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 decision pending).

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 (please note: license end date 2022-08-24, renewal decision pending)

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