Importing Data guide
The first step to setting up your project is importing the dataset or article references to be screened.
SYRAS assumes you have exported your references from the various journal database search engines, and have a set of files downloaded. See the features for the current list of file formats supported. Before you import data you should understand two “container” concepts used in SYRAS.
Project – each project contains its own corpus of article references and a team of collaborators.
Article Set – a project can contain several sub-sets of the main corpus. The main article set is labelled “ALL ARTICLES” and for some reviews this may be all you require. For more complex workflows or protocols, you can split this set up or create subsets like disagreements. Each Article Set can be assigned to teams or screened. See Assigning Work for more details.
How set up your first project and import data.
First create a project from the Projects page. Open it and click Manage to enter the Project Dashboard.
Under Document Management you will see an overview of the article references imported so far.
Click IMPORT ARTICLES and choose the journal database export file you wish to import.
Choose the file format (RIS, NBIB etc).
If you wish to randomise the presentation order of the imported articles, now is the time to do it. This shuffles the references, otherwise they are presented in the order in which they were found in the file (which may have some sequence bias from the journal search engine).
You can upload multiple import files which get added to the “ALL ARTICLES” set. The filenames of the files you have uploaded will be listed to help you keep track of importing multiple files, (often journals make you export chunks and so it can get confusing). If SYRAS is configured to retain the original uploaded files, the consumed storage space is also displayed. (To reduce hosting cost overhead, SYRAS normally discards the original files which are not really technically needed, but might be required to conform to a protocol paper trail.)
Once uploaded, you will be prompted to run a de-duplicate check, with various options. See the Deduplication Guide for more details.
Note if you are uploading multiple files, you can either process the duplicates after each file to handle duplicates within each import file and keep the number of comparison-combinations lower, or you could wait until the end (to handle duplicates between journals).
If you make a mistake and want to start over, you can select replace all project data and import the first file again. This will wipe the project of references (and any reviews). (but keeps the team structure intact).
If you delete the entire project from the Projects page then all articles, all reviews and team structure is erased. Collaborator accounts are not themselves deleted, but their association to that project and their reviews are removed.