Both Zotero and Covidence can store, manage, and deduplicate citations. However, they differ significantly in their application and scope.
What is Zotero?
Zotero is a free citation management software that includes a desktop application and a browser extension.
What you can do with Zotero:
- Save bibliographic information from any page on the internet.
- Import citations through various file types (e.g. BibTeX, RIS, Zotero RDF).
- Sort your citations into folders and sub-folders.
- Create a single citation or an entire reference bibliography in any citation style.
Learn more about accessing and using Zotero:
- Visit our Citation Management subject guide for more information about accessing and using Zotero.
- Visit the Zotero website for tutorials and information on how to make the most out of Zotero.
- Visit the Zotero blog and forums to troubleshoot very specific issues that you may encounter.
TIP: You can use Google to search within the Zotero blog and forum by adding site: forums.zotero.org/discussions or site: zotero.org/blog/ after your Google search query. This limits your search to only those sites. For example, to learn how to add full-text PDFs to your saved citations, search full text pdf site:zotero.org/blog/.
What is Covidence?
Covidence is a web-based software that lets members of a research team collaborate through the various stages of a knowledge synthesis project (such as a systematic review). Nova Scotia Health has an institutional license to Covidence, which means Covidence is now free to use for Nova Scotia Health staff!
What you can do with Covidence:
- Upload citations
- Screen titles and abstracts
- Screen full-text articles and resources
- Complete data extraction
Learn more about accessing and using Covidence:
- To create an account or join your existing account to our license, follow the steps outlined on our Institutional Subscriber page or our Knowledge Synthesis and Covidence subject guide.
- For articles, books, and training webinars, visit Covidence Academy
- For troubleshooting and detailed walkthroughs, visit Covidence Knowledge Base
- For both shorter and longer video content (including recorded webinars) that are accessible to the public, visit Covidence’s YouTube Channel
What’s the difference?
Zotero is great for organizing literature sources, creating reference lists, and assisting with in-text citation. You will likely find Zotero more useful for everyday research needs.
Covidence is best for conducting knowledge synthesis projects with a team that will lead to a published review article. Outside of scholarly publications, Covidence could also be used by a team to screen through a large amount of potentially relevant literature to find those that are most relevant to your specific needs.
Both tools have distinct features that make them suitable for different purposes. The table below lists the different strengths of each tool, depending on your project needs:
| Zotero | Covidence |
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Interested in learning more about knowledge synthesis? Check out our Knowledge Synthesis and Covidence subject guide!
Reach out to LitSearch@nshealth.ca with your questions.
Kendell Fitzgerald
Librarian Educator
Halifax Infirmary, Central Zone
Vinson Li
Librarian Educator
Yarmouth Regional Hospital, Western Zone
Library Services' Education and Training team provides all staff, physicians and researchers with education and supports to effectively discover and use health information.
We keep in mind health care workers' busy schedules, offering sessions on a variety of dates and times. There is sure to be a session suitable for you. Register for one or several classes below, offered from September through December:
It can be challenging enough to find the journal articles that you need, but then accessing the full text of the article can also be difficult. Library Services pays for several subscriptions to give you access to many articles. This session will help you access them. The session will also help you get the full text of articles to which Library Services doesn't provide access.
This session highlights how easy-to-read and up-to-date patient education materials can support patient care and safety. Learn how to get started, what is involved in developing and updating pamphlets, and how to find, use and share pamphlets effectively.
This session focuses on navigating core library tools and resources, including the catalogue, ejournals and ebooks, and databases. Learn how to access library resources and services through this virtual tour.
In this hands-on session, you’ll work with a sample search to find free-of-charge or open-licensed photographs, illustrations, and more in Google Images, Microsoft products, as well as reputable online sources. You’ll learn to interpret how images are licensed and how to cite them appropriately.
Covidence is now available through Nova Scotia Health’s institutional license. Covidence is an online software that allows research teams to collaborate through each stage of a knowledge synthesis project (e.g. systematic reviews).
Library Services has a new, free service to support researchers in their knowledge synthesis projects (e.g. systematic reviews, scoping reviews, etc.). This session will outline how the service works, who can access it, and what the librarians can do for your team.
Tired of manually formatting references or losing track of your sources? In this session, we’ll cover how to install Zotero, collect references from websites, databases, and PDFs, organize your library with folders, and generate in-text citations and bibliographies in multiple styles.
Generative A.I. (also called Gen A.I.) is a term for any A.I. that creates text, images, video, and audio to meet and/or respond to your prompts. Gen A.I. is growing increasingly popular, with some of the most well-known Gen A.I. tools being ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot, and DALL-E. This session will give a general overview of generative A.I., including what to consider before, during, and after you use a Gen A.I. tool.
Check out all available course dates this spring in our learning opportunities calendar or by scanning our Library Education QR code. You can also print and post our fall education flyer.
If you have questions, please reach out to AskLibrary@nshealth.ca. We look forward to seeing you in one or several of our sessions!
Amanda Andrews
Librarian Educator, Education & Training Lead
Eastern Zone - Cape Breton, Guysborough, Antigonish