Using built-in search functions

Sysrev also provides two built-in search options: PubMed and OpenAlex.

To do a direct search of these sources, go to Manage -> Add Documents and click on PubMed or OpenAlex. Input your query into the search box and click Search. Examine the search results. If you want to import all of the records click the Import button.

PubMed

PubMed is the National Library of Medicine's search for the Medline database, one of the largest collections of bibliographic metadata for the biomedical and health sciences literature.

For PubMed, you can do a basic keyword search or use PubMed syntax and field codes for a more structured, transparent and reproducible search. The Sysrev built-in search should return the exact same results as if performing the search on PubMed itself. You can also review the PubMed user guide to learn more about complex search queries.

OpenAlex

OpenAlex is a multi-disciplinary bibliographic 'catalog' of scholarly papers including information about authors and institutions.

When searching OpenAlex directly, use a simple keyword search like 'wildfires asthma' (which will search for 'wildfires AND asthma' and variations on those terms). You can also do simple nested Boolean search like: (wildfires OR "forest fires") AND (asthma OR lung). Note that OpenAlex searches a huge collection of documents across all disciplines including some full text. As a result, you will likely get a large number of results. Use caution when considering how many results you actually want to import into your Sysrev project.