PICO Portal is a web-based platform for citation screening that facilitates literature reviews. It combines a modern user interface, easy collaboration and work distribution between team members, and cutting-edge technology to save you time and resources.
Import search results directly from scientific literature libraries or use the PICO Portal upload .csv template. A sophisticated deduplication engine quickly identifies duplicates. During project setup, custom keywords can be added that will be highlighted during title/abstract screening to help you and your team make screening decisions faster. PICO Portal then learns from screening decisions and prioritizes references so the most relevant articles are presented first.
Create and Start Your First Project #
The first time signing in to PICO Portal, users are asked to start or join a project. Starting a project is simple. Choose between a single- or dual-review workflow, invite team members, upload search results, and add keywords and tags. Or, skip straight to uploading references and edit the project settings later.
Non-users who are invited to join an existing project via email will create and update their profile before joining a project.
Upload Articles #
PICO Portal supports uploading directly from the most popular scientific libraries and in multiple file formats (e.g., ris, xml, etc.). Drag and drop the file directly in the “Upload File” section, or browse select your file manually. We recommend uploading XML files for the fastest upload. Once all articles are uploaded to the project, the system finds and removes duplicates automatically.
Customize Project Workflow #
In the “Preferences” tab, can choose how many times each article is reviewed (most commonly single-review or dual-review).
Invite Team Members #
Invite team members to a project and assign them roles. Roles allow control over who can edit the project set-up, screen references, or just view the project’s progress. Once an email invitation is accepted, the invited member can begin.
Add Keywords and Tags #
We highly recommend leveraging the custom keywords feature. Keywords speed up citation screening by highlighting relevant inclusion or exclusion criteria. Keywords also prioritize references based on relevancy, so references most likely to be included will appear first.
Add and edit keywords to designate them as “include” or “exclude”, classify them by PICO elements, and make the highlight look stronger to add more emphasis. (Tip: When you manually add a keyword, it is designated as “Include” and classification “Other” by default. Edit each one to designate it to P,I,C, O or S for appropriate color coding.)
Tags allow citations to be labled (ex. “randomized trial” or “protocol” or “mixed methods study”) and group the labels (group ex. “Study Design”). It also helps manage and quickly identify relevant citations in your project and export the tagged citations to excel. This feature is relied upon for evidence mapping or any classification needs.
Screen Articles #
The Screening page displays the title and abstracts of the imported articles. PICO keywords are highlighted which gives a quick view and helps in determining whether to include the articles for a full-text review or exclude them. Where available, PICO Portal finds a clickable DOI that takes the user directly to the online publication.
Additional panels provide information to aid decision-making, such as MeSH and index terms, article source, other team members’ screening decisions, and artificial intelligence prediction of the article’s study design.
PICO Portal provides hotkeys on the Screening page to make the screening process even quicker (example: pressing [P] excludes an article for “population”). Click “Help” during screening to view a list of all the available hotkeys. Hotkeys are also available for the following:
- Add tags to classify the articles
- Add notes to provide additional information
- Specify PICOS reason for exclusion
- Upload full-text PDF
Note: If you are the owner or the co-owner of the project, by default, you are assigned the role of a reviewer and a judicator. In the case of principal reviewer, PICO Portal assigns the owner and the coowner the role of a principal reviewer instead of a reviewer.
When you as a project owner or coowner navigates to the Screening page, PICO Portal displays unreviewed citations. After all the citations are reviewed, PICO Portal displays the conflicting citations for final consensus
Check out PICO Portal’s library of short tutorial videos that cover a range of features for set up and team training: https://vimeo.com/showcase/11622174
For additional questions or assistance setting up a project in PICO Portal, feel free to contact us at support@picoportal.org.
