It’s been a busy time for the Working Group looking at ‘Improving and Upscaling’ Knowledge Translation (KT) Products since the Community Survey over the summer. In this blog we look at the results of the survey and our plans for the future.

Infographics, blogshots, policy briefings, press releases and videos… these are just some examples of KT products that Cochrane groups are using in order to try to ensure that the evidence is available to the people who need it in a format in which they can use it for health decision making. Over the summer the members involved in the KT Working Group looking at developing KT products ran a survey open to all of the Cochrane Community. The survey tried to identify what products are currently being used by people in Cochrane, which products people have had good results with, and what we can learn from great KT products outside Cochrane. 

The survey had 77 responses, from 32 countries. Responders came from across the Cochrane community with six Cochrane Fields, 16 Cochrane Review Groups and 17 Geographically orientated groups submitting an official response.  The results showed that a wide range of different methods are already being used to share Cochrane evidence with the most popular being updating the website, developing and sharing blogshots, and presenting evidence at conferences. Unsurprisingly social media is a big deal! Most groups are using Twitter and Facebook to spread the word, with other social media platforms popular in specific regions around the world.

Current and planned use of social media across all survey participants

Some of the major messages that came through the survey included that respondents were:

• eager to develop KT products themselves but felt there was a lack of time, resources and support for doing this. They requested more guidance and templates to help them.
• particularly interested to know more about developing included infographics, blogshots, Cochrane corners, videos, podcasts, and using Wikipedia more
• interested in developing skills to be able to create communication strategies and at getting better at using Social Media
• keen to know more about how to evaluate and track the impact of KT products produced

So what’s next? The Working Group has reviewed the results and will be working on a number of projects over the coming months.  These include:

• developing ‘dissemination kits’ for different audiences including templates and guidance for KT products and platforms such as blogshots, press releases, Facebook and Twitter.
• webinars to enable groups to use social media more effectively
• piloting the use of infographics for specific reviews
• developing tools and training to explore the ‘basic principles of dissemination’

New resources will produced over the coming months and will be additions to the existing ‘Disseminating Cochrane Evidence’ section of the KT resources website. 

KT Working Group have already made some resources available on the website, including advice on making effective use of social media, how to communicate evidence to journalists, resources for presenting work at conferences and help to produce multimedia materials like podcasts and videos. Take some time to browse through all our great resources on disseminating Cochrane evidence - and check back often as we will be adding more!

Thank you for all your help responding to the survey, and please get in touch by emailing support@cochrane.org if you have any comment or ideas.

Anne Littlewood
Karen Head
Francesca Gimigliano