revtools: An R package to support article screening for evidence synthesis

Abstract

The field of evidence synthesis is growing rapidly, with a correspondingincrease in the number of software tools and workflows to support the con-struction of systematic reviews, systematic maps, and meta-analyses. Despitemuch progress, however, a number of problems remain, including slow inte-gration of new statistical or methodological approaches into user-friendly soft-ware, low prevalence of open-source software, and poor integration amongdistinct software tools. These issues hinder the utility and transparency of newmethods to the research community. Here, I present revtools, an R package tosupport article screening during evidence synthesis projects. It provides toolsfor the import and deduplication of bibliographic data, screening of articles bytitle or abstract, and visualization of article content using topic models. Thesoftware is entirely open-source and combines command-line scripting forexperienced programmers with custom-built user interfaces for casual users,with further methods to support article screening to be added over time.revtools provides free access to novel methods in an open-source environmentand represents a valuable step in expanding the capacity of R to support evi-dence synthesis projects. Show more