Who are the clinics for?
Academics and health/social care professionals based in the South West of England who are currently undertaking or planning a systematic review.
What will I learn?
It depends on what your query is. When booking an appointment, you will need to decide whether you want to speak to an information specialist or a systematic reviewer. In order to help you make that decision, here are some general areas that we can help with:
An Information Specialist can help with: informing search strategies, using Endnote as your reference library, managing your references, searching databases effectively, using local resources.
A Systematic Reviewer can help with: developing your protocol, describing the systematic review process, guidance on screening, data extraction and quality assessment (critical appraisal) and synthesis.
Many people find it helpful to book a single type of appointment depending on what stage of the project they are at, and then book further appointments as their review progresses. If you think you will need advice from both a reviewer and an information specialist during the same appointment, we recommend booking two consecutive timeslots at the same clinic if you can, to allow enough time to cover your enquiry in detail.
Making a booking
Select from the dates listed at the bottom of the page, or if you only have access to a mobile phone, please book directly from our Eventbrite page
Please note that the time of your appointment will be the timeslot you select when booking (not the overall time of the advice clinic shown on the booking page). It will be shown on your confirmation email as the “ticket type”, e.g. “Timeslot 1: 11:30 – 12:00″. We will usually send you a calendar invite for this time a few days before your appointment, so if you are booking well in advance, you may find it helpful to diarise the time yourself in order to avoid any later clashes.
Our booking terms and conditions (and a few tips to get the most out of your appointment):
- Appointments take place remotely, via MS Teams. If you don’t have access to Teams, please contact us at arcsouthwest@exeter.ac.uk to discuss alternative options.
- Where possible, available appointments will remain bookable until 48 hours before the advice clinic begins, although we will sometimes need to close the booking system earlier.
- The more information you can provide when you book about your progress with your project and what you are struggling with, the more tailored the advice will be on the day.
- We will normally send you a calendar invite for your booked slot 1-2 days before your appointment. If you haven’t received this by 3 p.m. on the day before your appointment, please contact us.
- The advice clinics are specifically aimed at colleagues working on a systematic review. Appointments are often in high demand, with some people having to wait several weeks to attend. If you need advice on literature searching, but are not planning to do a systematic review, please see our Frequently Asked Questions for alternative sources of help.
- Fair usage policy: you may book a maximum of 2 timeslots per clinic. Please only book a double appointment if you need advice from both a reviewer and an information specialist at the same time. You can always book another slot at a later clinic if you need to.
- If you make an appointment and later find that you can’t attend, please let us know as soon as possible in order to free up the space for others. You can either email us, or cancel your appointment on Eventbrite if you have an account. Serial non-attenders who don’t make contact regarding their missed appointments will be barred from attending future clinics.
- We are happy to accept appointments relating to multi-site collaborative projects, but the appointment must be made and attended by a member of the project team who is based at an organisation within the South West of England.
- On very rare occasions, we may need to cancel an appointment due to staff illness or other priority commitments. Where possible, we will always try to find another member of the team who can take the clinic. If we need to cancel, we will rebook your appointment for the next available advice clinic which suits you.
For more information, please see our Frequently Asked Questions