Saving and sharing complex searches

In this video we're going to learn how to save, share and collaborate on structured searches.

Let's return to the example we saw earlier, where our research question was to investigate promoting physical activity to prevent obesity in older people.

Choosing the correct terms can take some thought and effort but to save time in this video we have already entered our preferred terms on the canvas. To create the Boolean logic we saw earlier, we simply drag-and-drop terms to create groups.

We now have three groups each using the Boolean OR operator. Since objects on the canvas are ANDed by default, that gives us the semantics we want. If we want to verify how our search looks as a traditional Boolean expression, we can click on the query tab.

Once we’ve done all this work we don’t want to lose it. So we can save our search in our own personal file space, using the menu option. Note that when you log on to 2Dsearch, you get a set of examples and templates for free.

If you want to share the search with someone, you can create a sharable link using the Share button: It works very much like Dropbox, as anyone clicking on the link will be taken directly to your search strategy, and what’s more, they will be able to run it themselves.

It’s a good idea to name the various parts of your search strategy, in case you want to use them again. For example, if I was a clinician I might want to label the first block ‘intervention’, the second block ‘condition’ and the third block ‘population’.

In our next video, we’ll learn how to harness the power of the canvas to build smarter and more effective search strategies.