Dear all

As part of your studies you’ll need to search within academic databases such as Medline (from Ovid)
or Web of Science to find articles and papers on the topics you are researching. This will be
especially important for your Research Project.

Self-directed e-learning materials developed by the library are available to support you with any
literature searching you need to do. We have selected the Advanced Health/Systematic Review e-
learning as this will help you locate and explore primary literature sources in pharmaceutical science
and further develop skills to efficiently search the relevant literature. It will also assist those
undertaking a Critical Review Article with writing a detailed account of their literature research
approach.

You can access these materials within the KLaSS - King's Learning and Skills section within the
Research Project module KEATS site.

The Advanced Searching/Systematic Review e-learning contains demonstrations and interactive

activities to help you with literature searching and is broken down into the following 11 parts:

1) Starting your research and exploring frameworks

2) Exploring databases and the activity ‘Which databases will you choose?’
3) Ways of searching
4) Searching in action
5) Combining your searches with OR and AND
6) Using limits in your searching
7) Accessing an article's full text
8) Systematic Reviews: Explode and Focus, and how to use them
9) Systematic Reviews: Using methodological filters
10) Systematic Reviews: Searching for Grey Literature
11) Systematic Reviews: Reading and Recording Search Strategies

There is a diagnostic quiz to start which if you get something wrong will direct you to the activities to
support your learning. You don’t need to work through all the e-learning parts if you already
understand them. You can then check your knowledge and get feedback with a final quiz (which can
be repeated if you wish).

We have timetabled self-study sessions for you over 3 sessions (Fri 23 rd September, Mon 26th
September) to access the e-learning and do a bit of exercise on these parts. You have some of the
keywords for your projects so it is a good idea to start practicing on those! This will prepare you for
the interactive = 2 hour ‘Finding sources of information and evidence‘ webinar session (timetabled
on Mon 3/10 (10:00-12:00, 14:00-16:00), Tues 4/10 (10:00-12:00)or Wed 5/10 (15:00-17:00)) as this
will be an interactive webinar where you will have the opportunity to put this learning into practice
supported by library staff. You will be allocated to one of the groups so you will only attend the
webinar once. The group allocations can be found on KEATS.

Critical appraisal sessions

The library will also offer 2 in person first come first serve optional sign-up sessions in November in
FWB library rooms (details of the room to be sent to you at a later date by Ms Karen Poole) on how
to critically appraise an article using a checklist; one session appraising a piece of quantitative
research (an RCT) and the other for qualitative research. You will need to read the selected article
before attending the session and details of this and how to sign up will be added to the module
KEATS page.

If you have any questions on these parts please contact library services
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/

Regards
Professor KT Al-Jamal