Mourad Ouzzani, Hossam Hammady, Zbys Fedorowicz, Ahmed Elmagarmid

Systematic Reviews (2016)

Rayyan is a web and mobile application developed by QCRI to speed up the initial screening process in systematic reviews of scientific literature. It uses semi-automation to help researchers efficiently filter and classify titles and abstracts from large search results, combining machine learning predictions with an intuitive and collaborative interface. In pilot studies and user surveys, Rayyan demonstrated substantial time savings—up to 50% for many users—while maintaining accuracy comparable to manual methods. Its most valued features include real-time collaboration, easy study labeling, and the ability to share inclusion or exclusion decisions. With thousands of users worldwide, Rayyan has become a widely adopted tool for improving the speed and usability of evidence synthesis.

Rayan is now a startup (https://www.rayyan.ai/) serving almost ~800k users. The Rayyan paper which was published in 2016 has been cited over 21,000 times and is the one of the most cited academic works produced in Qatar.

Paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13643-016-0384-4
System: http://rayyan.qcri.org