Before you begin This article is for anyone starting a new project in Rayyan — regardless of discipline or review type. You do not need to be doing a systematic review to use Rayyan.
What Rayyan supports
Rayyan is built for any research project that involves screening, organizing, and synthesizing a set of references. You are not limited to a specific methodology or discipline — researchers across health sciences, social sciences, engineering, education, business, and policy all use Rayyan for different types of work.
Review types available in Rayyan
When you create a review in Rayyan, you will be asked to choose a review type. The options are:
| Review type | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Systematic Review | A comprehensive, reproducible review of all available evidence on a focused question, following a strict protocol. |
| Literature Review | A broader synthesis of existing research on a topic, typically without exhaustive search requirements. |
| Scoping Review | Maps the extent of evidence on a topic — often used to identify gaps before a systematic review. |
| Umbrella Review | A review of existing systematic reviews, synthesizing evidence across multiple reviews on the same topic. |
| Rapid Review | A streamlined review conducted with a shorter timeline and some methodological simplifications. |
| Qualitative Review | Synthesizes findings from qualitative studies to explore experiences, perspectives, or social phenomena. |
| Meta-analysis | A statistical synthesis combining quantitative results from multiple studies to produce an overall estimate of effect. |
| State of the Art Review | A current snapshot of knowledge on a topic, highlighting recent developments and emerging trends. |
| Mixed Study Review | Integrates findings from both quantitative and qualitative studies on a shared research question. |
| Other | For review types not listed above, or projects that follow a custom or discipline-specific methodology. |
One concept to know before you start
Rayyan uses two distinct tools during screening that are easy to confuse at first:
- Labels — used to organize or tag references for any purpose you choose (e.g. “needs full text”, “conference paper”).
- Exclusion reasons — used to document specifically why a reference does not meet your eligibility criteria (e.g. “wrong population”, “not peer-reviewed”).
Both are created on the fly during screening — there is no pre-configuration step. The important thing is to agree on what to call them before your team starts screening, so everyone uses the same terms consistently.
Continue to: Getting Started with Rayyan
- Rayyan works for any review type — select Other if none of the predefined types fits
- Labels organize references — exclusion reasons document why a reference was excluded
- Both are created during screening — agree on naming conventions before your team begins
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