Librarian Support for Student Knowledge Synthesis Projects in Nursing: Information for Faculty

Note that librarian support for student knowledge synthesis projects is limited due to capacity constraints: 

• NURS 824 students are limited to two hours of librarian support (maximum)
• Masters thesis and PhD students are limited to five hours of librarian support (maximum)

The faculty supervisor provides mentorship and the necessary structure, training, and guidance required for students to complete a successful project. If the student/learner requires more intensive guidance, or if the KS project direction or expectations are unclear, I will refer them back to their faculty supervisor for clarification and support. Ideally, faculty supervisors should attend the first consultation, as it ensures that everyone is on the same page. 

So we can use the time constructively, students will be required to complete video tutorials and pre-work to support (or complement) their learning and ensure preparation for their librarian consultation(s).  Before beginning a KS project, students should fully understand each step, as well as the time, resources, and skills needed to complete an entire project from start to finish. 

There are certain times of the year when students may experience lower appointment availability and slower email response times. Supervisors can supportively bridge these times by encouraging students to plan their KS project well in advance, setting realistic deadlines (especially around the searching process), and providing perspective on how long each stage of the project will take. Providing students with information about resources for writing help, available workshops, and general library help is an additional way to mitigate this issue. 

Librarians can advise on how to:

• Discover whether a review or protocol on the same topic already exists
• Formulate the review question
• Determine appropriate databases/resources to search
• Develop a comprehensive search strategy, including translation across databases
• Perform a search update
• Conduct grey literature searches
• Report search methods according to PRISMA

Librarians cannot:

• Provide step-by-step guidance on how to conduct a knowledge synthesis project
• Provide supervision/mentorship; students/learners will be redirected to their instructor or supervisor
• Provide guidance on meta-analysis, quality appraisal, data extraction, and analysis/synthesis
• Interpret assignment instructions for students
• Review student assignment/project outputs before submission

Narrative Review

• A narrative review enables students to learn the literature review process without the necessity of a comprehensive literature search, critical appraisal, data extraction, a team, or extensive time commitment (Lipke & Price, 2025).
• The requirements for literature searching for narrative reviews are less stringent than for other types of reviews (Grant & Booth, 2009).
• Finding and analyzing everything ever produced on the topic is not required, and the "level of evidence" of the selected materials may be less important than with other types of reviews.

Resources:

Greenhalgh, T., Thorne, S., & Malterud, K. (2018). Time to challenge the spurious hierarchy of systematic over narrative reviews? European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 48(6), e12931. https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.12931

Thorne, S. (2018). Rediscovering the “narrative” review. Nursing Inquiry, 25(3), e12257. https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12257

Sukhera, J. (2022). Narrative reviews: Flexible, rigorous, and practical. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 14(4), 414–417. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-22-00480.1

Sukhera, J. (2022). Narrative reviews in medical education: Key steps for researchers. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 14(4), 418–419. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-22-00481.1

Other Alternatives

A recent article by Lipke et al. (2005) has some additional suggestions for alternatives to a review:

Lipke, L., & Price, C. (2025). Rethinking systematic review assignment design in graduate health science education from librarians’ perspectives. Hypothesis: Research Journal for Health Information Professionals, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.18060/28463 

Review Protocol

A systematic or scoping review protocol contains many of the same reporting elements as the final review but can be performed as an independent exercise within a shorter amount of time.

Systematic Search and Search Methods

Conducting and reporting a documented and reproducible literature search helps students understand the foundation of a systematic literature review.

Risk of Bias/Critical Appraisal

Critically appraising or determining the risk of bias of a set of relevant research requires that students become familiar with the standardized instruments, research design, and advanced critical thinking skills.

Data Extraction

Having students extract data from relevant published studies requires them to adhere to pre-defined criteria and manage research data in a transparent way.

Qualitative Synthesis

Qualitatively describing how the data answers the research question allows students to determine strengths and weaknesses of the data, identifies evidence gaps, and compare the findings with existing scholarship.

Peer Review

Peer review a process all scholars will experience in their career, whether it is in the form of receiving or providing this feedback. Conducting a peer review of another student’s work allows students to learn to provide gracious yet constructive feedback. The peer review can be completed with any of the alternative assignments suggested.

Systematized Review

While a systematized review does not meet the strict criteria for conducting and reporting a systematic review, it can work as an introduction to the process be performed by an individual or group within a shorter time frame. While pairing assignments together is not necessary, suggested pairings have been provided dependent on the scope and goals of the research methods course