Government Social Research
There are two main components of data collection in an REA: the location of studies and the description of them.
Electronic databases for locating studies include the Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA), Sociofile and the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS). Deciding upon the most appropriate databases to search for a given REA is one of the tasks that are done as part of writing the protocol. The eight databases available on GSR desktops provide a good starting point for searching electronically available documents. Depending on your question and topic area, you will probably need to search more widely using additional databases.
Access to good library facilities is essential for the completion of a successful REA. Not only will the team need to access electronic databases that have expensive subscriptions (if their searches are not contracted out), but they will need to retrieve a large number of papers quickly. Quick inter-library loans make an REA proceed smoothly and, now that papers are increasingly available in electronic form, access to a secure document service – such as the one provided by the British Library – is also very helpful. It would be difficult to conduct an REA without these services and, thus, a good institutional base for the REA can be considered a pre-requisite for this work.
Once studies have been located the references of these studies need to be recorded. The failure to maintain good records of searches is a common mistake. Since an REA needs to be able to account for every study it contains, it needs to record the timing, search strings used and outcome of every search. These records can be maintained using standard word-processing and spreadsheet applications: they simply require planning and consistent use.
Once hundreds (sometimes thousands) of titles and abstracts have been downloaded, however, reference management software is usually used. This software, such as EndNote and Reference Manager, can often import and format references downloaded from many bibliographic databases. These references can then be viewed one by one and decisions made regarding their suitability for inclusion in the REA. Reference management packages usually have the facility for researchers to record the outcome of screening decisions and other REA information, such as whether the full text of a reference is available.