Unlocking Research Visibility: Discover the new Research Repository and Open Access Support
Join us for an in-depth session on RMIT's new Research Repository. This platform is designed to amplify the visibility and impact of your scholarly work. We will provide a step-by-step guide on how you can add research to the repository and showcase it to a worldwide audience.
This session will also outline the Library's support for Open Access availability of your research outputs. Open Access is pivotal in making research freely accessible, increasing citation rates, and fostering global collaboration. We'll offer practical insights into self-archiving (“green” OA), allowing you to share your research while complying with publisher policies.
Wednesday, April 9. 2:30 - 3:30PM
Register via link below:
Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay
A scoping review maps existing literature on a broad topic, identifies key concepts, research gaps, and types of evidence by systematically searching for and organizing relevant literature, and assesses available evidence to guide future research directions.
Unlike systematic reviews, scoping reviews do not aim to answer specific questions or critically evaluate study quality.
What are scoping reviews? (5:58 min) by JBI (YouTube)
Munn, Z., Pollock, D., Khalil, H., Alexander, L., Mclnerney, P., Godfrey, C. M., Peters, M., & Tricco, A. C. (2022). What are scoping reviews? Providing a formal definition of scoping reviews as a type of evidence synthesis. JBI Evidence Synthesis, 20(4), 950–952. https://doi.org/10.11124/JBIES-21-00483
Munn, Z., Peters, M. D. J., Stern, C., Tufanaru, C., McArthur, A., & Aromataris, E. (2018). Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 18(1), 143-149. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x
A scoping review shares the following characteristics with a systematic review:
A scoping review differs from a systematic review in several key ways:
| Scoping review | Systematic review | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Provides literature overview, identifies research gaps, and defines boundaries. | Synthesises research to guide clinical decisions. |
| Focus | Addresses broad questions without critical appraisal. | Focuses on a specific question with critical appraisal. |
| Outcome | Gives a descriptive overview without decision statements or meta-analysis. | Produces evidence, may include meta-analysis, to guide practice. |
| Scope | Includes various study designs, not limited to interventions. | Focuses on specific interventions, collating evidence from fewer studies. |
Evidence synthesis refers to any method of identifying, selecting, and combining results from multiple studies. Types of evidence synthesis include:
A broad term referring to reviews with a wide scope and non-standardized methodology.
Applies systematic review methodology within a time-constrained setting.
Systematically and transparently collects and categorizes existing evidence on a broad topic or set of research questions.
Reviews other systematic reviews on a topic.
A methodical and comprehensive literature synthesis focused on a well-formulated research question.
A statistical technique for combining the findings from disparate quantitative studies.
"What type of review is right for you?" by Cornell University Library is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91-108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
Cornell University Library has developed a decision tree that assists in identifying the types of reviews.
Image: "What type of review is right for you?" by Cornell University Library is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Do you want to gather all the evidence on a particular research topic?
No: Do a Literature (Narrative) Review.
Yes: Do you have 3 or more people to work on the review?
No: More intensive reviews usually require a multi-person team for unbiased article screening.
Yes: Do you have 12–18 months to complete a review?
No: Do a Rapid Review.
Yes: Do you have a broad topic or multiple research questions?
Yes: Do a Scoping Review.
No: Do you want to review other published systematic reviews on your topic?
Yes: Do an Umbrella Review.
No: Do you have a well-formulated research question?
No: Systematic reviews are conducted in an unbiased, reproducible way to provide evidence for practice and policy-making and to identify gaps in research. They require a well-formulated research question.
Yes: Do a Systematic Review.
Will you use statistical methods to objectively evaluate, synthesize, and summarize results?
No: A meta-analysis will not be needed.
Yes: Do a Meta-Analysis.
This Library guide by RMIT University Library is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence, except where otherwise noted. All reasonable efforts have been made to clearly label material where the copyright is owned by a third party and ensure that the copyright owner has consented to this material being presented in this library guide. The RMIT University logo is ‘all rights reserved’.