| Literature DB >> 32256231 |
Justin Michael Clark1, Sharon Sanders2, Matthew Carter3, David Honeyman4, Gina Cleo5, Yvonne Auld6, Debbie Booth7, Patrick Condron8, Christine Dalais9, Sarah Bateup10, Bronwyn Linthwaite11, Nikki May12, Jo Munn13, Lindy Ramsay14, Kirsty Rickett15, Cameron Rutter16, Angela Smith17, Peter Sondergeld18, Margie Wallin19, Mark Jones20, Elaine Beller21.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Searching for studies to include in a systematic review (SR) is a time- and labor-intensive process with searches of multiple databases recommended. To reduce the time spent translating search strings across databases, a tool called the Polyglot Search Translator (PST) was developed. The authors evaluated whether using the PST as a search translation aid reduces the time required to translate search strings without increasing errors.Entities:
Mesh:
Year: 2020 PMID: 32256231 PMCID: PMC7069833 DOI: 10.5195/jmla.2020.834
Source DB: PubMed Journal: J Med Libr Assoc ISSN: 1536-5050
Categorization and scores for the difference from the expected number of references
| Deviation from expected number of references | Categorization | Categorization score |
|---|---|---|
| Between −50% and −100% | Larger negative deviation (likely to have missed relevant records) | −2 |
| Between −50% and −5% | Smaller negative deviation (may have missed relevant records) | −1 |
| Between −5% and 5% | No important deviation | 0 |
| Between 5% and 50% | Smaller positive deviation (some extra records to screen) | 1 |
| Greater than 50% | Larger positive deviation (likely to have many irrelevant records to screen) | 2 |
Characteristics of participants who performed translations during the trial
| Characteristics of trial participants | Participants (n=15 |
|---|---|
|
| |
| Levels of formal training (multiple selections possible) | |
|
| |
| Bachelor’s and/or master’s in library science | 10 |
| Bachelor’s in non-library science | 6 |
| Master’s and/or doctorate (PhD) in nonlibrary science | 4 |
| Current position | |
| Librarian | 13 |
| Researcher or educator | 2 |
| Place of work | |
| University | 14 |
| Hospital | 1 |
| Years of systematic review (SR) searching experience | |
| 10+ years | 5 |
| 3–9 years | 7 |
| 0–2 years | 3 |
| Number of SRs authored | |
| 10+ | 1 |
| 5–9 | 4 |
| 1–4 | 5 |
| 0 | 5 |
| Years of experience in searching the literature | |
| 20+ | 6 |
| 10–19 | 4 |
| 0–9 | 5 |
15 of 16 participants who performed translations during the trial responded to the survey.
Figure 1Mean time taken (minutes) to translate search strings by the Polyglot Search Translator–assisted (PST-A) and manual methods
Abbreviation: PST-A=Polyglot Search Translator–assisted.
Figure 2Mean number of errors by the PST-A and manual methods
Number and percent of unique errors in search string translations
| Error category | PST-A method translations (n=174) | Manual method translations (n=192) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| ||||
| n | (%) | n | (%) | |
| Wrong wildcard or truncation syntax: recall | 30 | (17%) | 28 | (15%) |
| Incorrect subject term conversion: recall | 16 | (9%) | 11 | (6%) |
| Not exploding a subject term: recall | 14 | (8%) | 15 | (8%) |
| Missing or added wildcard or truncation: recall | 12 | (7%) | 25 | (13%) |
| Incorrect field syntax used: recall | 12 | (7%) | 7 | (4%) |
| Incorrect search structure: recall** | 11 | (6%) | 12 | (6%) |
| Incorrect field chosen: precision | 10 | (6%) | 31 | (16%) |
| Out of place characters inserted: recall | 10 | (6%) | 6 | (3%) |
| Incorrect field chosen: recall | 9 | (5%) | 31 | (16%) |
| Incorrect phrase translation: recall | 9 | (5%) | 9 | (5%) |
| Missing subject term: recall | 8 | (5%) | 16 | (8%) |
| Spelling mistake in search: recall | 8 | (5%) | 15 | (8%) |
| Missing keyword term: recall | 7 | (4%) | 25 | (13%) |
| Incorrect adjacency syntax: recall | 7 | (4%) | 1 | (1%) |
| Incorrect subject term conversion: precision | 6 | (3%) | 2 | (1%) |
| Exploding a subject term: precision | 5 | (3%) | 24 | (13%) |
| Term truncated at wrong point: recall | 5 | (3%) | 12 | (6%) |
| Incorrect phrase translation: precision | 4 | (2%) | 25 | (13%) |
| Incorrect adjacency used: precision | 4 | (2%) | 9 | (5%) |
| Other error type: recall | 8 | (4%) | 9 | (5%) |
| Other error type: precision | 17 | (8%) | 18 | (9%) |
| Total | 206 | 329 | ||
Abbreviation: PST-A=Polyglot Search Translator–assisted.
Error identified and fixed in the PST after trial completion.
Figure 3Mean categorization score for the number of references retrieved by translated search strings compared to the reference standard translation
* The smaller the score (and the smaller the bar) the closer the number of references retrieved by the translated search to the number of references retrieved by the reference standard translation.