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Covidence

This guide will help you set up an account in Covidence and provide basic instructions for how to screen studies for a review.

Select References to Import

Generally speaking, you will not export references from a database directly into Covidence. Instead, you first need to export them to a citation management program, such as EndNote or Zotero, or any other program that supports RIS or CSV formats. Then you can import them into Covidence. These guides can help you with this process:

The only exception to this practice is PubMed. Because Covidence supports the PubMed XML format, it is possible to send those results directly to Covidence, but we still encourage you to use a citation manager instead in order to keep all of your references organized.

Import References

Go to the "Review Summary" page and click on the Import button.

import process step one

On the next screen, select the following options:

  • Import Into - If you are just starting your review, select "Screen". Covidence gives you the ability to add records to any step of the process. For example, if you found an article later that you know you want to include in the full text review stage, you could select that option and import that one record. 
  • Source - This is optional. The video below will explain more about this option, but you can usually skip it.
  • Choose File - Click this button and navigate to the file that you exported from EndNote, Zotero, etc. Click on the file to select it.

Finally, click on the blue Import button. The amount of time it takes to upload your references depends on the size of the file.

import process step two

You can import files up to 50 MB and up to 15,000 references are one time. There is no limit to how many imports you can perform.

You can also refer to the "How to Import References" guide on the Covidence support site for information. 

Undoing Your Import

If you've made a mistake, you can undo the last import as long as you have not screened any articles from that import.

To start, click the Import History button:

import process undo import

Each file you import will be listed along with the import date. If you have not screened articles from the import that you want to undo, you will see an Undo Import button. 

undo import step two

If this button is available, click it to undo the last import. If you have already screened some articles, the Undo Import button will be disabled. If this happens, the import cannot be undone.