Ratified Guidelines for Health Research & Publication
Definition of key terms
For purposes of this Directory, terms are defined as follows:
Established organization - An entity (government agency, standards development, or other organization, workgroup, etc) that intends to, or that does, create, maintain, and publish relevant guidelines; thereby creating ratified research guidelines. An entity may have a website, but does not need to have one, to be considered an “established organization.”
Evaluation - The assessment or appraisal of the value of something or someone to oneself or to a client; often taken to mean formal evaluation - the systematic assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, merits, and/or costs and benefits or effects of a policy, program, product, etc, from a particular perspective, using implicit or explicit criteria against a set of standards or by comparison of one to another; here, the systematic assessment of the quality of a research study’s design, methods, results, and/or report (including its publication or dissemination).
Guideline - Structured method, checklist, etc published with the intent of guiding (conduct of) a process; specifically, with respect to this Directory.
Health research - Research pertaining to individuals’ or populations’ health or health care.
Information synthesis – The accumulation, integration, interpretation, and presentation (reporting) of research results on a given topic; usually based on relevant research reports. Synonyms include: meta-analysis, research overview, and systematic review.
Primary research - (A research study that) involves the collection of data that does not already exist.
Research (study) - Systematic investigation to increase, revise, or confirm current knowledge by discovering new, or reaffirming existing, facts; includes primary research and information synthesis.
Research report - Written results of research (study).
Secondary research – (Research that) involves the summarization, analysis, collection, or use of existing data; includes information synthesis and data mining.
To view ratified research guidelines