Responsible Literature Searching for Research

Responsible Literature Searching for Research: A Self-Paced Interactive Educational Program is an online education module to teach researchers the fundamentals of responsible literature searching for research practice.

This educational program is revised and updated regularly.

To access the module, go to "Responsible Literature Searching" on the University of Pittsburgh's "Internet-based Studies in Education and Research" site. To view the module content, click on the Login icon in the upper right corner and sign in with Pitt Passport. If you are not a Pitt affiliate, follow the directions to create a free HSConnect account.

Completion of this module is highly recommended for individuals involved in human subject research. It provides clinical researchers with knowledge of how to locate scientific literature to enable design of scientifically sound research studies, and to protect human subjects from harm.

The program provides a framework, instruction, and guidelines on:

  1. accepted practices and principles associated with the biomedical literature search process,
  2. identification and use of major information resources,
  3. the role of reference librarians in the literature search process,
  4. the limitations of information resources, and
  5. determining what is an adequate literature search for topics such as drug safety and identification of adverse events.

This program was developed by the Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) with support from a contract granted through a cooperative agreement between the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The application by HSLS was sponsored by the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL). Primary content developer is Charles Wessel, MLS, HSLS Reference Librarian.

Though the primary target audience is researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, the content is based on principles that are applicable in most research-oriented settings and HSLS will make the content freely available to other academic health sciences libraries and medical centers for adaptation to their local settings.

The UPMC Center for Continuing Education in the Health Sciences designates this educational activity for a maximum of 2 Category 1 credits toward the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those credits that they actually spent in the educational activity.

For more information about this module contact:

Rebekah Miller
rebekah.miller@pitt.edu