All posts by hannahchapmantripp

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A Boot Camp for Researchers: Successes in Systematic Review Support

Librarian teaching in a classroom

On a Monday morning before the semester started in January 2024, members of the Systematic Review Interest Group gathered to prepare for a multi-day event. The Systematic Review & Evidence Synthesis Boot Camp, to be precise, took place over the course of three days, and was designed as an educational series of short workshops describing best practices for conducting systematic reviews, from idea formation through content screening (with many steps in between). Content sections were interspersed with opportunities for one-on-one, customized consultation sessions with a librarian, for working through questions and creating actionable takeaways.

A systematic review starts with a very specific question and then reviews a variety of empirical sources of literature that offer a response to that very specific question.

Systematic reviews are the most common and best-known type of systematized evidence synthesis methodologies. Originating in the field of medicine, they have spread across other disciplines such as education, engineering, sociology, criminal justice, public health, environmental sciences, and beyond. A systematic review starts with a very specific question and then reviews a variety of empirical sources of literature that offer a response to that very specific question. Because this review type attempts to be highly thorough (or systematic) in finding sources to include in the review, librarian assistance is often sought. The support offered can take on multiple forms, from advising on database selection and helping with search strategy development to recommending and training on tools to ease the steps in the process. If the librarian’s schedule and bandwidth permit, they may take on a request for more intensive assistance with a review project and be a co-author on the final published review. 

In the spring of 2021, the UT Libraries’ Systematic Review Interest Group offered a 6-part workshop series on evidence synthesis methodologies. Though the series offered thoughtful content that was well-received, discussions persisted about whether scholars were receiving adequate support, given the multiple weeks between sessions. We thought they may instead want to progress at a faster pace and need more individual time with librarians, so this more concentrated and intensive session was conceived. Teamwork was required to pilot the Boot Camp approach – with eight librarians working together to contribute content similar to what is on our shared library guide page, coordinate and present the prepared sessions, and provide the one-on-one breakout consultation sessions – in a “many hands makes light work” model.

Librarian working in small group session

On that opening morning, Boot Camp participants and providers consumed a welcome breakfast of tacos and enjoyed coffee in the new PCL Scholars Lab. Jenifer Flaxbart, one of the Boot Camp’s sponsors and UT Libraries’ Assistant Director for Research Support and Digital Initiatives, provided an official welcome to both the Boot Camp and the newly introduced Scholars Lab. The Scholars Lab turned out to be a great space for the event. On each of the three days, librarians offered presentation sessions and then we broke out into individual work sessions for one-on-one support. The flexibility offered by the multiple, yet nearby, spaces in the Scholars’ Lab made the transitions seamless. In addition, the spaces supported back-and-forth communication without causing strain to hear or be heard. 

Librarian in a one-on-one support session
Librarians working in small group sessions

This intensive Boot Camp method of delivery presents a unique opportunity for both librarians and scholars. The support offered falls somewhere in between having a few librarian consultations with a research team and serving as a co-author on a project. At a large campus like UT Austin, it is not feasible for librarians to support every request received at the co-author level. We need to budget our time and yet we also want to offer our expertise to scholars wherever we can. This method allowed us to deliver three days worth of content and one-on-one support. It is yet another mechanism in our toolbox to help meet the growing demand for evidence syntheses here on the UT campus. In addition, it was a rare pleasure to collaborate in building this experience with colleagues and learn from one another in the process.

At the end of the three days the participants, hopefully not too overwhelmed with information, took a survey to inform possible future Boot Camp planning efforts. The coordinators were pleased to see positive responses on the survey and an increase in knowledge about the concepts covered. Just a few quotes are evidence of the positive reception: 

  • THANK YOU for this amazing learning opportunity
  • Interaction with the amazing Librarians and their support [favorite part]
  • The small group session is really helpful to establish the appropriate search strategy which is the one the most important steps to do systematic review. [favorite part]
  • Learning about all of the tools available (e.g., searching, deduplication, and screening) which will make future literature reviews, including systematic and more general reviews much more efficient and comprehensive. [favorite part]

As illustrated through these comments, many participants gained the knowledge and confidence needed to go forward and conduct their planned review project. It will be exciting to follow these projects through to publication and track the impact made in future years by the results of the evidence synthesis collaborations resulting from the Boot Camp. 

Medicine, Research, Resources

The Rebirth of PubMed

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2020 is certainly the year of change, and UT Libraries staff is working hard to keep users and each other as up-to-date as possible so that we can all weather these changes and come out the other side stronger than ever. One of these efforts is a newly published Research Guide outlining and explaining upcoming changes to the highly used database, PubMed.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is transitioning to an updated interface and search algorithm in PubMed. This version will be the sole option for using PubMed when the legacy version is decommissioned. New PubMed, or PubMed Labs as it’s sometimes known, provides the same PubMed content to users with an updated design to correspond more closely with modern users’ expectations of the database functionality. Additionally, PubMed is seeking to create a responsive design system with ongoing user feedback, added features and a regular maintenance schedule. While this is a great undertaking by NLM, UT librarians wanted to show users where and how to do the things they’re familiar with in Legacy PubMed in the New PubMed. 

With this in mind, the UT Libraries Systematic Reviews Interest Group created a Research Guide illustrating common processes in PubMed. The Research Guide features side-by-side instructions, with accompanying screenshots of Legacy PubMed and New PubMed, to walk users through the changes to the resource. 

Events, Uncategorized

Appreciating Ada Lovelace

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Ada Lovelace was a pioneering computer scientist and mathematician of the 19th century. Since 2009, on the second Tuesday in October individuals around the country and globe gather to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day by commemorating her life and raising the profile of women and LGBTQ+ persons in the STEM fields. To honor her legacy, a group of librarians at UT planned and facilitated a daylong Wikipedia Edit-a-thon scheduled for October 8, 2019. 

Beginning in earnest in mid-August, four librarians including Gina Bastone, Roxanne Bogucka, Lydia Fletcher, and myself sat together at a table in the Physics, Math and Astronomy Library to brainstorm ideas and organize what would turn out to be an amazing experience and very meaningful event. The event drew more than 45 participants from across campus to learn about the Wikipedia editing process and get inaugural edits under their belts. 

To organize a successful Edit-a-thon event requires considerable planning in addition to forethought and purpose. Some of the initial goals were to improve the visibility of women in STEM fields, to teach first-time editors the quirks of Wikipedia editing, and to democratize the process of editing Wikipedia, which itself is largely contributed to by cis white men. Creating an accessible and drop-in event where folks could learn something, grab some food, and edit in between classes was also a priority. Starting the research process, identifying useful Wikipedia-friendly sources on top of creating content was a high order to meet in addition to orienting participants to the editing process. Reflecting on our cumulative past experience it was agreed that structuring the event to be largely self-guided was the best approach. Recognizing that the average participant may spend about an hour between classes at the Edit-a-thon, librarians identified pages that required editing and organizing sources ahead of time, focusing specifically on local women in STEM. We reached out to campus groups such as Women in Physics, Gender & Sexuality Center, and CNS-Q, who proved helpful by enthusiastically providing support in word of mouth and extra sustenance on the day of the Edit-a-thon.

One of the event organizers guides a participant through the structure of a Wikipedia article.

We organized the day through a system of Google Drive links and physical sticky notes to ensure that only one person would be editing one article at a time, while retaining the ability to have more than one contributor to each article on the day. Using this system of sticky notes to identify topics for editing, each person would grab a note with a unique scientist’s name off the board, hold on to it while editing that topic and then return it to the board if the entry still needed further edits. The Google Drive folder contained supporting material for our selected topics in addition to a wealth of curated training documents. Many of these training documents were reused and can be reused again in the future. These tools allowed us to plan and coordinate an event without having a required time for a formal demonstration. 

Three of the event organizers standing in front of the whiteboard used to organize topics.

The Edit-a-thon was wildly successful and drew participation from many first-time editors in the College of Natural Sciences. While the turnout was better than we had expected, the true success was in the feedback. All of the respondents to our survey agreed that they had learned about editing Wikipedia and the construction of articles at the event, and 87% said that they plan to continue editing into the future. The goals of the planning group had been met and exceeded, encouraging us to run further events teaching the ins and outs of contributing to Wikipedia.