Tutorials and guides
Step-by-step guides
Video guides
Video guides
Frequently asked questions
Signing up and logging in
Setting up your review
'Importing files
Machine learning
Screening articles
Full text articles
Data extraction
Exporting results
Interface
Additional FAQs here
- I have not received a confirmation email and I cannot log in?
- Please email [email protected] and we will validate your account if this is a problem you are experiencing.
- When I request a password reset - it cannot find my account?
- Make sure you enter your email as case-sensitive and try again (same for logging in).
- If you do not receive a password reset email, please email [email protected]
Setting up your review
- Why can’t I edit the review description or the planning page?
- Only the review owner can edit the description and planning section. To change review owners, go to settings → collaboration
- How do I add research questions?
- You have to add the research question block and then save it before you can edit text - hit add, and then hit save, and then type to your heart’s content.
- Does Colandr connect to a citation database?
- No, you need to connect to and export citations in a different system. However, Colandr will help you generate a Boolean search string for database searches
'Importing files
- Type of files that can be imported
- .txt, .ris, and .bib files can be imported. In practice, we suggest exporting .ris files directly from your citation manager or database of choice. Please email us if you have troubles with import. A note that PubMed imports can be tricky.
- Maximum size of a single import
- 40 MB
- Can you delete an import?
- No
Machine learning
- How fast does Colandr’s citation sorter learn?
- Every 10 citations screened in the same review (including by multiple collaborators) the citation screener learns and the relevance ranking is updated. You must manually refresh the screen to resort your citations
- Colandr isn’t automatically extracting my metadata, why is that?
- Colandr needs to be trained on 50 hand-coded metadata extractions in the same review (including by multiple collaborators) before it starts offering suggestions for metadata extraction
- Why doesn’t Colandr make a decision for me if something should be included or excluded?
- Process is computer-assisted, not-computer done. We didn’t want a black box with all the biases that might occur to be excluding relevant papers and obscure transparency of the review processs. You as a reviewer decide when to stop screening.
Screening articles
- Are duplicates removed?
- Yes, a process runs in the background to identify and remove duplicates by title and author(s). This process is not instantaneous and can take up to 15 minutes to complete
Full text articles
- Does Colandr connect to a database for full-text?
- No, you need to find and import the full text of papers on your own
- Does Colandr have a mass upload feature for full text?
- No, a human needs to match the paper to the full text in a 1-to-1 upload
- Can you delete a PDF that has been imported?
- No, currently there is no option to do that. However, if you need to delete an incorrect PDF, please email [email protected] with your review number and the title of the citation that has the wrong PDF.
Data extraction
- I am getting an error during extraction saying that the label I have chosen isn't one of the ones I selected
- If you change your labels mid-way through an article extraction, you will encounter this error. Please reach out to us at [email protected] and we will help you resolve this.
- I cannot see the labeling section when I click "Review Labels"
- This is usually due to a browser incompatibility issue and is a known issue with Internet Explorer. Please try again with a different browser or try to zoom out on the browser window as the labeling section sometimes gets pushed to the bottom.
Exporting results
- The exported output does not include fields that I am interested in (e.g. tags, exclusion reason at title and abstract)
- Email [email protected] and we will export those fields for you. Please include in your email your review number (can be found at the end of the web address when you are on your review homepage) and user email.
- You can also try the beta version of the colandr companion where you can make customized exports of your data as CSVs.
Interface
- When I try to use the search function, I get an error
- Make sure when you are searching for a term that includes a space that you bound the phrase with single quotation marks. E.g. ‘scientific study’ not scientific study
Additional FAQs here
Extensions and community-generated tools
Colandr is an open source, open access tool - meaning that you, the user, has free and transparent access to the inner workings of the platform. We specifically chose to develop open source so that others would have the opportunity to add their vast expertise and creativity to further evolving and developing Colandr. As we developed this tool with an awesome team of DataKind volunteers, we were limited in time and resources and thus, all the functionalities we may desire and all the bugs we would like to fix, could not be achieved.
However, we welcome you to continue to report bugs that you find here (but please, do not use this form to report problems like forgetting your password) and we will add these to the running list for future development.
Other entrepreneurial users have developed add-ons for Colandr to help streamline the process.
However, we welcome you to continue to report bugs that you find here (but please, do not use this form to report problems like forgetting your password) and we will add these to the running list for future development.
Other entrepreneurial users have developed add-ons for Colandr to help streamline the process.
