Indexing Terms
Papers held in the RURU database are indexed and searchable according to the following categories:
• Reference type e.g. journal article or book
• Author
• Date
• Title
• Abstract (not all papers have abstracts as yet)
• Sector – health care, education, social care, criminal justice or cross-sector
• Policy/practice – whether the focus of the paper is on the use of research in policy or in practice settings
• Keywords
• Type of paper – empirical, conceptual and background papers
• Type of study – empirical papers only
• Type of intervention – where an intervention to promote research use is evaluated in the paper.
The database can be searched by one or more of the above categories. Each category is explained in greater detail below. Much of this information can also be found on the database Help pages, which also describe how to search on these fields.
Reference type
The database contains the following types of reference:
• Book sections – usually book chapters
• Books – where the majority of the content of the book is relevant to research utilisation or to implementing evidence-based policy and practice, including edited books
• Conference proceedings – papers derived from presentations at conferences and seminars
• Journal articles – articles in academic and professional journals
• Reports – reports and discussion papers, published in paper or electronic form.
Author
All authors of any one reference are indexed and can be searched.
Date
Papers are indexed by date of publication or, in the case of conference proceedings, by year of the conference or presentation. It is possible to search using date ranges, e.g. 1990-2005, as well as simply year by year.
Title
Free text searches are possible on all titles.
Abstract
RURU have created their own abstracts for all empirical papers and for many additional papers referenced in the RURU database. Providing abstracts for all papers referenced in the database is an ongoing task.
For empirical papers, abstracts contain the following subheadings:
• Nature of the study
• Sample and methods
• Research questions
• Nature of the intervention (for studies evaluating interventions to promote research use)
• Key findings.
Free text searches are possible on all abstracts.
Sector
Database entries are indexed according to the following sector categories:
• Health care
• Education
• Social care
• Criminal justice
• Cross-sector.
Papers may be indexed by up to two sector categories, e.g. health care and social care. If a paper covers more than two sectors, it is indexed as “cross-sector”. Where papers refer to the use of social research more generally, they are also indexed as “cross-sector”. Searches can be limited to one or more sector.
The criteria used to determine the boundaries of the health care, education, social care and criminal justice fields where these might be unclear are detailed below.
Health care
Includes:
- Health care policy
- Primary care/community settings
- Hospital settings
- Professions allied to medicine: Nursing, Midwifery, Health visiting, Chiropody, Speech and language therapy, Physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Dietetics, Clinical psychology/psychology, Pharmacy, Radiography
Excludes:
- Dentistry
- Ophthalmology
Education
Excludes:
- Pre-school education
Social care
Includes:
- Pre-school education
Excludes:
- Probation
Criminal justice
Includes:
- Probation
Policy/practice
References have been indexed very broadly according to whether they focus predominantly on the use of research by policy makers or the use of research by practitioners. References which encompass both fields or for which this distinction is not relevant are indexed as “Policy/practice”. Searches can be limited to one or more of these fields.
Keywords
Keywords have been developed specifically for the RURU database. These aim to support more precise searching, and exclude the kinds of keywords that would typically identify the papers which the database holds such as Research utilisation or Evidence-based policy and practice.
A full list of keywords is available here. Searches can be conducted on one or more of these keywords.
Type of paper
References in the database are indexed as one of the following:
• Empirical papers – reporting findings from a study or studies, and meeting the selection criteria for empirical papers (see above)
• Conceptual papers – discussing conceptual and/or methodological issues around research utilisation, and meeting the selection criteria for conceptual papers (see above)
• Background papers – of general interest concerning research utilisation, and meeting the selection criteria for background papers (see above).
Searches can be limited to one or more of these types of paper.
Type of study
For empirical papers in the database that report findings from a study or studies, references are additionally indexed according to the type of study/ies they contain. Studies have been categorised as:
• Evaluative – evaluating the impact of an intervention or interventions to improve research use
• Descriptive – studies of the use or impact of research, for example a survey of policy makers’ research use, or a case study tracing the impact of a research programme
• Review – a review of evaluative and/or descriptive studies.
Searches can be limited to one or more study type.
Type of intervention
Empirical papers that report findings from an intervention or interventions to improve the use of research have been indexed according to the type of intervention(s) studied. The categories of intervention type used for indexing draw on a taxonomy of research use interventions developed by RURU (see RURU home page for more details).
A full list of intervention types is available here. Searches can be conducted on one or more of these intervention types.