Systematic review workshop

Nine of us OUBS PhD students have spent an engrossing and exciting day working on how to review literature. Dave Denyer from Cranfield led the day. He comes across as a practitioner, not just someone who says "you should do it this systematic way", but someone who does review systematically.

The approach

• stimulates thoughts
• stimulates creativity
• is systematic
• distinguishes between literature review as a scoping exercise and a literature review of the relevant literature

It gives you a structure, a logic and an audit for tackling the literature. Dave left us with files, overheads and templates for mapping, documenting and analysing.

One student was so impressed that half way through the day was cross that we hadn't had the training a year ago, and suggested this session should be compulsory for first year PhD students, it is so worth doing. Two of our third years came along considering it worth repeating for revision.

Systematic review

The Cranfield Master of Research dissertations are not empirical research but systematic reviews of the literature, and as such are great examples of how to go about a systematic review. Consequently I'm low that I didn't tackle my literature review this way at the start of this academic year.

Now though I am imagining all the things that won't come together, the important literature I won't find and how to write it up coherently.

Research questions

I'm going to have to start identifying research questions from my literature search. May be one from the contracts paper that I mentioned a few weeks ago, but also may be this article by Peled will raise useful questions.

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Peled, D. A. 2001. Outsourcing and Political Power: Bureaucrats, Consultants, Vendors and Public Information Technology. Public Personnel Management, 30(4): 495.

Literature search

This first year is about the literature search, as I understand it. By the end of the year, I have a probationary report, must present a review of the literature and a proposal for research at a viva. So now I must plan how I go about this.

Dave Denyer from Cranfield came and talked to us last year about a systematic review of the literature as a means of ensuring that you have covered all the relevant sources, and can provide an audit trail.

Secondly, last year we were introduced to Endnote. I'd come across Refworks, but not doing academic research had not seen the need for it. Now I do see the need for an electronic tool for referencing and citing. However, my skills with Endnote haven't been sufficiently honed so went on a refresher course. I think that together with a systematic review of the literature I should find enough to keep me going for the first few months. But I'll check when I get my first supervisory meeting next week.