SRWS-PSG protocol templates

A collection of Markdown-based systematic review (SR) protocol templates, maintained by SRWS-PSG (Scientific Research WorkS Peer Support Group).

Templates currently included:

• templates/intervention-review/ — SR protocol for intervention reviews (the V.3 successor of the protocols.io V.2 template).
• templates/scoping-review/ — protocol for scoping reviews, structured per the JBI five-stage methodology and the Peters et al. 2022 best-practice checklist. Reporting follows PRISMA-ScR.
• templates/NMA/ — protocol for network meta-analysis (NMA) reviews of RCTs, with sections for the treatment network (decision and supplementary sets), transitivity, inconsistency, and confidence rating via CINeMA. Reporting follows PRISMA-NMA. English only (no JA master).

(More template types — diagnostic test accuracy, qualitative evidence synthesis, etc. — will be added under templates/ as separate sub-directories.)

The templates are designed to be:

• Version-controlled — every change is tracked, every release is permanent.
• Citable — each GitHub release gets a Zenodo DOI automatically.
• Reusable — fill in the ?????? placeholders with your own SR plan; render to docx / PDF / HTML via Pandoc.

Citing this template

Use the DOI of the release you actually downloaded. The "concept DOI" below always resolves to the latest version.

• Concept DOI (always points to the latest release): 10.5281/zenodo.20586625
• Version DOIs are listed in CHANGELOG.md once minted.

For the rationale and design of each template, see the companion paper (Scholar-indexed) on MetaArXiv: Kataoka Y, So R, Banno M, Tsujimoto Y. Increasing the transparency and reproducibility of systematic-review protocols: structure-enforced, version-controlled templates for intervention, scoping, and diagnostic test accuracy reviews. MetaArXiv; 2026. DOI 10.31222/osf.io/wj52n.

Historical note (intervention-review template): Versions up to V.2 (2022-08-26) were published on protocols.io: https://www.protocols.io/view/protocol-template-for-intervention-review-cft4tnqw (DOI 10.17504/protocols.io.81wgbpb41vpk/v2). From v3.0.0 onward this template is maintained here on GitHub.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/SRWS-PSG/protocol-templates
cd protocol-templates
pwsh ./templates/intervention-review/build.ps1 -Target docx     # or html, or pdf
# Scoping review template:
pwsh ./templates/scoping-review/build.ps1     -Target docx
# Network meta-analysis template (English only):
pwsh ./templates/NMA/build.ps1                -Target docx

Edit templates/intervention-review/protocol_template_for_intervention_review.md or templates/scoping-review/protocol_template_for_scoping_review.md and replace the [English label / 日本語ラベル: ...] placeholders with your own SR plan. Each template owns its own references.bib (Vancouver style via Pandoc + citeproc) — do not consolidate across templates.

Repository layout

.
├── README.md                       # this file
├── LICENSE                         # CC BY 4.0
├── CHANGELOG.md                    # version history (covers all templates)
├── CITATION.cff                    # GitHub "Cite this repository" metadata
├── .zenodo.json                    # Zenodo deposit metadata
├── plan.md                         # internal publication plan (working doc)
├── CLAUDE.md                       # Claude Code working notes
├── resources/                      # historical reference (protocols.io V.2 PDF, original docx)
└── templates/
    ├── intervention-review/
    │   ├── protocol_template_for_intervention_review.md   # the template (source, EN)
    │   ├── protocol_template_for_intervention_review.ja.md # JA master
    │   ├── references.bib                                  # BibTeX (intervention-only)
    │   ├── comments.yaml                                   # mentoring comments injected to Google Doc
    │   ├── build.ps1                                       # Pandoc build script
    │   └── build/                                          # generated artifacts (gitignored)
    ├── scoping-review/
    │   ├── protocol_template_for_scoping_review.md        # the template (source, EN)
    │   ├── protocol_template_for_scoping_review.ja.md     # JA master
    │   ├── references.bib                                  # BibTeX (scoping-only, INDEPENDENT)
    │   ├── comments.yaml                                   # mentoring comments injected to Google Doc
    │   ├── media/scoping_concept_focus.png                 # JBI Terminology-vs-Concept figure
    │   ├── build.ps1                                       # Pandoc build script
    │   └── build/                                          # generated artifacts (gitignored)
    └── NMA/
        ├── protocol_template_for_nma_review.md            # the template (source, EN only)
        ├── references.bib                                  # BibTeX (NMA-only, INDEPENDENT)
        ├── comments.yaml                                   # mentoring comments injected to Google Doc
        ├── vancouver.csl                                   # citation style
        ├── filters/                                        # highlight.lua, style.css
        ├── build.ps1                                       # Pandoc build script
        └── build/                                          # generated artifacts (gitignored)

Authors

• Yuki Kataoka
• Ryuhei So
• Masahiro Banno
• Yasushi Tsujimoto
• SRWS-PSG Mentors

License

Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.