started resources
• Introduction to Configuration in DistillerSR (video, 26:26 minutes)

Option 1: Using Distiller Only
 

• In PubMed:

  • Conduct your search

  • When you have your desired results, click "Save"

    • Selection: all results

    • Format: PMID

• In your preferred text editor: 

  • Open the .txt file that was downloaded from PubMed

  • Select all of the PMID #s in the file > copy them

• In Distiller:

  • In the top-level navigation References > Find and import references

  • Select "from PubMed"

  • Tweak standard options as you see fit

  • In the "Enter PubMed Search" box, paste the PMID #s you copied from the .txt file (note that if you just enter your query you will get an error--simply paste in the PMID #s and nothing else)

  • Click "Run Search"

  • Review the search results to make sure they are what you expect

  • Click "Import References"
     

Option 2: Using a Citation Manager (e.g., Zotero)
 

• In PubMed:

  • Conduct your search

  • When you have your desired results, click "Send to" 

    • Selection: all results

• In your preferred citation manager: 

  • Import the .ris file

  • Review the entries to ensure they are what you expect. Acceptable .ris files for Distiller import meet the following guidelines:

    • The files generated use a standard Tag format (e.g. ID=12345) to organize references and their associated fields.
    • The first Tag for each reference in the file must be TY 
    • It must end with the Tag ER
       

• In Distiller:

  • In the top-level navigation References > Find and import references

  • Select "From File"

  • Tweak your standard options as you see fit

  • Click "Import References"

Additional Reading

Extracting References from Other Sources