For each nest, you need to configure a Tag Hierarchy before tagging that nest's records. Tag Hierarchies structure the qualitative content that you tag, and Qualitative Synthesis uses the Tag Hierarchy as the basis for its structure.

To configure a hierarchy for your nest, follow the steps below. Once you have built the hierarchy, you can move on to tagging records you have included in your nest.

Before Tag Hierarchy configuration, consider the mode you would like to use. By default, your nest has Form-based Tagging mode on, allowing you to configure questions and answers to be extracted in a form.

Alternatively, you can switch to Standard mode, which is less structured and allows you to configure concepts to be extracted via a list of dropdown tags. Follow these instructions on configuring tags in Standard Tagging mode. Note: switching between modes results in no loss of data.

Root Tags are the highest level of the hierarchy, and have no parent tags.

Parent tags are any tags that have child tags. In the below example, “Interventions” (red) is a root tag (the highest/left-most level), “Treatments” (blue) is a parent tag to “Afatinib” (but not a root tag), and “Afatinib” (green) is a child tag (but not a parent or root tag). That said, don't worry too much about the jargon, these ontologies are simply supposed to represent the most general categories at the top, and most specific at the bottom.

By default, the “left-to-right” configuration is presented (pink) to best display tag names. If you prefer “top-to-bottom” configuration, select the hierarchy icon above.

Click on the gears icon in the Tagging tab:

This will bring you to the Tag Hierarchy, which will be blank until you have added tags.

To draft Questions, you need to build out the Tags in your Tagging Hierarchy. You should keep in mind what tags will be Questions and which will be answers. To create a tag, ensure the pencil icon is toggled (circled in red; it typically is selected by default), then either click the blue tag icon (circled in dark blue) and a tag will be added as a new root tag to the hierarchy (circled in green) or you can drag and drop the same blue tag icon to place a tag in your desired position. Tag position can be altered any time by selecting, dragging and dropping the tag.

Alternatively, if the pencil icon is toggled, you have the option to quickly create a tag by inputting its name and hitting Enter on the keyboard, and coming back to edit details later on.

After creating the tag, you can fill in the details on the right-hand side under “Edit Tag” (circled in red below). First, give the tag a name. For example “Interventions/Comparators.” Any inputted information is auto-saved.

You then have the following options for Question types:

• Single Apply: Open-ended question type where only a text box is shown, answering the question applies the tag, indicating the concept is present.
• Single Select: All child tags will be shown as an option where only a single answer can be selected,
• Multi-Select: All child tags will be shown as an option where multiple answers can be selected, or

Generally, it is best to add a full/descriptive question (such as, if you had a tag called Study Design, type out the question “What was the study design of the article?” in the Question box).

Single Apply questions do not require child tag answers but for Single Select and Multiple Select Questions, they require child tag answers to work. To create child tags, drag and drop the new tag icon under your desired parent tag. This time, input the answer as the Tag Name, leave the question type blank, add a description if applicable.

Example Single Select question:

• Tag Name: Study Type
• Question: What was the Study Type?
• Answers (child tags): Randomized Controlled Trial, Prospective Cohort Study, Retrospective Study

Example Multi-Select question:

• Tag Name: Comorbidities
• Question: What comorbidities were reported in the patient population?
• Answers (child tags): Diabetes, Hypertension, Chronic Kidney Disease

Example Single Apply question:

• Tag Name: Study Objective
• Question: What was the study objective reported?
• Answer (not child tags, the answer will be reflected by the tag text): Tag Text/Excerpt from the underlying study. Absence of an answer means the Tag is not present in the study.

To reiterate, single apply questions do not have child tags:

Every Question that you create will be presented to users during the Tagging stage, in order of top to bottom in the hierarchy, or left to right in the alternate configuration. Simply drag and drop tags to reorder; dragging a parent tag will also move its child tags accordingly. In addition, due to the flexibility of tags, it can be helpful to create root and parent tags to organize your configured questions.

Regarding Advanced Configuration: Tag Contents, all tags have “Text” contents associated by default. This means when the tag is applied, data can be extracted in the form of a text box. If you're just starting out, it's fine to keep tags with text contents. As you get more comfortable, you might consider exploring table contents or options. See more on Tag contents below.

When creating a hierarchy from scratch it can be helpful to use a template. You can either import one of our public templates or a pre-built template that belongs to your organization.

From the Configure Tagging page, and the create tags/pencil icon already toggled, select the cloud-like import hierarchy icon (circled in red below), next to the new tag icon.

When importing a tag hierarchy, you have the option to import:

1. From your organization's configured templates
2. From Nested Knowledge's public templates

If you are not yet part of an organization, this tab will be disabled but you will still be able to access the Public Templates. See a step-by-step on how to import tag templates here.

If you are part of an organization and would like to learn how to build a Tag Hierarchy Template for your Organization, which can then be used for import, click here.

From the available templates, you can decide if you want to import the entire hierarchy or only one Root Tag and its children. For the whole hierarchy, select the listed template, e.g. “General PICO”, you'll see a preview and click “Import.”

To select only one Root Tag and its children, select the Root Tag e.g. “Patient Characteristics”, the preview is highlighted and then click “Import from Root Tag.” There is no limit on how many templates (or parts of templates) that may be imported.

Note: If tags are already present in your Hierarchy, the imported hierarchy will be added to the bottom of the existing Root Tags.

After you've begun Tagging, you may want to edit the tags you have created. Here are the edit functions that are available on the Configure Tagging page:

To edit a Tag's details, ensure the pencil icon is selected and select the tag you wish to edit. The tag's details will be shown on the right hand side where you can edit:

• Tag Name
• Question Type
• Description/Question
• Aliases

This change is auto-saved and will be applied across all studies in the Nest with that tag.

If you need assistance searching for your desired tag, use the Search icon in the top left to select the tag.

If you would like to reorder the positioning of tags underneath the parent tag, simply click on the tag you would like to reorder and drag and drop it to its new destination. The new ordering will be reflected in the Tagging module (specifically the order of questions shown in the form) Exports, and Synthesis.

Reordering tags is useful for general organization of the hierarchy, which is reflected in NK outputs, as well as order of questions that appear in Tagging.

When a tag is created, you have the choice of tag content and the choice to toggle on options for your chosen content. The default setting for content mode is Text, meaning when the tag is applied, free text can be inputted alongside.

In short, if you would like to collect data in the form of simple text only, leave the content mode as text. If you'd like to collect data as a table for a specific tag, select the table content mode and configure custom columns. If you'd like to collect data from pre-configured options with no accompanying text, select options content mode and configure custom options.

Learn more about configuring tag tables and configuring options.

If you have tags present in your hierarchy that you do not want shown in Synthesis (e.g. if they are used for admin/organizational purposes) you can hide them. They will only be hidden in Synthesis and still accessible to use everywhere else in AutoLit. To hide a tag, first select the “Hide” icon (circled in red) and click on the tag. Selecting a parent tag will also hide its child tags (circled example in dark blue)

This will alter the shape of the tag to differentiate between present and hidden tags in Synthesis. Nothing else changes, and toggling back and forth is non-destructive; no data is changed in the process.

If you would like to combine multiple tags into one tag, select the “Merge” icon (circled in red) and on the right hand side you will be given two dropdowns to select the tags you'd like to merge (dark blue). The “Source” tag is the one getting merged into the “Target” tag, so the Target tag's position is maintained after merging.

Why would you Merge tags? Either because they are duplicates or because they are concepts you would like to combine. In the above example, data collected for Mean Age is being merged into a general Age tag.

Navigate to the “Bin” icon (circled in red), select the tags you'd like to delete which will turn red (circled below in dark blue) and hit the “Confirm” checkbox and “Delete” (circled below in green) . When a tag is deleted in Configure Tagging, it deletes the tag from the hierarchy and from all studies it has been applied to.

Be careful deleting parent tags (tags with child tags) because the child tags will be reverted to Root Tags/moved to the bottom of the hierarchy.

If you forget to configure a tag before beginning the Tagging process, no problem! You can add tags to your hierarchy 'on the fly'; to learn how, click here.