This is merely an extension of existing practice. Dissertations were researched and written before the availability on online search methods. This may be undertaken by students at all levels of their undergraduate careers. Its origins are in postgraduate study and the traditional end of year report of a first year PhD student.
Student picks a topic of interest.
This may be checked for feasibility with a tutor. Groups of students undertake one of the above, with various ways of splitting the work. The report may be accompanied with justifications for the inclusion of the 20 and the criteria for excluding the near misses. The latter is feasible given the ability to calculate word counts on most word processors. The survey of abstracts Where a database includes a brief abstract of the articles, students are required to extract useful information from just reading the abstracts in order to generate a report on the state of the art in the field.