Government Social Research
This Toolkit provides guidance on the full REA process but you will need to decide whether you have the skills and resources to undertake one in house. The key general advantages and disadvantages to doing this are listed below.
Greater control over the project. Undertaking the REA directly allows greater control over the day to day work in the REA. However, even when contracting out work you will need to maintain good overall control of the project.
Familiarisation with the literature. Undertaking the REA, particularly screening and critically appraising the studies internally gives a deeper understanding of the evidence that is available in the area.
Subject knowledge. It is likely that you have a good understanding of the subject area you work in and whilst this may also be true of the contractor it is not certain. Subject knowledge is important, for example, it can be used to check whether the search strategy has picked up key texts.
Saving money by not having to pay contractors to do the work. This saving should be balanced against the cost of the staff hours needed to undertake the REA.
Developing a pool of expertise. The more REAs that are undertaken by GSR members the greater the expertise in government. As well as being able to advise other GSR members on how to do REAs, this should also strengthen the management of contracted out REAs.
Resource intensive. REAs require significant staff time to meet short timescales. You will also need to be able to draw on a flexible pool of people who can do work at busier periods in an REA, such as screening all the abstracts that have been found.
Skills and experience. The tight timescales in REAs make it important to for someone in the team to have the necessary skills and experience undertake them. If you have never done an REA before it is useful to speak to an expert before starting the project. Even when you have the necessary skills and experience in house it is still necessary to be able to draw on other specialists such as librarians or information specialists.
Lack of specialist software. It is not essential to purchase specialist software to manage the REA process but if you do not you will need to spend time developing your own systems using standard packages (e.g. Excel).