Name the baseline

Claim: a review is finished when it names the baseline the result will be compared with, and says how.

• Grade: convention, untested for the effect; the neglect of prior evidence is measured, descriptive.
• Evidence: review, strand B; baseline; Lund 2016; Glasziou 2014 (secondary); Peffers 2006, activities 2 and 5; Chapman 2000, phase 1.
• Check: project-shape (error, warning): the baseline part has a Named baseline: line that is not empty or a placeholder; a missing Compared by: line is a warning. That the baseline is the right one, or that the comparison was run, is judgment.
• Reader styles: none.

What it asks

• End the review with a part that names one baseline: the method, result or process the work is set against.
• Add a line saying how the comparison is made: the unit, what is counted, and the grade a small result earns.
• Say when the comparison is named and not run.

Why

• Evidence-based research calls for a systematic review before new work (Lund 2016).
• New trials rarely set their findings in the context of such a review (Glasziou 2014, abstract).
• The design science process has a comparison target in its objectives and evaluation, but no step for a review (Peffers 2006).
• CRISP-DM names success criteria in its first phase, the nearest practice (Chapman 2000).

Limits

• No source found measures that naming a baseline changes the outcome of a project.
• A baseline named in a placeholder phrase passes the check; a reader judges it.