How to build Screening instruction

You can start creating your Screening instruction directly in the project or you can create Screening instruction at organizational level in Templates panel:

In Screening instructions panel click ‘Create new template’
Add the name of your new template and click ‘Create’.

Screening Criteria tab of the Templates section with highlighted steps for running a new screening guide.

Restrictions: This template library of screening instructions is only available to the Admin, Owner and Data Manager roles, and only they have permission to create new templates or modify existing ones. However, all Project Managers have access to these templates in projects where they have permission to upload and modify them according to the specific project topic. They can also save these new templates as organisational assets. Data Managers, Admins or Owners can accept or reject these new templates at the organisation level.

The typical screening instruction template in both phases (TiAb and FT screening), consists of the following sections:

Inclusion and exclusion reasons -> If you conduct Title and abstract screening with more than one exclusion criteria, you can add as many exclusion reasons as you need, and only one inclusion reason. For full-text screening you can add many inclusion reasons as you need
Structured comments -> You can create special tags, also called 'Structured comments' to mark relevant concepts. You can use them to tag, e.g. protocols, systematic reviews, clinical trials etc. You can also tag them as 'first to screen/extract' if they are the most relevant.
Instruction preview - this allows managers to see what the screener's buttons will look like in Focus mode.

Note: you can create one Screening instruction for Tiab and FT screening, but remember that at the Tiab stage only one inclusion button will be visible during screenin

Example of a screening guide with an overview of the module elements.

Screening Instruction contains inclusion and exclusion criteria. To create new reason for inclusion or exclusion:

Add a new Inclusion/exclusion button, using the “+” button - they will be visible to researchers during the screening. You may add one or more inclusion/exclusion reasons, depending on the project's complexity. Remember that if you create a guide for thse Title and abstract screening, only one inclusion reason can be added.
Enter new inclusion/exclusion reason and Tag code (short alias for the criteria used in filters and export)
Enter relevant instruction - include some questions and notes about the inclusion and exclusion criteria that the screeners will be able to understand. It's also a place to make some notes in case of doubt (e.g. how to deal with indirectness).

When creating the manual, you can improve its appearance and readability using the side menu for editing text:

H1 - adding a heading

B - bold text

I - italic text

U - underlined text

- add link

- bullet list

Screening guide with the highlighted steps to add new exclusion button.

4. Add Highlights (only in the Title and abstract stage screening guide)

Screening guide with highlights marked.

The highlights section is divided into two parts - positive ones (consistent with the inclusion criteria) and negative ones (suggesting that records may be irrelevant). Highlights can be entered manually or uploaded from the previously prepared sets.

To enter a highlight manually, type a word or phrase related to the specific inclusion or exclusion criteria and press Enter or click the ‘+’ button.

If your Highlights are in Excel, you can copy all the cells or separate them with commas and paste them into a field. They will automatically be split into separate Highlights. The other way to enter your markers is to import an existing marker set (see below).

Once you have entered your highlight set, you can save it in the Highlights library by clicking on the floppy disc icon. In this panel, you can entitle your new highlight set, define who can see the set (organization members or only you), and assign the set to the specific folder.

The more detailed the list of positive and negative highlights, the easier it is to screen - the example is shown here. Researchers can also use highlights as filters - Click here to check how to use filters.

Saving of highlight sets during the creation of the screening guide.

Tip: you don't need to include all possible variants of highlights into the instruction. If you have words with similar endings, e.g. randomisation, randomised and random - please enter only random* (with an asterisk at the end), and in that way, you can find all similar terminology.

As mentioned above, highlights can be imported from the sets previously prepared by other users or from sets of highlights saved during the preparation of other instructions. All prepared sets are available in the Highlights library (available in the side navigation panel of the Project list dashboard).

To import a set into your project, choose 'Import existing highlights sets' and upload a batch of highlights. The highlights to be uploaded can be:

Saved by your organisation
Saved by you as a personal sets

Importing highlights from the highlights library.

Tip: You are able to change the direction of highlights within each set - you can move negative highlights to the positive highlights set and vice versa. You could also overwrite existing ones in your Instruction set of highlights by new ones (you will find a button in the left corner).

Structured comments are special tags used to mark relevant concepts. You can use them to tag, e.g. protocols, systematic reviews, clinical trials etc. You can also tag them as 'first to screen/extract' if they are the most relevant.

Tags are pre-defined at the start of the title and abstract screening and FT screening process. You can add a new structured comment by clicking '+' button.

Screening guide with highlighted elements dedicated for structure comments.

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