Duplicates

The next step after creating a review is uploading the references you want to screen.

When you perform literature searches in multiple databases you will often have a number of references present in more than one set of results. Rayyan can detect and resolve duplicates, but we recommend removing duplicates in EndNote, Zotero or other reference management software before uploading your references to Rayyan. If you use the free version of Rayyan you do not have access to their auto resolver, and can only resolve duplicates one by one.

Remember to keep track of total results, number of duplicates, and number of references screened in each step, if you are going to report your review according to PRISMA guidelines.

In our EndNote course you can read about removing duplicates in EndNote.

Read more about Duplicate Detection in Rayyan Help Center.

When you have removed duplicates in your reference management software, you can export a file with the results and upload it to Rayyan.

More than two reviewers?

If the team members are supposed to screen separate sets of articles, it is a good idea to create these sets as separate files before importing them to your Rayyan review. If you have one file of references for each pair of reviewers, they can easily limit the title list to "their" references in the review. Remember to name the files according to who is screening them. (If you have a paid subscription you can create your sets within Rayyan using the Samples function.)

Upload references

When you create a review Rayyan automatically asks you to Add references.

You can at any point upload more files containing references for your existing review, either from the Overview tab or from Review Data in your review. Regardless, we do recommend that you finish all your literature searches, and duplicate removal, before you start screening.

Click Add references, and then Select files.

Select one ore more files simultaneously.

Click Continue, followed by Finish.

If you import a large number of references it might take a little while before all your references are uploaded.

Supported file formats

From the dialogue box Add references you can see the supported import formats under Supported Formats. There is also a hyperlink to more information in Rayyan's Help Center.

Støttede formater er: EndNote Export, Refman/RIS, BibTeX, PubMed XML, CSV, New PubMed Format/nbib, Web of Science/CIW

Limit your title list by import file

When you are on the review's Screening page, where you code your decisions for inclusion or exclusion, you will find the files you imported in the Filters menu. They are listed under the heading Search Methods, and you can select them to limit your title list to specific files. This way each review member can choose to only see the set of titles that are assigned to them.