Blogs

  • NIHR Complex Reviews Support Unit (CRSU)
    The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Complex Reviews Support Unit provides timely and appropriate support for the delivery of complex reviews that are funded and/or supported by NIHR - including Cochrane Reviews! Project Manager of the unit, Mora Aitken, answers a few questions to introduce the unit more widely to the Cochrane…
  • Translations team
    Cochrane’s translation strategy, established in 2014, is aimed at strengthening impact in non-English speaking countries. More than 2,500 translations of Cochrane Review summaries have been published in the first half of 2016 alone. Hayley Hassan, Cochrane’s Translations Support Officer, offers an insight into the impressive work of Cochrane’s…
  • Putting the equity lens on the work of Cochrane
    Dario Sambunjak is a Learning & Support Officer at the Cochrane Central Executive and acts as the secretary to the recently established Cochrane Equity & Diversity Task Force. In this blog post, he discusses the first and last principles – “alpha and omega” - underpinning Cochrane’s work and invites Cochrane contributors to join in the…
  • Cochrane Review’s Altmetric Score: Understanding the value
    You may have noticed that the Altmetric ‘doughnut’ is now included at the start of every Cochrane Review and Protocol. But what does it mean? Working with Gavin Stewart, Cochrane Editor for our publishing partner Wiley, we’ve come up with all you need to know, including how authors, Managing Editors, and Review Groups can make the most of it.…
  • Cochrane Tumblr: sharing Cochrane evidence on a miroblogging platform
    Jack Leahy is an Engagement Officer with Cochrane UK. Jack curates the new Cochrane Tumblr account, where the popular Cochrane blogshots are shared. These blogshots summarize a Cochrane Review with a visual and are easy to share and consume on social media – a perfect fit for the miroblogging platform that is Tumblr! If you follow any of the…
  • Cochrane Crowd – Exciting Times Ahead
    It’s now two months since we launched Cochrane’s new citizen science platform, Cochrane Crowd, so it’s time celebrate our achievements and share the exciting plans for the months ahead. Firstly a big thank you to our existing Embase screening project crowd for coming along on this transition with us and giving such helpful feedback on the early…
  • The World Health Assembly – A great opportunity for Cochrane to engage with key stakeholders
    The World Health Assembly is an important meeting for Cochrane and our partnerships. Here Sylvia de Haan, Partnership Coordinator for Cochrane, discusses what it is, our involvement thus far, and plans on making the most of our attendance. Once a year the World Health Assembly (WHA) brings together 3,000 people representing 194 member states and…
  • Putting Cochrane evidence in the spotlight at conferences
    David Roberts, a public health registrar with Cochrane UK, recently helped with a Cochrane stand at a Public Health conference. Here he shares a bit about the experience and gives tips for other groups sharing Cochrane Evidence. The Faculty of Public Health Annual Conference was held in June in Brigton, East Sussex, UK. Representatives of…
  • Screening Notes: Planning methods for using GRADE and preparing Summary of Findings tables
    The Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) has been undertaking pre-publication screening of Cochrane Reviews since 2013. In that time a team of editors from the CEU has assessed hundreds of submissions, and has not only identified areas for improvement within individual reviews, but also extracted and gathered data to help improve production practices…
  • Cochrane contributor: Dr Jimee Hwang
    This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Dr. Jimee Hwang, a significant contributor to the work of  Cochrane Infectious Diseases, with an interview. This article is one in the "Meet the Editor" series produced by the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Groups, you can read more in the series here. Could you describe where you…
  • Targeted Updates project: Case Study A
    The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline.  Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close…
  • When Maja met TaskExchange
    Maja Boban recently used TaskExchange to get some help with her Cochrane review, and we thought you might like to hear how it worked out. Maja is a psychologist and a Senior Advisor in HTA at the Agency for Quality and Accreditation in Health Care and Social Welfare in Croatia. Hi Maja! Maja was working on a review of multimedia-delivered…
  • What proportion of Cochrane Reviews are Wiki-compatible?
    The Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership started in 2014 with the aim of improving the evidence base of Wikipedia articles using Cochrane Reviews and other relevant evidence. We are delighted to announce the launch of the Cochrane-Wikipedia Initiative pages on Wikimedia as the go-to place for all Cochrane-Wikipedia projects and related resources.…
  • Assessing the current state of systematic reviews
    Cochrane contributor Matthew Page, working with an international team of research colleagues, has recently completed an examination of the current quality and quantity of systematic reviews being published. A report of the study published in the online journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine on 24 May, and Cochrane Senior Editor Toby…
  • The Targeted Update Project: an introduction
    Targeted Update team (L to R): Nuala Livingstone, Rachel Churchill, Hanna Bergman, Charlotte Pestridge, Giulia Boselli, Karla Soares-Weiser. (Not pictured: Rachel Marshall). What is the Targeted Update Project? Supported by the Cochrane Steering Group, this pilot project was conducted jointly by the Cochrane Editorial Unit and Cochrane…
  • The secret life of social franchising: the value of empty reviews
    Tracey Perez Koehlmoos is Director of the Health Services Administration Division and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine & Biostatistics at the US Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She is also a Cochrane Review author, member of the Cochrane Library Oversight Commitee, and contributor to the work…
  • Cochrane Crowd - the next phase of Cochrane Embase
    Today marks a new chapter in the Cochrane Embase project with the launch of the beta version of Cochrane Crowd. The Cochrane Embase project has been a huge success. To date, some 2,414 contributors have screened 304,499 records and identified 22,448 reports of randomized trials, with 99% sensitivity and specificity based on the latest evaluation.…
  • Cochrane contributor: Rhoda Redulla
    This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Professor Rhoda Redulla, a significant contributor to Cochrane Nursing Care. Professor Rhoda Redulla has been an active member of the Cochrane Nursing Care Field (CNCF) for several years and has prepared numerous Cochrane Review Summaries that have been published in many highly regarded…
  • There’s an app for that! Cochrane contributor improving business travel
    Susi Wisniewski is former Managing Editor of the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group and Programme Manager for Cochrane Screening and Diagnostic Tests Methods Group. She remains involved with Cochrane as an author, particularly on Diagnostic Test Accuracy reviews. Since leaving her full-time role within Cochrane, Susi has launched a…
  • Building an effective and sustainable organization through the Strategy to 2020
    It was a pleasure to see and work with many of you at the mid-year business meetings in London from 4-5 April, which were followed by three days of Cochrane Steering Group (CSG) meetings. My impression is that we will look back on those meetings in London as some of the most significant in Cochrane’s history, when the organization’s…
  • Cochrane Reviews: Hard. Important. Fun?
    Through interviews and surveys conducted for Production Models, as part of Project Transform, it is clear that the Cochrane Community cares deeply and passionately about how Cochrane Reviews are produced. We care because we want to see it done well, and we want to see it done better. Tari Turner, from Project Transform, tells us more about  …
  • Cochrane contributor: Natalie Bradford
    This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Natalie Bradford PhD, MPH, BNurs, RN, Queensland Youth Cancer Service, Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. The Cochrane Nursing Care Field (CNCF) continues to expend the number of summaries produced within its collaboration of international nursing journals and widen its…
  • Cochrane Translations: Cochrane Iberoamerica on translating blogshots
    Andrea Cervera is a translator and Communications Manager at Cochrane Iberoamerica. Here she explains her experience of translating and publishing blogshots from Cochrane UK and their impact on social media. This follows the recent blog post from Sarah Chapman, Cochrane UK, on how groups can create blogshots. We at Cochrane Iberoamerica…
  • Blogshots
    Sarah Chapman is a knowledge broker at Cochrane UK. She writes and edits their weekly blog, Evidently Cochrane, and helps to shares Cochrane evidence across social media platforms. It’s nine months since we started experimenting with blogshots as a way to share evidence. You can read more about how we developed them in this blog post: http://www…
  • Preventing overdiagnosis - from Barcelona to Seoul
    Dr Ray Moynihan is Senior Research Fellow at Bond University and co-chair of the scientific committee for the international Preventing Overdiagnosis conference taking place in Barcelona in September 2016. In this blog post he invites you to Barcelona, and explores the growing interest within Cochrane in tackling the problem of too much medicine –…
  • Swiss students share their experience at Cochrane's Colloquium
    Alain Amstutz, Elina Christes, Jérémy Glasner, Alen Hascic, and  Patrick Schmitt attended the last  Cochrane Colloquium. They shared information about Cochrane and their experience in the National Journal of Swiss Medical Students recently. This journal is distributed in all six medical faculties of Switzerland at the beginning of the…
  • Speaking to students about Cochrane
    Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Canada. Cochrane Canada’s Knowledge Broker, Eileen Vilis, shares more about her recent presentation to students and offers tips to other Cochrane groups.  Cochrane Canada was again invited to speak to the dental hygiene students and staff at the Canadian National Institute of Health in Ottawa…
  • Cochrane Translations: Cochrane Kompakt
    ‘Cochrane Kompakt,’ the German translation project, is a joint effort between Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Austria, and Cochrane Switzerland. Cordula Braun, from the Department of Physiotherapy at hochschule 21 in Germany, gave a presentation on a collaboration between German physiotherapists and the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group to…
  • Remembering Andrew Herxheimer
    Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Methods. It was with deep sadness that the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group said goodbye to Andrew Herxheimer, a founding member of The Cochrane Collaboration and the Adverse Effects Methods Group. If it had not been for Andrew, the Adverse Effects Methods Group would never have existed.…
  • Cochrane contributor: Joan Webster
    This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Professor Joan Webster; a prolific author, intrepid adventurer, and much loved mentor to many. Cross-posted, with permission, from Cochrane Australia. Conduct a trusty Google search on Professor Joan Webster and there among the myriad of journal articles, research papers, and academic…