Searching for Grey Literature Farhad Shokraneh Medical Information Specialist Cochrane Schizophrenia Group Presentation at: Information Retrieval Topics: Grey Literature Search [Webinar]; September 9, 2015; Systematic Review Solutions Ltd. China, Malaysia and UK

What is grey literature? Cochrane Handbook: Cochrane Handbook – “literature that is not formally published in sources such as books or journal articles” Wikipedia – “Type of information or research output produced by organisations, outside of commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels” The Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature (GL '99) The Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature (GL '99) – “That which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers” 29/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Characteristics Officially/commercially/systematically: – Usually NOT published by a commercial publisher – Usually NOT distributed widely – Usually NOT controlled/indexed 39/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Why do we call it “grey”? It is not as invisible as ‘darkness’: e.g. thoughts! Here it stands It is not as visible as ‘light’: e.g. publications 49/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Advantages: why is it important? Sometimes the info are only available as grey literature not any other format (e.g. a thesis that never get published as a paper) Usually high quality (e.g. PhD dissertation) Usually free Usually more detailed info (compare thesis versus journal paper published based on thesis) Usually with quick output (again compare thesis versus journal paper and its process of peer-review, edit, formatting, indexing, etc.) 59/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Disadvantages: what are limitations? Discovery – No comprehensive database – No indexing or bibliographic control/record/citation – No serious collecting body – No estimation of size of grey literature Accessibility – Public or private? – Copyrighted or restricted with permission? – Permanent access or limited to time/place? Quality evaluation – Content quality: Peer-reviewed or not? – Physical quality: Formatting and layout quality? 69/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

What are types of grey literature? Conference abstracts Dissertations, and theses (academic reports) Reports (proposals/protocols, progress reports, final reports, annual reports, etc.) Technical specifications and standards Newsletters Patents Data Lecture presentations and notes etc. 79/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Where to find them: Databases – Open Grey (Europe-focused) Open Grey – British Library (International-focused) – Healthcare Management Information Consortium (HMIC) via Ovid SP (UK-focused) – National Technical Information Service (NTIS) (Us- focused) – PsycEXTRA (psychology-focused) – Repositories: OpenDOAR - the Directory of Open Access RepositoriesOpenDOAR - the Directory of Open Access Repositories – etc. 89/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Where to find them: Dissertations and Theses – ProQuest’s Dissertations and Theses (International focus) – British Library’s EThOS ServiceEThOS Service – Open Access Theses and Dissertations Database Open Access Theses and Dissertations Database – DART-Europe E-theses Portal (DEEP) – CINAHL (subject focus on nursing theses) – (UK-focused) – (Germany-focused) – Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) (International focus) – Theses Canada Portal – etc. 99/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Where to find them: Conference Proceedings – Web of Science Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Science (CPCI-S) present Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) present – EMBASE – BIOSIS – Zetoc – etc. 109/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Where to find them: Clinical Trials – ClinicalTrials.Gov – ISRCTN.com – WHO ICTRP – CENTRAL: Cochrane Central Register of Clinical Trials – etc. 119/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Choice in hand! Google Scholar Good for scoping general grey lit search Not reliable results during time Only first 1000 hits could be viewed 129/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

What to do now? Source: Alex E. Proimos - E. Proimoshttp:// 139/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Why do you need to know about this? If you do any kind of research you have to do a review: – Literature reviews (for research, thesis, or project) – Scoping review (to know the scope of a topic) – Systematic review (to build a reliable body of knowledge through research synthesis in a specific topic) Preventing “publication bias”: “Published trials showed an overall greater treatment effect than grey trials” and “published trials had more participants on average” (Hopewell 2007)Hopewell 2007 Time to search grey: “The median time spent searching all resources was 471 minutes, and of those a median of 85 minutes were spent searching grey literature” (Saleh 2014)Saleh 2014 – In topic with very low literature, go ‘grey’! 149/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

When you are doing any kind of review… List the potential sources for grey literature Ask experts about other possible grey literature Search for grey literature and use them Cite them as a usual reference in your work Check the permission to use if you use a table, picture, figure or major part of a work 159/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

*Document your search for grey literature* Your search methods are part of your research methods so they should be reproducible – Where did you search? – When did you search? – What were the search strategies? – How many results did you find? – Who did the search? If you provide this info, anyone can re-run your search! 169/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Websites to visit! /9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

If you are interested in this topic: Finding the Hard to Finds: Searching for Grey Literature Grey lit 101: Shining a White Light on Grey Literature Grey lit 102: Advanced Search Strategies for Grey Literature Grey lit 103 Standing Out in a Sea of Grey Literature A Producer’s (Librarian) Perspective Finding Grey Literature Evidence and Assessing for Outcome and Analysis Reporting Biases When Comparing Medical Interventions: AHRQ and the Effective Health Care Program Finding Grey Literature Evidence and Assessing for Outcome and Analysis Reporting Biases When Comparing Medical Interventions: AHRQ and the Effective Health Care Program Grey Matters: a practical search tool for evidence-based medicine 189/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh

Thanks for Your Attention and Ask a Question, Please! Feel free to contact me at – farhadshokraneh [at] gmail.com – farhad.shokraneh [at] nottingham.ac.uk 199/9/2015Farhad Shokraneh