Scoping Reviews

This page contains resources to help your team develop a protocol using items 1 and 3-13 from PRISMA for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. The item numbers in parentheses refer to the relevant sections of the PRISMA-ScR checklist.

Note: the resources referenced are examples and may not work for your scoping review. Talk to your liaison librarian for more information or to set up a consultation.

• Protocol and registration (Item 5) 
  • Register your protocol. You can deposit your protocol into an open science repository such as Open Science Framework or Feinberg's institutional repository (Prism). There are also several journals that publish protocols:
    • BMC Systematic Reviews 
    • JMIR Research Protocols
    • JBI Evidence Synthesis
    • BMJ Open
• Information Sources (Item 7) - Bibliographic databases and grey literature sources.
• Selection of sources of evidence (Item 9) - Covidence or Rayyan.
• Critical appraisal within sources of evidence (Item 16) -  Optional step in scoping reviews. The Cochrane Collaboration’s Risk of Bias Tool is commonly cited. See Tools for Reviewers page on the Reporting Research GalterGuide for more checklists.
• Results of individual sources of evidence (Item 17) - Consider the PRISMA flow diagram to illustrate the flow of information.

View the Statement/Explanatory paper and Tip Sheets here to learn more about each checklist item.

• Tricco, AC, Lillie, E, Zarin, W, O'Brien, KK, Colquhoun, H, Levac, D, Moher, D, Peters, MD, Horsley, T, Weeks, L, Hempel, S et al. PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR): checklist and explanation. Ann Intern Med. 2018,169(7):467-473. doi:10.7326/M18-0850.

Below are additional tools to help teams develop protocols for scoping reviews. 

• Scoping Review Protocol Guidance template 
• Generalized Registration Form 

Visit the AI Resources for Literature Reviews GalterGuide to view links and information on AI tools that can assist in conducting literature reviews. The lists provided are not exhaustive, and the Galter Library does not endorse any of the tools mentioned. Users are responsible for understanding the functionalities and limitations of each tool.