astronomy

PROSPERO

PROSPERO is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand PROSPERO rather than just read about it. In short: The International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, better known as PROSPERO, is an open access online database of systematic review protocols on a wide range of topics. While it was initially restricted to medicine, as of 2021, it also accepts protocols in criminology, social care, education and international development, as long as there is a health-related outcome.

Key takeaways

PROSPERO belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect PROSPERO to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of PROSPERO from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, better known as PROSPERO, is an open access online database of systematic review protocols on a wide range of topics. While it was initially restricted to medicine, as of 2021, it also accepts protocols in criminology, social care, education and international development, as long as there is a health-related outcome. Researchers can choose to have their reviews prospectively registered with PROSPERO. The database is produced by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York in England, and it is funded by the National Institute for Health Research. Registration of systematic reviews in the database has been supported by PLoS Medicine, BioMed Central, the EQUATOR Network, and BMJ editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee, among others.

History After the PRISMA statement was published in 2010, the University of York responded to its recommendation for prospective systematic review registration by beginning development of an online database of systematic reviews. The resulting PROSPERO database was launched in February 2011 by Frederick Curzon, 7th Earl Howe, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health. It was simultaneously launched at a Vancouver, Canada meeting organized by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research that month. By October 2011, the database included 200 records of systematic reviews that were being conducted at the time. In October 2013, the Cochrane Collaboration began automatically including protocols of its systematic reviews in PROSPERO. By October 10, 2017, the number of registered reviews in the database had increased to 26,535. As of February 27, 2021, there were 106,828 registration records on the platform.

Responses In 2017, concern was raised that some protocols in PROSPERO could be "zombie reviews" for which the protocol had been registered, but its record in the database had not been updated to indicate that it had been completed. Andrade et al. showed that only 7% of all reviews registered in PROSPERO from 2011 to 2015 had since been marked as "completed". These authors suggested that many of these reviews were either abandoned, meaning they had not been completed or published, or, if they had been completed, had not had their PROSPERO record updated to reflect this. Sideri et al. (2018) showed that orthodontics-related systematic reviews that were registered in PROSPERO were on average of higher methodological quality than those not so registered. Proportion of registration in systems other than PROSPERO in the systematic review protocol is 1% from 2011 to 2020.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with PROSPERO

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what PROSPERO claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to PROSPERO before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about PROSPERO ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of PROSPERO

In research: PROSPERO appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses PROSPERO in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: PROSPERO is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2011 establishments in England, Database stubs, Databases in England, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for PROSPERO outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study PROSPERO in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what PROSPERO means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain PROSPERO out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is PROSPERO in simple terms?

Why does PROSPERO matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study PROSPERO?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on PROSPERO.