best-available evidence—ie, in formal evidence synthesis.

The courses span a suite of synthesis methods, including systematic review and systematic mapping, stakeholder engagement in evidence synthesis, and evidence synthesis technology.

ynthesizing qualitative research enables reviewers to ask questions that inform the development of, or the implementation of, interventions. For example, in the context of intervention evaluation, they can help define relevant and important questions, help determine appropriate outcome measures by looking at “subjective” outcomes, look in detail at issues concerning implementation or the acceptability or appropriateness of an intervention, identify and explore unintended consequences, contribute to service delivery and policy development by describing pro-cesses and contexts, and inform and illuminate quantitative studies, for example, by contributing to the design of struc-tured instruments, assessing the fairness of comparisons in experimental studies, or unpacking variation within aggre-gated data (Davies, Nutley, & Smith, 2000).