NEST Institute FAQ

This systematic review course is designed for both students and practicing professionals regardless of their prior statistics or research methods background. However, having a prior background in those areas does allow one to spend more time on the advanced methods of systematic review and meta-analysis, rather than on also learning the foundational concepts, which we do cover but briefly.

Whether you take the 5-day track or one of the 3-day tracks is entirely up to you and what you seek to learn. The question you need to ask yourself is do you want to learn how to conduct either quantitative or qualitative systematic reviews only, or do you want to learn how to do both types of systematic reviews? Note that these two types of reviews use very different methods that are not interchangeable. The 5-day track covers both, while each of the 3-day tracks covers either quantitative or qualitative systematic reviews but not both.

Upon registering and completing this course, you will have access to the JBI SUMARI tool for 1-year from the start date of the course. This 1-year subscription is included in the cost of registration for this course. Renewal of access to the JBI SUMARI software would be needed beyond that free one-year period, and the cost of a subscription is $130 USD at this time. However, you may be able to access this software freely from the Rutgers University library for Rutgers students, faculty and staff, or from your own institution if not affiliated with Rutgers University. However, the process of getting access to SUMARI from the library institutional license can be complex, so we recommend that you reach out to your institutional library and determine if this access is possible at least 1 week prior to the start of the course.

Yes, Rutgers University, through its library subscriptions with OVID, does currently offer institutional access to JBI SUMARI. Instructions on how to setup this access can be found in the following set of instructions from OVID (click here). Please note that this institutional access is not within the control of the NEST center or the Rutgers School of Nursing and can be terminated at any time. Please note also that access to JBI SUMARI via the Rutgers University institutional library subscription does not grant access to the NEST institutes which provide didactics on how to do systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses, in addition to hands-on learning on how to use the JBI SUMARI software program. The Rutgers University institutional subscription to JBI SUMARI only grants the user access to the JBI SUMARI software platform.

If you have any JBI SUMARI issues after the course is over, please contact the JBI SUMARI team at jbisumari@adelaide.edu.au. The JBI SUMARI team is usually prompt and their resolutions effective. JBI and OVID provide support for SUMARI for the duration of the user’s license. So for those who use an institutional license, it’s for as long as the university continues that license. For those who access SUMARI via the license purchased for them when they registered for the Spring/Summer or Winter Institute, support continues for one year from start date of the institute. After that, the user will need to purchase a SUMARI subscription on their own, unless they happen to take another institute for some reason (for example, some participants do quant first, and then qual later, and a few have done refreshers).

While the instructors are able to answer basic questions for you, we are not able to provide any extensive assistance beyond the time of the training, as the center’s resources are not setup to facilitate this. However, technical assistance is available for those participants who choose to purchase the NEST Systematic Review Service (see link below for details), which provides for the allocation of faculty support to assist participants with their projects beyond the time of the systematic review training.

Systematic Review Service >>

We are not aware of any trainings happening in the Americas during the Fall semester, although there may be some. Below is one website where many JBI SR trainings are posted, but it is not always up to date. The best approach is to contact the JBI center whose workshop you are interested in attending to confirm whether the training is taking place at a time that works for you.
https://jbi.global/events#global_events
 
You can also try to locate other JBI trainings by looking through the websites of the different centers in the Americas region (if that’s what is best for you) or other geographic regions. The website below provides the location (and sometimes the website) for all the JBI centers where this training is taught.
https://jbi.global/global-reach/collaboration

Yes, if something unanticipated comes up and you can no longer attend the course, we can either reimburse your fees or apply them to the next course. However, if you cancel within two weeks, we will not be able to reimburse your software fees, as we have to pay JBI two weeks in advance for the software licensure.