Good practices

Methodological and organisational recommendations we have seen make reviews faster and more defensible.

Before you start

• Close the protocol and register it (PROSPERO, OSF) before importing references. Changing criteria mid-screening forces you back.
• Run a pilot with 50 references and the whole team. Compare decisions, adjust criteria, then open the real phase.
• Define the exclusion reasons with the team: few, mutually exclusive and ordered from most to least restrictive.

During screening

• Short, regular sessions (30–45 minutes) keep consistency better than marathons.
• Review conflicts every week: settling them early recalibrates the team.
• Watch the kappa. Below 0.6, stop and clarify the criteria.
• Use "Maybe" deliberately: it is a reserve, not a way to postpone the decision.

With AI

• Start with prioritisation; automatic screening only for very low-scoring references and always with a verification sample.
• Always verify pre-extraction against the quoted passage.
• Include the AI-use statement in the article’s methods.

Security and data

• Two-step verification for everyone with an admin role.
• Check in Admin → Maintenance that the cron says “Running”: without it there are no automatic backups. Download a full backup off the server from time to time.
• Update when a new version is out: updates back up and roll back if needed.
• Do not upload PDFs you may not share with the team under your licence.

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