Create and Save Custom Columns in Elicit

If there’s no predefined column that exactly matches what you want or you need to give additional instructions to tweak the results or get the data in the right format, create a custom column. Once you've created a custom column, you can save it to reuse in future tables.

To create a column from scratch, type the name of your column under “Describe what kind of data you want to extract” and click the button to create the column:

If you'd like to edit a predefined column to change the column instructions: click the arrow to the right of the column and choose Edit.

Edit the Description and Instructions fields to fit your use-case.

The Description is a single phrase describing what information you want about the papers in your table, e.g. “Main or primary outcome measured in the study.”

The Instructions tell Elicit how to get the information you want.

• The instructions should contain all instructions that you’d give to a human data labeler. 

• The instructions can accept multiple paragraphs of input, so don’t worry about your instructions being too long.

• Be as detailed as possible, e.g. “List all interventions that at least some participants received” may be better than “List the interventions that participants received.”

• Explain the desired format of the answer, for instance:

  1. Level of precision: “Be as precise as possible (i.e. ‘50 hours’ is better than ‘2 days’.)”

  2. Multiple choice answers: “The answer should be one of: Both Genders, Male, or Female.”

  3. Numerical formats: “Give your answer in the format ‘mean ± standard deviation’, e.g. ‘24.5 ± 3.0’.”

  4. Units: “Include the units, e.g. ‘3.8 ml/kg’.”

• Explicitly mention any gotchas, e.g. “Make sure to give the number of participants at the end of the study, not at some earlier point.”

• Give examples of good answers.

• Try editing the various predefined columns to see what they’re like to get ideas for your Description and Instructions!

Try out your custom column. If you still notice issues, go back to step 2 and tweak the Description and Instructions further. For column tips, see Improving Results from Columns.

After adding a custom column, click on the arrow next to the column name to open the column menu. 

Then click the "Save as preset" button to permanently save your column for easy reuse in other tables. You can also re-click this button anytime you want to save new edits for this custom column. 

After adding your first custom column, you will see a new section called Column Presets. Just click on a saved column from the Column Presets list to add it to a table.  

To delete a saved custom column, simply click on the trash can next to the column. 

Use the Yes/No/Maybe option to create columns to answer yes or no questions about the papers in your table. These columns are great for screening papers to include in systematic reviews or to weed out papers that don't meet your specific research criteria.

Yes/No/Maybe columns can be filtered to see only specific answers:

Specified answers from a multiple-choice list are helpful when you know what all of the possible answers are, and you just want Elicit to choose from that set. To create multiple choice questions, use the “Specified” answer structure:

Elicit will choose answers from your list of specified answers: