Understanding Systematic Literature Review

Dear All, 

We are delighted to inform you that Department of Library & Information Science, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur has organised a special online lecture series “Anveshan: An Online Lecture Series in LIS for Research Scholars." The 10th lecture in the series was held on 9th August 2025 (Saturday) from 03:00 to 04:30 PM via Google Meet. Prof. Shriram Pandey, Professor & Head, Department of Library and Information Science, Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh, was invited as the resource person and delivered a lecture on the topic “Understanding Systematic Literature Review.”

The programme commenced with a welcome address by Prof. Akhandanand Shukla, DLIS, CUTN, followed by a brief introduction to the programme, the department, its faculty members, and the resource person. 

In his lecture, Prof. Pandey highlighted the growing importance of systematic review papers and their increasing demand in scholarly publications across various domains. He emphasised that systematic reviews are fundamentally different from bibliometric studies and require collaboration and subject expertise. He outlined the purpose of systematic reviews and discussed common mistakes in literature reviews, such as adopting a “pick and choose” approach from a single database, organising literature solely in chronological, reverse chronological, or thematic order, and relying on a single database or dataset to identify research gaps. Further, he explained the key benefits and challenges of systematic reviews, noting their role in identifying prolific authors and establishing relationships among research contexts—something traditional reviews often fail to achieve. He clarified the differences between a literature review, a systematic literature review, and a meta-analysis, and discussed various types of literature reviews and review methods. 

Prof. Pandey stressed that a literature review is a journey from the known to the unknown, making it essential to adopt the correct methodology. He demonstrated various sources of data for systematic reviews, including bibliographic databases, websites, journals, and books. He explained how to develop a search strategy using synonyms, abbreviations, and Boolean operators, and presented the standard format of a systematic literature review paper. He particularly stressed the adoption of the PRISMA methodology, which he described in detail. Additionally, he discussed methods of data extraction and analysis, including descriptive analysis and literature classification, and outlined the sequential steps for conducting systematic reviews. He also shared examples of both paid and free tools useful for this process. Towards the end of the session, Prof. Pandey gave a practical demonstration of conducting a systematic review. During the question-and-answer session, participants raised queries about the limitations of keywords in titles and the restrictions of search results in open-access databases, which he addressed comprehensively.

The lecture was coordinated by Prof. Akhandanand Shukla, DLIS, CUTN, and attended by 48 participants. Dr. K. G. Sudhier, Assistant Professor, shared his insights on the topic and delivered the formal vote of thanks. Ms. Komal Sahu, Senior Research Fellow, served as rapporteur for the programme.

The glimpses of the program is given below: 

Department thanks to all who attended the program and taken the benefit to listen Prof. Shriram Pandey on the important aspects of literature review.