LibGuides: Evidence Synthesis & Systematic Reviews for Non-Health Sciences: Software and tools

Wondering how AI tools may help you with conducting a systematic review? Check out the Artificial intelligence (AI) tools section of our general Literature Reviews guide.

General

Systematic Review Toolbox
The Systematic Review Toolbox is an online catalogue of tools that support various tasks within the systematic review and wider evidence synthesis process, launching in 2014.
Systematic Review Accelerator (SRA)
The SRA is a suite of automation tools built to make conducting all types of evidence reviews or synthesis easier and faster. As each tool is designed to help with a specific review task, people can use as many or as few as they like.
Evidence Review Accelerator (TERA)
TERA is a multi-study research accelerator that enables both reviews and studies to be conducted faster with no impact on the quality of the research.
PRISMA Flow Diagram Generator
ROSES Flow Chart Generator

Search & deduplication

Bramer deduplication method using EndNote
Uses page number as a unique identifier to remove duplicates in EndNote.
CitationChaser
This tool automates this process by making use of the Lens.org API. An input article list can be used to return a list of all referenced records, and/or all citing records in the Lens.org database (consisting of PubMed, PubMed Central, CrossRef, Microsoft Academic Graph and CORE).
Deduklick
Deduklick is a transparent fully automated deduplication solution created to efficiently remove duplicate records using AI.
dedupr Shiny App
Hosted by Purdue University Rosen Center for Advance Computing, a shiny interface for uploading RIS files for deduplication. This tool is currently being updated (stay tuned!).
litsearchr
litsearchr is an R package that uses text-mining and keyword co-occurrence networks to identify important terms to include in a search strategy. It can automatically write Boolean search strings in up to 53 different languages, with stemming support for English. It also automatically assembles and deduplicates search results from a set of commonly used databases and bibliography formats for systematic reviews. To assess the quality of a search, it can also check the results of a search against a set of known, relevant articles to get performance metrics.
MeSH on Demand
MeSH on Demand identifies MeSH® terms in your submitted text (abstract or manuscript). MeSH on Demand also lists PubMed similar articles relevant to your submitted text.
Polyglot
Part of the Systematic Review Accelerator (SRA) tool developed by Bond University, Polyglot Search allows you to enter a PubMed or Ovid MEDLINE search query which is then automatically translated into strategies for multiple databases: PubMed/Ovid MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus. The translated search strategies can then be copied and pasted into the relevant database search boxes.
SnowGlobe
SnowGlobe is a program that assists with literature searching, using a technique called snowballing. Snowballing has emerged as the gold standard for comprehensive literature reviews. The process of snowballing takes all known relevant papers and searches through their references (which papers they cite) and citations (which papers cite them). Doing this by hand is an extremely time-consuming process, and until now, there was no way to do this process in bulk. SnowGlobe has several time-saving features such as automatic duplicate removal, as well as the ability to track which titles you have already screened so you don't have to screen them multiple times.
Yale MeSH Analyzer
A tool that extracts MeSH terms from a list of MEDLINE references.

Management & screening

Interested in using a screening tool for your systematic review? Here are some questions to think about:

Are you limited to free tools only or does your research team have funding available to pay for a tool?
Are you planning on using the tool for title/abstract or full-text screening? What about data extraction?
Are you interested in using machine learning to help expedite the screening process?
Are you OK with your project being publicly available or would you rather it stay private? Many free versions of these tools don't allow for a private option.
Within your discipline, is there a tool that is commonly used? For example, Covidence is routinely used in the health sciences, while CADIMA is popular in the environmental sciences.

CADIMA
CADIMA is a free web tool facilitating the conduct and assuring for the documentation of systematic reviews, systematic maps and further literature reviews.
PICO Portal
PICO Portal assists you with identifying relevant citations, de-duplication, screening, full-text review, and evidence mapping in your next systematic review.
Free for one user, requires license for teams.
Open Science Framework (OSF)
A free and open-source cloud based research management platform to researchers to store files and data & register preprints.
Abstrackr
A free, open-source, web-based application for facilitating citation screening for systematic reviews. The program comprises two components; a web-based annotation tool that allows participants in a review to collaboratively screen citations for relevance, and machine learning technologies that semi-automate this process.
Covidence
Covidence is a screening and data extraction tool for conducting systematic reviews. Please follow the link above to access Covidence via the Duke University Medical Center Library.
Rayyan
Rayyan is an easy to use, AI-powered research collaboration platform that accelerates systematic reviews and enables researchers to freely collaborate on reviews of any size with anyone, anywhere, anytime via the web or Rayyan app.
Optional subscription plan for additional features.
RevMan Web
RevMan is the online platform recommended for Cochrane reviews. It has been designed to integrate with other systematic review software and new features and updates are added regularly.
SWIFT-Review
SWIFT Review is a freely available interactive workbench that provides various tools to assist with problem formulation and literature prioritization. Its topic modeling can help to uncover interesting themes and concepts in a large set of documents. This tool integrates well with PubMed.
SysRev
SysRev is an online platform that assists with systematic reviews, including machine learning tools for screening and data extraction, and can be used for basic or complex data extraction. Note that it does not offer a deduplication feature at this time. Free and paid versions are available.

Data extraction

WebPlotDigitizer
It is often necessary to reverse engineer images of data visualizations to extract the underlying numerical data. WebPlotDigitizer is a semi-automated tool that makes this process extremely easy.
Tabula
A tool that extracts data from tables "locked" inside PDFs and creates a CSV or Excel file.
Coconut Libtool
A simple-to-use tool that provides text and data analysis as well as visualization techniques.
SysRev
SysRev is an online platform that assists with systematic reviews, including machine learning tools for screening and data extraction, and can be used for basic or complex data extraction. Note that it does not offer a deduplication feature at this time. Free and paid versions are available.

Citation management

	Zotero 7	EndNote 2025	RefWorks v3
Platform compatibility	Windows, macOS, Linux, Web	Windows, macOS, Web	Web-based only
Cost	Free (open source software with optional paid storage)	Free* (available to all Duke students, staff, and faculty) *Duke pays for institutional license	Free* (available to all Duke students, staff, and faculty) *Duke pays for institutional license
Access	- Desktop app (free download) - Web-based (requires free account)	- Desktop app (download from Duke OIT) - Web-based (requires free account)	Web-based only (requires free account)
Ease of use	😃	🫤	😃
Storage	- Free up to 300MB - $20/year for 2GB - $60/year for 6GB - $120/year for unlimited storage *Duke does not pay for increased storage	Unlimited (local); cloud sync available	Unlimited (for institutional users)
Citation styles	10,000+ styles	7,500+ styles	6,000+ styles
Word processor integration	Word, LibreOffice, Google Docs	Word, OpenOffice, Google Docs	Word, Google Docs
PDF annotation	Yes (highlight, notes, tags)	Yes (advanced annotation tools)	Yes (basic annotation tools)
Collaboration	Group libraries, unlimited collaborators	Shared libraries, up to 1000 collaborators	Shared folders, real-time collaboration
Web import	Zotero Connector (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari)	No	Save to RefWorks bookmarklet
Database or library catalog import	Yes	Yes	Yes
Search library databases within program	No	Yes	Yes
Access full text	Library Lookup tool integrates with DUL catalog	Find Full Text or EndNote Click browser extension	Check for Full Text link
Edit output style	Yes, but difficult (requires Citation Style Language or CSL)	Yes	Yes
Best for	Open-source users, collaborative research Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Research	Large-scale research, advanced features STEM, Medicine, Advanced Research	Institutional users, cloud-based workflows Education, Business, Communication, Humanities
Text search PDFs and notes	Yes	Yes	Yes
De-duplication	Yes	Yes	Yes
Work offline	Yes	Yes	No
Mobile app	iOS and Android	iOS	No
Tutorials and videos	Zotero Quick Start Guide	EndNote Training Channel	RefWorks Training Channel

Evidence Synthesis & Systematic Reviews for Non-Health Sciences

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Search & deduplication

Management & screening

Data extraction

Citation management

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