About the 3rd Edition

Welcome to the 3rd edition of Advanced Research Skills: Conducting Literature and Systematic Reviews. At the time of completion of the 1st edition, the team of authors could scarcely believe that a 3rd edition would be possible, or necessary.

With over 6000 pageviews to date, as well as its use as a course text in several graduate courses, we are thrilled at the reception of this open course.  We were also pleased to see it reviewed in the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association Journal in 2022.  We have looked closely at the reviewer’s feedback, and have tried to reflect these comments in the 3rd edition, where possible.  The comments and feedback of our peers has been invaluable to the revision process, and we thank them all for their interest.

We began considering the need for a 3rd edition after reading the comments from our peers, and due to the rapidly growing use of Generative AI (GAI) technology in all facets of academic work, including the production of review papers. We felt it was important to give readers our perspective on the use of GAI in this context, as well as some expert guidance on this ever-evolving technology.  We have also included a new section on the use of Citation Mapping Tools in review projects, another type of technology tool that can be used to visualize the research that is connected to a single paper. As with any new or emerging technologies, we always caution care in its use alongside the traditional resources used in review projects.

We have also included a new section on Synthesis, always a challenging concept to teach students and researchers.  We hope the introduction offered will help readers understand the role synthesis plays in the review process, as well as providing a better understanding of the different approaches that are available. An Evidence Synthesis Chart template is available in this section, which offers readers an experiential learning opportunity to extract the relevant data points from a series of articles, and begin to see the patterns in the data.

Finally, as librarians ourselves, The Role of Librarians when supporting review projects is better acknowledged and clarified for our readers in the 3rd edition. Regardless of the type of model of support provided at your library, it is always a best practice to acknowledge the work of librarians providing support to review projects.

We hope readers will enjoy the new content available in the 3rd edition, and find it useful as they embark on their own review projects.

Kelly Dermody, Cecile Farnum, Daniel Jakubek, Fiona Kovacaj, Jo-Anne Petropoulos, Jane Schmidt and Reece Steinberg