Sharing and Re-Using Searches (Share Search History) – Ovid MEDLINE

Background

Well-constructed search queries are valuable knowledge assets. Assets that can be built upon and re-used, both in a personal as well as an institutional context. To uphold their value it is important to be able to share them for peer review, for project-based search query construction as well as for building up personal or group search block libraries, supplementing information handling work-flows.

This Focused Search flags the three ways in which search histories can be saved and provides some practice exercises in conclusion.

How to share searches on Ovid
On the Ovid platform, searches, regardless of their size, can be easily shared using the Share Search History options. Listed below, these are platform inline tools to facilitate sharing and reproduction of search blocks and search strategies. They complement the external tools such as the Ovid Search History Launcher that can be found on the Ovid Tools & Resources Portal.

Share Search History: Email All Search History
This option enables you to email the complete search history to a recipient or recipients of your choosing, including a message text as deemed appropriate.

The recipient will receive the search in three different formats. Firstly, as a JumpStart link meaning that upon clicking the link, the search, as you have sent it to them, will run automatically in Ovid (bear in mind that this also assumes they are able to access Ovid). Secondly, the search query presented in the form of a table that can also be adapted using your regular word processor. Note too that the tabular version of the search query also carries a date stamp. Thirdly, the search query is also rendered as cleanly as possible, that is without search line item numbers and search line results, so that it can be easily copied and pasted into the Ovid Search History Launcher tool.

Share Search History: Copy Search History Link
This option condenses the search history into a single jumpstart link. The link and hence access to, and use of, the search itself can be shared as well as added to external documentation from where it can also be launched. This latter option also serves as an additional back up of your valuable knowledge assets.

Share Search History: Copy Search History Details
Similarly, this option enables you to copy the whole search together with its search line item numbers and search line results into a third-party application, such as Notepad or Word for preservation or adaptation or both.

Practice Suggestions

1. Run the Focused Search as given above. Go to the Share Search History option as described above and copy into your Notepad (or equivalent application) the full search history details for the search as well as a jumpstart link to it.
2. Having run the Focused Search as described in task 1 above, go to the Share Search History option and email the search history to yourself. Upon receiving the email, copy and paste the ‘clean’ version of the search history into the Ovid Search History Launcher. Change line #8 from randomized controlled trial.mp. to randomi#ed controlled trial$.mp. Does this make a difference to the overall number of results returned for the search? 
3. Run the Focused Search as given above. In a separate browser tab go to the Ovid History JumpStart tool. Follow the Step by Step Instructions to create your own jumpstart link for the search. To what extent did you have to ‘clean up’ the search query?

Search Stategy

Copy Strategy Launch Search

Reviewers

Primary: Michael Fanning

Secondary: Charlotte Viken

Review Date: 2024-10-27

Expiry Date: 2025-10-27

Original search produced by:

Ovid Training Team

References:

OvidGO! / Skills Videos
What are Boolean Operators?
What is an adjacency operator?
What are wildcards?
Truncation of keywords
Phrase searching on Ovid
Subject heading searching

Citation:

OvidGO! Portal. Focused Searches: Sharing and Re-Using Searches (Share Search History) – Ovid MEDLINE [Internet]. London (UK): Ovid Training Team (Editors); 2024 [updated 25 October 2024; cited 30 October 2024]. Available from: https://tools.ovid.com/ovidgo/searches/view.php?id=62