Abstract
Data management practices for systematic reviews and other types of knowledge syntheses are variable, with some reviews following open science practices and others with poor reporting practices leading to lack of transparency or reproducibility. Reporting standards have improved the level of detail being shared in published reviews, and also encourage more open sharing of data from various stages of the review process. Similar to project planning or completion of an ethics application, systematic review teams should create a data management plan alongside creation of their study protocol. This commentary provides a brief description of a Data Management Plan Template created specifically for systematic reviews. It also describes the companion LibGuide which was created to provide more detailed examples, and to serve as a living document for updates and new guidance. The creation of the template was funded by the Portage Network.
Highlights
Data management and sharing practices for systematic reviews appear to be variable, though the development of reporting frameworks such as the PRISMA (Page et al 2021) and ROSES (Haddaway et al 2018) standards have brought some level of standardization
Data management is a competency that is well suited to the role that librarians play in systematic reviews
While many librarians involved in systematic reviews may have knowledge of data management practices, and others have intuitively developed sound practices, we believe that specific guidance for librarians and other members of a systematic review team would be useful
Summary
Data management and sharing practices for systematic reviews appear to be variable, though the development of reporting frameworks such as the PRISMA (Page et al 2021) and ROSES (Haddaway et al 2018) standards have brought some level of standardization. Data management is a competency that is well suited to the role that librarians play in systematic reviews (for the sake of brevity, we use “systematic review” as shorthand for all other related forms of knowledge synthesis, such as scoping and realist reviews). The systematic review librarian competency framework developed by Townsend et al includes a data management competency.
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