Table 2.

Overview of the data sets used in the validation

#	Author(s)	Date	Studies	Input type
1	Lau et al. [4]	1992	33	DD – large
2	Hodnett et al. [29]	2001	5	DD – small
3	Teo et al. [30]	1991	16	DD – publication bias
4	Crowley [31]	2000	17	DD – rare events
5	Lightowler et al. [32]	2003	5	DC – small
6	Wahlbeck et al. [33]	2000	11	DC – medium large
7	Pagliaro et al. [34]	1992	19	C – odds ratio
8	Law et al. [35]	1994	10	C – risk difference

The validation was done with eight data sets from meta-analysis that have been published in major peer-reviewed journals. The data sets were selected to represent a wide spectrum of potential input for meta-analysis. Abbreviations: "DD" = descriptive data for dichotomous outcomes (two-by-two table data), "DC" = descriptive data for continuous outcomes (means with their standard deviations and sample sizes), and "C" = comparative data (association measures with standards error or confidence intervals).