Additional file 1: Search strategy for identifying software programs listed in Table 1.
1. Online publication database: Google Scholar
Google Scholar was searched on 13/03/17 with the exact phrase “systematic review” and at least one of the words (manage OR management OR coordinate OR coordination OR software OR program OR programs OR platform OR platforms) in the title of the article only. This returned approximately 5620 results. The top 1000 of these (ordered by relevance) were downloaded via Harzing’s Publish or
Perish v 5.27 [1] (it is not possible to download more than the first 1000 Google Scholar results) and screened for inclusion, first by title, then title and abstract, and finally by full-text. One study was found to be relevant following full-text screening [2] as it referenced several systematic review management software packages (e.g. the SLuRp tool and the SLR-Tool).
To test whether searching Google Scholar on title only had restricted the search results, we repeated the search on all text (also using Harzing’s Publish or Perish v 5.27 [1] on 13/03/17) and screened results as above, however no relevant studies were found. Interestingly, the one relevant study identified in the title only search was not returned in the top 1000 results from the full text search.
This search methodology was limited by the fact the relevance ranking in Google Scholar appeared to be related to number of citations. In both searches, the top 1000 results all had 48 or more citations, meaning more recently published, or less cited articles about relevant software, may not have been captured. Evidence for this is the absence of a reference about the new software Rayyan [3].
2. Snowball searching through general web searches: Google
A Google search was conducted using the phrase “systematic review management software” on
06/03/17 and the first five pages of search results were manually checked for potentially relevant information. Any results relating to lists of databases or systematic review tools (e.g. Dalhousie
University’s ‘Systematic Reviews: A how-to guide’, http://dal.ca.libguides.com/c.php? g=257491&p=2939165) were followed up and a total of nine results were found. 3. Screening of targeted websites
Six new records were found through a search of the Systematic Review Toolbox
(www.systematicreviewtools.com) on 06/03/17 using the built-in search facility. Advanced search:
[Underlying approach: ‘Whole Process’; Discipline: ‘Any’; Cost: ‘Any’; Specific features: ‘Any’].
All software tools in the Systematic Review Toolbox was also manually reviewed for relevance on
03/04/17, in case any other potentially relevant software was overlooked due to misclassification in the database. No new software was identified that had not already been located through the broader search methodology.
4. Backwards and forwards citation searches
A forward citation search was undertaken on the single relevant record identified through the Google
Scholar searches [2]. This was conducted on 31/03/17 using Google Scholar to identify article citations. A total of 129 citations were found and these were screened for relevance initially by title, then title and abstract and finally by full-text. Seven relevant articles were identified at full-text stage
[4-10].
References:
1. Harzing A-W: Publish or Perish: Tarma Software Research Ltd; 2007. 2. Kitchenham B, Brereton P: A systematic review of systematic review process research in software engineering. Information and Software Technology 2013, 55:2049-2075. 3. Ouzzani M, Hammady H, Fedorowicz Z, Elmagarmid A, Chalmers T, Smith H, Blackburn B, Silverman B, Schroeder B, Reitman D et al: Rayyan—a web and mobile app for systematic reviews. Systematic Reviews 2016, 5:210. 4. Fabbri S, Silva C, Hernandes E, Octaviano F, Di Thommazo A, Belgamo A: Improvements in the StArt tool to better support the systematic review process. Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering - EASE '16 2016:1-5. 5. Barn B, Clark T: Conducting Systematic Literature Reviews and Systematic Mapping Studies. 2017:212-213. 6. Marshall C: Tool support for systematic reviews in software engineering. In.; 2016. 7. Marshall C, Brereton P: Tools to Support Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering: A Mapping Study. In: ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. 2013: 296. 8. Octaviano Fa, Silva Cb, Fabbri Sb: Using the SCAS strategy to perform the initial selection of studies in systematic reviews: An experimental study. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series 2016, 01-03-June. 9. Olorisade BK, Quincey ED, Andras P, Brereton P: A Critical Analysis of Studies that Address the Use of Text Mining for Citation Screening in Systematic Reviews. In: EASE '16. 2016. 10. Pannabecker V: Text and data mining for researchers: Investigating trends to update collaboration services. In.; 2016.