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.

Research Data Management

Dear All,

This is to inform you that Department of Library and Information Science, Central University of Tamil Nadu has organized a special online lecture series OLSL: Online Lecture Series in LIS. The sixth lecture in the series was organized on 18th June, 2021 (Friday) at 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM through Google Meet. Dr. Shri Ram Pandey, Assistant Professor, Department of Library & Information Science, Banaras Hindu University was invited as resource person and he delivered the talk on “Research Data Management”. 

The program commenced with a welcome address given by Dr. Akhandanand Shukla, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Library and Information Science, CUTN, Thiruvarur followed by a brief introduction of the resource person.

Dr. Shri Ram Pandey started his talk with an elaborate introduction to data and Research Data Management (RDM). He explained how the data that are collected, observed or created can be actively managed and how to appraise the data over the life cycle of scholarly and scientific interest. He emphasized that RDM makes your data easy to work with, understandable, and available to other scientists. He went on to educate the participants on different types of data and why it is essential to manage research data. The speaker then introduced the RDM Life Cycle and the inputs in the research data cycle. He carried on by talking about the stakeholders of RDM such as institution authority, the investigators, libraries etc. Dr. Shri Ram then gave an insight to the Data Management Plan (DMP), Data Repositories and Software tools which assist in RDM. The highlight of the lecture was the live hands-on experience of the Figshare Repository. An active Q&A session took place thereafter. The discussions focused on rights related aspects of data sharing and the resource person emphasized the importance of institutional level policies in RDM.

The lecture was coordinated by Dr. Anila Sulochana, Assistant Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur and attended by 31 participants. The lecture session ended with a formal vote of thanks proposed by Dr. Anila Sulochana. Ms. Nayanthara S., Research Scholar, worked as the rapporteur in the program.

The glimpses of the program are given below:

 

Department congrats to all who attended the program and taken the benefit to listen to Dr. Shri Ram Pandey on this crucial topic in academics and research.