Part 2: Beyond MEDLINE: Translating Search Strategies for Knowledge Syntheses

Audience: University of Toronto graduate students and faculty engaged in health science research

Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Time: 2:00pm - 4:30pm

Location: Robarts Library Electronic Classroom  (4th floor)

Note: this course may be taken as part of the Graduate Professional Skills Program.

In order to minimize bias and base your research on as much evidence as possible, you will have to search more than one journal article database for published literature. A search strategy often has to be revised for different databases and resources to take advantage of the strengths and unique features of each.

Building on the structured approach we practiced in Part 1, in this hands-on workshop students will:

• Review Medline strategy from Part 1 and prepare it for translation
• Delve deeper into the advanced features of interfaces and databases which allow for editing and refining a search strategy
• Identify potential sources for bias in their search and develop strategies to mitigate them
• Translate and execute structured search strategies using different databases, including OVID Embase, Ebsco CINAHL, and Cochrane Central
• Prepare database search strategies and compose search methods, such that they can be repeated and to ensure proper reporting

Instructors

Erica Lenton, MA, MLIS, is the rehabilitation and kinesiology librarian with the Gerstein Science Information Centre. Prior to arriving at Gerstein, Erica worked in continuing medical education and more recently, as a solo hospital librarian at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, Alberta. Through her experience in hospital and academic health science libraries, she has been involved in a number of systematic and scoping reviews and has provided expert searching and systematic review training for clinicians, students, and faculty.

Kaitlin Fuller, MLIS, is one of the medicine librarians with the Gerstein Science Information Centre. She coordinates the information literacy education of students enrolled in the MD Program. She also supports faculty and student research at the University of Toronto. Kaitlin has supported a number of knowledge synthesis projects by providing training and/or searches. Kaitlin joined the University of Toronto from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in Sudbury, where she was an education librarian.