The Australian digital Online Farm Trials database increases the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in grains crop research
Judi R. Walters
A B and Kate Light A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation, Federation University Australia, Greenhill Enterprise Centre Ballarat Technology Park, Mount Helen, Vic. 3350, Australia.
B Corresponding author. Email: jr.walters@federation.edu.au
Crop and Pasture Science 72(10) 789-800 https://doi.org/10.1071/CP20534
Submitted: 7 January 2021 Accepted: 20 May 2021 Published: 20 August 2021
Journal Compilation © CSIRO 2021 Open Access CC BY
Abstract
Synthesis and analysis of past cropping research can provide valuable information to direct future decisions around crop management. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are considered gold standards in the synthesis and analysis of scientific research because they distil large amounts of information about complex issues, provide a summary of knowledge to date, and identify knowledge gaps. However, several issues concerning the methodologies employed to conduct systematic reviews have been identified; among them is the risk of publication bias when a review relies too heavily on ‘white’ literature from published academic sources and in so doing fails identify relevant ‘grey’ literature. Grey literature is inherently difficult to identify and collect, but forms a large portion of information available in many fields including agricultural-based research within Australia. The Online Farm Trials (OFT) database is a digital database of crop research field trial data from across Australia that has the potential for use as a discipline-specific source of grey literature to inform systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Using a case study approach to investigate the amount of information available on time of sowing (sowing date) on crop yield across Australia, we demonstrate that the OFT database provides easy access to transparent and reproducible search results similar to other commonly used academic databases.
Keywords: agriculture, Australia, crop research, cropping, database, FAIR principles, findable, grains, literature review, meta-analysis, metadata, OFT, sowing date, systematic review, time of sowing.
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