LibGuides: Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP): A Guide to McFarlin Library Resources: Grey Literature

Grey Literature Tutorial - Video

What is Grey Literature?

Information produced on all levels of government, academia, business and industry that are not controlled by commercial publishers. Grey literature can fill in gaps in information, provide current information or perspectives and can be in different formats than most publications.

Traditional Sources of Grey Literature

New Sources of Grey Literature

Theses and dissertations
Census, economic and other "grey" data sources
Databases if ongoing research
Statistics and other data sources
Conference proceedings, poster presentations and abstracts
Newsletters
Research reports
Technical specifications, standards and annual reports
Informal communications (email, telephone conversations, meetings)
Translations
Symposia proceedings, conference proceedings

e-prints, preprints
Electronic networked communication
Blogs, podcasts and video on the web
Repositories
Listserv archives
Digital libraries
Spatial data (google earth)
Meta-searching, federated searching, portals
Wikis, twitter, social media

(Source: Mississippi University for Women Library - Nursing Resources libGuide)

Evaluating Grey Literature

The AACODS Checklist is a well-known and widely accepted instrument that you can use to assess what you find. It is made up of the following 6 elements:

Authority: Is the author credible?
Accuracy: Is it supported by documented and authoritative references? Is there a clearly stated methodology? Is it 'in line' with other work on the same topic
Coverage: Have limitations been imposed and are these stated clearly?
Objectivity: Can bias be detected?
Date: Can't find the date? Rule of the thumb is to avoid such material
Significance: Is it relevant? Would it enrich or have an impact on your research?

AACODS Checklist
The AACODS checklist was created by Jess Tyndall of the Gus Fraenkel Medical Library at Flinders University to evaluate and enable critical appraisal of grey literature.
Grey literature: An important resource in systematic reviews
Paez A. (2017). Grey literature: An important resource in systematic reviews. Journal of evidence-based medicine, 10.1111/jebm.12265. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jebm.12265

Sources

Agency for Healthcare Research Quality
Evidence based clinical practice guidelines.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing
Nationwide voice for nurses. Establishes standards for nursing education.
CDC Stacks
Center for Disease Control and Prevention Stacks is a free digital archive of research and literature produced by the CDC. Offers curated collections tailored for public health research needs.
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
Research in evidence synthesis, and policy generation. Easy access to systematic reviews and health technology assessments.
Clinical Trials.gov
Registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world.
Sigma Repository
Also known as the Virginia Henderson Library, the Sigma Repository holds DNP projects from various nursing institutions.
U.S. National Library of Medicine
Links to PubMed/MEDLINE, MeSH, ClinicalTrials.gov, TOXET, and more. Also search their catalogue, use their medical dictionary, read about diseases and drugs and more.
World Health Organization
Contains data, publications and topic overviews related to health around the world.