Supplementary materials
NEW! If your review is using Cochrane’s focused review format, your main article will be accompanied by a package of supplementary materials. Supplementary materials are published alongside the main article in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Supplementary materials contain additional data and information that support or enhance the article. The main article, plus the supplementary materials, plus other associated information, makes up a Cochrane Review.
Different supplementary materials are subject to different levels of editorial scrutiny. For example, search strategies undergo full peer review; whereas the other supplementary materials will be reviewed by Cochrane and may or may not undergo full peer review, depending on the content.
Cochrane does not copyedit, typeset or proofread supplementary materials. Authors must ensure they are correct and accurate before submitting.
We do not screen supplementary materials in our similarity checks. Authors are therefore responsible for ensuring that quotation marks are correctly used to denote any text copied directly from study reports to include in Characteristics of studies tables and/or risk of bias tables.
Supplementary materials are generated for Cochrane Reviews from RevMan. Most are automatically generated from information included in the Data section in RevMan. Search strategies and other supplementary materials are editable in the Content section in RevMan. A summary of all supplementary materials is available in the ‘Submission preview’ in RevMan. For further information, see the RevMan Knowledge Base.
If there are multiple, very large or complex supplementary materials in a review, please consider using an open online repository. See below External data and files.
Where applicable, supplementary materials include:
- Search strategies for each database (and other sources, if applicable) with search strings, database names, access platforms, search fields and other limitations/settings
- Full characteristic of included studies tables with full citations of each unique report organised by study
- Full characteristic of excluded studies tables with full citations of each unique report organised by study
- Full characteristic of studies awaiting classification tables with full citations of each unique report organised by study
- Full characteristic of ongoing studies tables with full citations of each unique report organised by study
- Risk of bias judgements and support for judgements
- Full analyses associated with the Review, including results data, syntheses and forest plots
- Full downloadable data package associated with the Review, including collected study data, risk of bias assessment, analyses and references (see data sharing editorial policy)
- Other supplementary materials (as defined by authors).
Disclaimers on published content
Supplementary materials are supplied by the authors for publication under the associated Review’s Licence for Publication and the authors are solely responsible for the materials. Cochrane accordingly gives no representations or warranties of any kind in relation to, and accepts no liability for any reliance on or use of, such material.
The following disclaimers display in the text of the published review to clarify this for readers:
- Disclaimer added to main Review article as a footer (after the References):
“The content of this article (as distinct from the content of the ‘Supplementary materials’, ‘Related’ and ‘About this Review’ sections) has been peer-reviewed and prepared for publication in accordance with Cochrane’s editorial policies. Though the aim of these processes is, among other things, to check the accuracy of such content, responsibility for the content remains that of the author(s) and Cochrane gives no representations or warranties of any kind in relation to, and accepts no liability for any reliance on or use of, the content of the article.”
- Disclaimer added to the page that lists all supplementary materials in a published review:
“Supplementary materials are published alongside the article and contain additional data and information that support or enhance the article. Supplementary materials may not be subject to the same editorial scrutiny as the content of the article and Cochrane has not copyedited, typeset or proofread these materials. The material in these sections has been supplied by the author(s) for publication under a Licence for Publication and the author(s) are solely responsible for the material. Cochrane accordingly gives no representations or warranties of any kind in relation to, and accepts no liability for any reliance on or use of, such material.”
- Disclaimer added to search strategy supplementary material only:
“The material in this section has been supplied by the author(s) for publication under a Licence for Publication and the author(s) are solely responsible for the material. Cochrane has peer reviewed this material in accordance with its editorial policies [include link], but Cochrane has not copyedited, formatted or proofread. Cochrane accordingly gives no representations or warranties of any kind in relation to, and accepts no liability for any reliance on or use of, such material.
- Disclaimer added to all other supplementary materials other than search strategy:
“The material in this section has been supplied by the author(s) for publication under a Licence for Publication and the author(s) are solely responsible for the material. Cochrane has reviewed this material, but Cochrane has not copyedited, formatted or proofread. Cochrane accordingly gives no representations or warranties of any kind in relation to, and accepts no liability for any reliance on or use of, such material.
External data and files
It is not currently possible to publish external data/files (data or text managed outside RevMan) alongside a Cochrane Review in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Please follow process below to allow readers access to external files or datasets:
- Ensure that it is not possible to include the data/files within RevMan (e.g. as ‘Other’ supplementary materials).
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Store your data/files in an institutional or disciplinary repository or in a general repository, such as Figshare, Zenodo, or Dryad, with the following conditions:
a) the data or file(s) will have a digital object identifier (DOI) (or another type of permanent identifier) when included in the repository.
b) the full citation for the review (including the Cochrane Review DOI) is included in each external file.
c) copyright in the external file is attributed to the authors – “© The Authors”.
d) links/references to the external file(s) (including DOIs) are included within the Cochrane Review.
Documents and files stored externally are not typeset, copy edited or proofread by Cochrane. Authors are entirely responsible for their accuracy and presentation.
Please contact Cochrane Support (support@cochrane.org) for questions about or support for this process.