Library of Guidance for Health Scientist (LIGHTS)
Research Project |
Finding useful methods guidance can be difficult. Relevant articles appear across many journals, use inconsistent terminology, and often lack adequate indexing in general research databases.
LIGHTS brings this literature together in a freely accessible, searchable database. It covers guidance for planning, conducting, analysing, reporting, and appraising health research, including tutorials, methodological recommendations, reporting guidelines, and quality assessment tools.
Users can narrow their searches by study type, methodological topic, research context, and type of guidance. The search also matches alternative terms for methodological concepts, helping users find relevant articles even when authors use different terminology.
Stefan Schandelmaier founded LIGHTS. An international team of health researchers, methodologists, and information specialists develops and maintains the collection. LIGHTS helps researchers make methodological choices, educators find teaching resources, and guidance developers build on existing work. We also use it to research methods guidance as a study type.
Search the library at lights.science
Follow this link for further information
Publications
Hirt, Julian et al. (2024) ‘Searching a methods topic: practical challenges and implications for search design’, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 30.10.2023, 166. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2023.10.017.
Hirt, J. et al. (2023) ‘Introducing the Library of Guidance for Health Scientists (LIGHTS): a living database for methods guidance’, JAMA Netw Open, 6(2), p. e2253198. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.53198.
Hirt J et al. (2022) ‘A systematic survey of methods guidance suggests areas for improvement regarding access, development, and transparency’, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 149, pp. 217–226. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.05.005.
Members (4)
Matthias Briel
Hannah Ewald
Julian Hirt
