Creating Labels
Sysrev facilitates the identification of relevant data and extraction of information from a broad set of potentially relevant sources. For example, a researcher who conducts a systematic review based on 25 articles may have identified those articles by first looking through thousands of potentially relevant articles. When reviewing a body of literature to identify the relevant articles, in can be valuable to simultaneously identify relevant information from those articles. One of the primary ways Sysrev enables you to do this is through labels.
This article will explain:
A label is information that is attached to an article during the review process. Generally, a project owner will write a series of questions to be answered about each article, and those questions will be answered by reviewers each time they review an article.
There are 3 types of labels: Boolean, Categorical, and String.
- A boolean label is similar to a true/false or yes/no question on a survey. When creating a boolean label in Sysrev, you will enter in a question, and during a review the reviewer will be given the option to answer yes or not to that question. By default, all reviews have a boolean label asking whether or not you want to include the article in your analysis.
- A categorical label is like a multiple choice question on a survey. You create a label with a question, and during the review the reviewer will select a single answer from a list of answer choices. For example, you may create a categorical label with the title "study type", and the answer choices could be systematic review, randomized control, and case reports. During an article review, the reviewer will choose one (and only one) of those answers to be applied for that label. If you want a reviewer to be able to select multiple options, you will instead need to use a series of boolean labels (e.g., 3 different yes/no labels, one that asks if the article is for a systematic review, one that asks if it is for a randomized control, and one that asks if it is for a case reports)
- A string label is similar to a short-response question on a survey. It allows the reviewer to type in a short response to a question when reviewing an article. For example, a string label may ask the sample size of the study, and the reviewer will type in the sample size for each article during the review.
In addition to labels, Sysrev allows reviewers to append information to an article using notes or annotations. Labels are meant to provide standard information about an article in a structured way that is easy to analyze and search. Notes, on the other hand, are free-text comments that reviewers can write about an article. And annotations identify and locate specific information that is in an article (such as highlighting all genes). See articles on Notes and Annotations for more details.
There are many reasons to use labels. They greatly improve the ability to extract information and analyze metrics. In fact, Sysrev automatically creates visualizations of summary metrics based on labels, and more functionality will be coming. Also, labels also make it easier to search for relevant information in the future.
Using labels in Sysrev provides more structure and consistency to your work. This is especially valuable when collaborating among many people who may all review some articles. There is no need to worry about information being lost due to misspelling or different people using different terminology. Labels that are standardized across the project can ensure that information is attached to and correctly extracted from articles.
Click "manage" then "label definitions" to get to the page where you create labels.
From here, you have to choose which type of label you want to create. For this example, we'll create a categorical label. Click "Add categorical label" button to open up a window for a new categorical label.
"Name" is the title that will appear above the label. "Question" is optional: you can enter in more information about the labels that reviewers can see when they hover over the tool-tip. Categories is where you enter the answer choices (each choice separated by a comma).
If you decide you don't want a label to appear in reviews, but you also don't want to delete the label, then you can turn it off by clicking the "disable label" button. The label will then be moved down into the Disabled Labels section. You can re-enable it again if you later choose to.