Information Management System Group (IMSG)

Report to the Steering Group meeting (April 2005)

Prepared by Mike Clarke, in consultation with the IMSG (25 February 2005)

1. How many meetings, and of what type (e.g. face-to-face, by teleconference), has your Advisory Group had since October 2004?
   The Information Management System Group (IMSG) met face-to-face on 3 December 2004 and the RevMan Advisory Group (RAG) met face-to-face on 2 December 2004. The minutes of these meetings are available (www.cc-ims.net). The Editorial Management Advisory Group (EMAG) has not met since October 2004. The convenors of IMSG, RAG and EMAG met with the IMS Director by teleconference on 25 January 2005. This is what we expected when we set our budget for the year.

2. Supply an up-to-date list of the members of your Advisory Group.

Jacqueline Birks (Co-ordinating editor representative), Dave Booker (Cochrane Collaboration website representative), Mike Clarke (Convenor, RevMan Advisory Group convenor), Andrew Cullis (Wiley representative), Kay Dickersin (CENTRAL Advisory Group representative), Sherri Sheinfeld Gorin (Criticism Management Advisory Group convenor), Sonja Henderson (Editorial Management Advisor Group convenor), Julian Higgins (Statistical Methods Group representative), Monica Kjeldstrøm (IMS Director), Rasmus Moustgaard (Technical Implementation Advisory Group convenor), Jordi Pardo (Steering Group representative), Elizabeth Pienaar (Developing Countries representative) and Rob Scholten (Steering Group representative).

3. Summarise any significant actions taken by your Advisory Group since your last report (for the CCSG meeting in Ottawa in October 2004), and significant actions planned for the next six months until the next meeting of the CCSG in Melbourne in October 2005.

a. Monica Kjeldstrøm’s report on the IMS contains information on the schedule and plans for the new IMS, so these are not reported here.

b. The IMSG sent its final recommendation on the specification for RevMan 5 to the Steering Group in January 2005. This was approved by the Steering Group on 24 February 2005.

c. The IMSG made recommendations on the name for the new IMS to the Steering Group in January and they chose “Archie”.

d. A revised remit for RAG has been agreed (www.cc-ims.net).

e. The EMAG now has no vacancies, having recruited a co-ordinating editor, editor, criticisms editor, a representative of the Quality Advisory Group (QAG) and a representative of the QAG's procedures collection working group (ex-officio). This expanded membership means that the EMAG now has good representation.

f. Members of EMAG will beta-test the new IMS.

g. In May 2005, a major component of the RAG and IMSG meetings will be to discuss ways in which RevMan 5 and the IMS can include features to help reduce the possibility of errors in Cochrane reviews.

h. Contact Advisory Group: A telephone conference took place on 16 December 2004 of Claire Allen, Mike Clarke, Jini Hetherington, Monica Kjeldstrøm and Jacob Riis. A draft remit is being prepared for this Group. The Steering Group might wish to consider having this Group serve also as a subgroup to the Steering Group, because it might be able to deal with policy, as well as software, issues. See item 4b below also.

i. Registers Advisory Group: A proposed remit for this Group is being redrafted by Kay Dickersin in consultation with the Cochrane CENTRAL Advisory Group (CCAG). Earlier drafts of the remit have been discussed with Mike Clarke and Monica Kjeldstrøm. The relationship of the new Group to the CCAG is also being discussed by CCAG and we believe that any changes to the remit of the CCAG will need to be agreed with the Steering Group rather than the IMSG. See item 4c below also.

j. Accessibility: the IMSG and the IMS team will try to ensure that the IMS follows good practice in relation to accessibility. We sought advice from the Secretariat in December 2004 as to the law(s) that need to be obeyed by the IMS in relation to accessibility. This is potentially complicated because of issues such as the location of the server, the registered location of The Cochrane Collaboration and the storage of parts of the IMS on local computers and servers. When the IMS Team have advice on which laws to obey, they will strive to implement the necessary features in the IMS and will report difficulties in so doing to the IMSG and the Steering Group. The CEO advised that the IMSG and IMS team, rather than the Secretariat, should seek this advice. Mike Clarke will do so. See also 5e below.

k. Relationship with Wiley: regular meetings will take place of Monica Kjeldstrøm, Mike Clarke and representatives from Wiley to discuss issues relating to the new IMS and the feed of data to Wiley for The Cochrane Library.

4. Does your Advisory Group have any questions that you would like the Steering Group to answer? If so, please list them.

a. Diagnostic test accuracy reviews: Please would the Steering Group provide guidance on the appropriate balance for the work of the IMSG and the IMS team between the development of software for Cochrane reviews of diagnostic test accuracy and the development of software for Cochrane reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions. For example, if we have to choose between delaying the preparation of RevMan 5 for healthcare interventions in favour of working on that for the diagnostic test accuracy reviews, we would like to be guided by the Steering Group as to the relative importance of these two tools. We believe that this is a policy decision for the Steering Group, not a software decision for the IMSG.

b. Contact Advisory Group: We would like the Steering Group to consider whether this Group, or someone else, should provide advice on non-software issues relating to the collection, storage and display of personal contact information within The Cochrane Collaboration. For example, the IMS Team need guidance on the inclusion of a privacy statement within the contact part of the new IMS. This is a policy, not a software, issue and the IMSG is not able to provide the necessary guidance.

c. Prioritisation of future developments in the IMS: We would welcome advice from the Steering Group on the relative importance of the possible future developments in the IMS (aside from RevMan) which have been judged as high priority by the IMSG. These are the integration of specialised registers into the IMS, using the IMS as a platform for the Colloquium Manager software and other ‘external’ Cochrane tools, preparations of management reports, umbrella reviews, web templates to support the editorial process (e.g. online completion of editors’ comments on reviews), and facilitating continuous publication. The Steering Group’s opinion on the relative importance of these issues will help the IMSG and the IMS team to achieve an appropriate balance in our work.

5. Does your Advisory Group wish to raise any problems, and recommended solutions, which you would like the Steering Group to discuss? If so, please list them.
   a. IMS Development Team: the IMSG continue to be impressed by the
   high standard of work done by the IMS team. We urge the Steering Group to ensure that adequate resources are available to sustain this work. We remain convinced that the new IMS is vital to the future success and growth of The Cochrane Collaboration. We would like RevMan 5 to be accompanied by a similar guarantee to that for RevMan 4 – that it will not be replaced by another mandatory management tool for Cochrane reviews for at least 3 years. However, there is still likely to be a need for RevMan 6 by the first half of the 2010s, and so its planning and development will need to begin almost immediately after the full-scale release and uptake of RevMan 5. The wishlist for RevMan 6 has begun and, in the still evolving world of systematic reviews, meta-analyses and The Cochrane Collaboration, we anticipate that many more items will be added in coming years. This continuing development will also be needed to support the work of the increasing number of authors of Cochrane reviews. If growth continues at the 20% per year of the last five years, there will be 15,000 by 2010, and more than 35,000 by 2015.

b. Summary of findings in Cochrane reviews: special tables for the “Summary of findings” are included in the specification of RevMan 5. Rasmus Moustgaard (IMS Development Team) is in discussion with Paul Glasziou (Applicability and Recommendations Methods Group) about these. However, please would the Steering Group confirm that decisions about using these tables, their content, guidelines on how to prepare them and whether or not they are mandatory for all Cochrane reviews will be taken by the Steering Group, Handbook Advisory Group and Publishing Policy Group. If this is correct, please would the Steering Group communicate this to the relevant parties (ie, as a minimum, the Handbook Advisory Group, Publishing Policy Group and Paul Glasziou). The IMSG would be happy to liaise with the Handbook Advisory Group and Publishing Policy Group through Julian Higgins and Monica Kjeldstrøm, respectively (who are members of the relevant Group and IMSG).

c. IMSG membership and remit: We would welcome an independent assessment of the composition and remit of the IMSG (including the duration that people should serve on the Group). We suggest that this might be done by the CEO, as he did for the PPG, and that it take place after the roll out of the new IMS.

d. Monica Kjeldstrøm’s report on the IMS contains a suggestion that the Steering Group should provide a list of routine data you would like from the IMS (including the Parent database). For example to show, by CRG and in total, the number of Cochrane reviews, number of included studies, range and mean number of included studies per review, and number of reviews with less than a particular number (perhaps 5). We think this would be a good use of the data held within the IMS and might be helpful data for potential funders and others.

e. As mentioned above (3j) Mike Clarke will seek legal advice about the relevant laws relating to accessibility and the IMS. However, in part because of the limits on our expertise and time, we will restrict our questions to those relating to the software used in the preparation and maintenance of Cochrane reviews. We will not seek advice on the law(s) that need to be obeyed by The Cochrane Collaboration more widely in relation to, for example, the accessibility of www.cochrane.org or of the documents produced by The Cochrane Collaboration. The Steering Group might wish to decide if it should seek separate advice to reassure itself that The Cochrane Collaboration (which might mean the Steering Group) is not acting illegally in this regard.

6. Do you foresee any problems in keeping within the budget you submitted for the current financial year (April 2004 to March 2005)?
   No.

7. What are your budgetary requirements for the period April 2005 to March 2006? Please provide a breakdown if appropriate.

We require a total of £22,830 to cover the expenses of three face-to-face meetings and one teleconference of IMSG; two face-to-face meetings of RAG; and one face-to-face meeting and a teleconference of EMAG. A detailed breakdown is available in the attached spreadsheet. We hope that it will continue to be acceptable for us to move funds from one meeting to another and between the Advisory Groups of the IMSG, without needing to seek specific approval for this, providing that we remain within the overall budget.