Creating accessible evidence bases: Opportunities through the integration of interactive tools into literature review synthesis

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that an immediate access to relevant information is key for timely interventions and forming of public opinion and discourse. In this regard, dashboards present themselves as invaluable tools for the democratization of data and for the creation of accessible evidence bases. Building on this momentum, it is proposed to integrate interactive means such as dashboards into academic literature review synthesis, in order to support the summarization, narration, and dissemination of findings, and furthermore, to increase transparency and support the transferability and comparability of findings. Exemplified for a systematic literature review on urban forests as nature-based solutions, • Key functionalities, requirements and design considerations for the development of dashboards for use in academic literature reviews synthesis are identified. • An application architecture that embeds dashboard development into an R workflow is presented, with emphasis on the steps needed to transform the data collected during the review process into a structured form. • Technical and methodological means for the actual dashboard implementation are highlighted, considering the identified key functionalities and requirements.