Web-based platform to manage the complete process of systematic literature reviews. Developed using Sinatra, a Ruby-based DSL.
- Multi-platform: Runs on Linux (tested on Ubuntu 14.04, 16.06, 18.04, 21.04 and 24.04), Windows (tested on Windows 7 and 10) and macOS (tested on High Sierra).
- Supports individual and group-based systematic reviews.
- Internal messaging system for personal messages and messages related to systematic reviews.
- Internationalization, using I18n. Available in English, Spanish and Polish.
- Flexible workflow. The main stages of text searching, title and abstract screening, reference screening, full-text review, information extraction, quality assessment and reporting are clearly defined. Changes can be made at any stage already finalized, and are reflected in subsequent stages.
- Imports information from bibliographic databases and reference managers, including WoS, Scopus, EBSCOhost, SciELO, PubMed, Lilacs and ProQuest, using BibTeX, RIS, PubMed/NBIB, JSON and CSV files.
- Integration with Crossref allows deduplication of articles using DOI and searching for information on references.
- Integration with Scopus and PubMed can retrieve missing abstracts and metadata when API credentials are available.
- File repository. PDF and ODF file viewing support online via ViewerJS. Files can be assigned to canonical documents and used during the full-text review stage.
- Multiple ways to analyze data: comments, tagging at each stage of review, document reports and customized forms for information extraction.
- Favorites system: users can mark documents, organize them in categories, add comments and publish public favorite collections.
- Document reports can identify duplicate records, OCR errors, incorrect metadata, missing files, spam, other issues and conflicting resolutions.
- Various report types: reports for extracted information, detailed reports on the decision process at each review stage, information extraction reports and a PRISMA flow diagram for process overviews, ready for publication.
- Different export file types: Can export references as BibTeX, import and export review decisions using Excel, export reports as Excel files and generate GraphML to graph relations between papers.
- User dashboard for active systematic reviews, assigned documents, pending searches and unread messages.
- Light and dark color modes.
- Unit and integration tests for main software features. See https://buhos.org/api/file.rspec.html .
Using Kitchenham & Charters (2007), Buhos supports the 'conducting the review' phase in full, and has partial support for other stages:
| Stage | Support |
|---|---|
| Identification of the need for a review | No |
| Commissioning a review | No |
| Specifying the research question(s) | Yes |
| Developing a review protocol | Yes |
| Evaluating the review protocol | No |
| Stage | Support |
|---|---|
| Identification of research | Yes |
| Selection of primary studies | Yes |
| Study quality assessment | Yes |
| Data extraction and monitoring | Yes |
| Data synthesis | Yes |
| Stage | Support |
|---|---|
| Specifying dissemination mechanisms | No |
| Formatting the main report | Partial |
| Evaluating the report | No |
There is a user manual available in English and Spanish with a quick guide for understanding the systematic review methodology that supports the software.
The API is documented using Yard and is available on https://www.buhos.org/api. Only available in English.
There is a demo available on https://demo.buhos.org. You can use the software with admin as username and password. Do not store important information there, because the database is refreshed periodically.
The installer for Windows can be obtained from Buhos Windows Toolkit.
For Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS, packages and installation instructions are available on packager.io. For example, to install Buhos on Ubuntu follow the instructions below, using localhost:4567 as URL.
wget -qO- https://dl.packager.io/srv/clbustos/buhos/key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/buhos.list \
https://dl.packager.io/srv/clbustos/buhos/master/installer/ubuntu/16.04.repo
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install buhos
sudo buhos config:set PORT=4567
sudo buhos scale web=1
sudo buhos restart
On vendor/vagrant_alpine and vendor/vagrant_ubuntu_16 directories, working vagrant configurations for Alpine and Ubuntu 16.04 can be found, respectively. They can be run using
> vagrant up
By default, the application is configured to run on port 4567.
On Linux, a Ruby installation with Bundler is needed, along with development libraries for MySQL and SQLite. We recommend using RVM or another Ruby version manager.
On Ubuntu, the following script installs all required dependencies:
# Update system
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -y
apt-get install -y \
cloc \
gdal-bin \
gdebi-core \
git \
libcurl4-openssl-dev \
libgdal-dev \
libproj-dev \
libxml2-dev \
ghostscript \
imagemagick \
xpdf \
build-essential \
libmysqlclient-dev \
libsqlite3-dev
# Install RVM
gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net \
--recv-keys 409B6B1796C275462A1703113804BB82D39DC0E3
curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s $1
On alpine, the basic configuration is
apk update
apk upgrade
apk --update add --virtual \
build-dependencies \
ruby-dev \
build-base \
ruby \
libffi-dev \
libxml2-dev \
libxslt-dev \
mariadb-dev \
sqlite-dev \
ruby-json \
ruby-bigdecimal \
ruby-etc
Once all the dependencies are installed, the source code can be copied using
git clone git@github.com:clbustos/buhos.git
Install required Ruby dependencies using bundler
bundle install
And run the application using
ruby app.rb
or
rackup
The app uses a web-based configuration. Once the server starts, point your browser by default to localhost:4567 to begin the installation process.
If you wish to use a MySQL database, you should create it before configuring the software. Using the MySQL root user, the instructions would be:
CREATE DATABASE buhos;
CREATE USER buhos_user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON buhos.* TO buhos_user@localhost;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
First, the installation language should be defined. Second, information on the specific database should be provided (SQLite / MySQL). By default, a SQLite database will be installed in db.sqlite. If you have a SCOPUS API key, the relevant information can be submitted along with the proxy settings, if applicable. As the final step, the database will be populated. You must restart the application before using it.
Individual users can run the application smoothly with the Windows installer or the packages for Ubuntu, Debian or CentOS.
For multiple online users, Buhos can be deployed on an independent HTTP server, using Passenger as connector with Nginx. MySQL has been used for the database. The software can also use MariaDB and Apache.
A typical nginx configuration should look like this:
server {
listen 80
root /home/<user>/<base_dir>;
passenger_enabled on;
passenger_ruby <ruby_location>
}
The location of the Ruby executable can be obtained with
> which ruby
If you are using RVM with Passenger, check this page
Since October 2018, ImageMagick have strict policies to convert pdf to images. If you need to parse pdf as images in Buhos (rarely needed), or test the software using the specification suite, check this Stack Overflow entry.
- Sinatra - Sinatra is a DSL for quickly creating web applications on Ruby with minimal effort.
- Sequel - Sequel is a simple, flexible, and powerful SQL database access toolkit for Ruby. It offers an abstraction layer and ORM functionalities, among other things.
- Bootstrap - Bootstrap is an open source toolkit for developing with HTML, CSS, and JS.
- jQuery - jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library.
- ViewerJS - ViewerJS enables online viewing of PDF and ODT files.
- RubyMine - An excellent Ruby IDE
If you wish to contribute, email clbustos_at_gmail.com. If you'd like to send a patch, best is to create a fork of the repository on github and make a pull request.
We use SemVer for versioning. To see the available versions, see the tags on this repository.
- Claudio Bustos - Main developer - clbustos
- Daniel Lermanda - Web page designer and UX advisor
- María Gabriela Morales - First conceptualization and revision of the manual
- Liz Medina - English translation of home page and manual.
- Alejandro Díaz, Pedro Salcedo: Development of user requirement specifications.
- Anna Hawrot: Polki (polish) translation and software tester.
If you use this software for your research, please cite the following paper:
Bustos, C., Morales, M.G., Salcedo, P., & Díaz, Alejandro (2018). Buhos: A web-based systematic literature review management software. SoftwareX, 7, 360-372. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2018.10.004
This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License - See LICENSE file for details.