Meta-Reviewer: A Free, New Online Tool for Researchers Conducting a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

• In Event: Maximize Capacities of Systematic Reviews: New Tools and Approaches That Can Help

Abstract

Conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis requires combing through thousands of citations, identifying relevant studies, and extracting extensive information from each study prior to quantitative synthesis. Researchers often turn to proprietary software to assist with this process, but existing programs are expensive and lack important features. To address this need, we developed a free, easy-to-use, collaborative software program called Meta-Reviewer. Our program helps reviewers develop a codebook to match their project, conduct comprehensive and consistent coding, and export data in a ready-to-use format for quantitative synthesis. Use of our program will encourage more rigorous and reproducible systematic and meta-analytic reviews.

Authors

• Joshua R. Polanin, American Institutes for Research

• Megan Austin, American Institutes for Research

• Laura Michaelson, American Institutes for Research

• Ryan Williams, American Institutes for Research