Cochrane Classmate could change how evidence production is taught in classrooms around the world.

 Brought to you by the Cochrane Crowd team, Classmate is a trainers’ toolkit that allows you to create exciting, interactive tasks that help your students learn about evidence production. It is easy to use, and its first release is now available free of charge to anyone interested. Join the growing number of teachers and trainers using this innovative online learning environment.

This webinar will introduce you to Classmate, including how to create a learning activity, invite students to that activity, and monitor their progress.  You’ll see the modules currently available on Classmate and hear about others launching soon.

Tuesday 20th November 12.30-1.30pm GMT

Learn more at classmate.cochrane.org/

Support for Project Transform was provided by Cochrane and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1114605). The contents of the published material are solely the responsibility of the Administering Institution, a Participating Institution or individual authors and do not reflect the views of the NHMRC.

Looking for support for your Priority Setting process? The Knowledge Translation ‘Embedding Prioritisation’ Working Group might be able to help!

Setting research priorities is essential to ensure Cochrane produces the right reviews. It can also be the foundation for knowledge translation, allowing consumers, healthcare professionals, policy makers, and others who use Cochrane Reviews to engage with Cochrane Groups at the earliest possible stage in the review production process.

We are pleased to announce that the 'Priority Setting' section of the KT Resources website has been updated with a video presentations from the Edinburgh Colloquium.

This video provides a 15-minute overview of the Guidance Note as presented at the Priority Setting Workshop. In addition, at this workshop there were two questions that have been made into additional videos: this video focuses on the ‘Mandatory Standards’ required in order to include a topic onto the Priority Review List and this video discusses the challenges of priority setting in Review Groups which have large scopes.

We have also added a video from the workshop presenting a case study from Cochrane Consumer and Communication Group. Listen about how they came up with a prioritization plan, how they implemented it, and what they did with the results.

Getting ready or going through a prioritisation process? The Knowledge Translation ‘Embedding Prioritisation’ Working Group is  providing individualised support for review of prioritisation plans or advice on prioritisation methods. Please get in touch and let us know we may help you further!

We are trying to put together some examples and templates for existing prioritization processes. Take a look at our existing collection of case studies! Please share your experiences and learning with the Cochrane community by sharing your story or templates.

Additional Resources:

• Interactive webinar on the 9th of November and the 3rd December. 8am UK time
• Priority Setting webpages

After considerable reflection over many months, and as hinted at during my presentation at this year’s Annual General Meeting, I have decided that the time is right for me to step down from the role of Cochrane’s Editor in Chief. I plan to leave at the end of May next year.
 
With the successful launch of the new Cochrane Library, new Networks, an Editorial Board and the Scientific Committee all up and running, I strongly believe that Cochrane is set fair. In my judgement, these are strong foundations on top of the strong foundations I inherited. I am confident that this is the right time to change the hand at the tiller for Cochrane.
 
Working together, we have enjoyed considerable success over the past 10 years. I believe that our review production community is working much more closely together and is delivering high quality, relevant reviews ever more consistently. As Matthew Page and colleagues described in 2016, despite the fact that the quality of non-Cochrane Reviews had increased over the preceding decade, we have retained the clear water between Cochrane and non Cochrane reviews in terms of the quality of reporting. I am proud to have made a contribution to our success, but am equally aware that everything we have achieved, we have achieved together.
 
This role has sometimes been challenging, sometimes extraordinary, always interesting. I have had experiences I could never have imagined possible. I owe you all a great deal, and it has been a privilege and a considerable pleasure to serve you in this role. There’s an ocean of thanks I need to say to so many people, but there will be plenty of time for that in the months to come. I will continue to serve you to the best of my ability over that period, and hope that I can contribute to a smooth handover.

David Tovey
Editor in Chief

Cochrane’s Governing Board is seeking to elect 4 new members

We are looking for candidates with a passion for Cochrane, a belief in its power to improve healthcare decision making worldwide, and the ability to support the management of the organization.

Cochrane is an international organization and a registered charity in the UK, and members of the Governing Board from around the world are ‘Trustees’ of the charity. The Trustees carry ultimate responsibility for Cochrane and this is a critically important role.

The Board works as a team, including members with complementary skills and backgrounds. Candidates standing for election must be Cochrane Members but do not have to be a leader of a Cochrane Group. We are looking for a diverse and international range of candidates, and welcome nominations from people with the skills required to fulfil the responsibilities of a Trustee.

In this election, we are especially seeking candidates who have one or more of the following areas of expertise, in order to complement those of existing Board members:

• Charity Governance (in any charitable organization around the world)
• Organizational Finance and Resource Management
• People Management (often called ‘Human Resources’ in English) and Organizational Development
• Knowledge of the importance of Consumer involvement in Evidence Production and Health Policy
• Advocating for Evidence
• Widening Access, Participation, Reach and Impact of research 
• Fundraising and Development

This is an exciting opportunity to join the team providing strategic oversight to Cochrane, making sure the organization’s work is effective and innovative, and that it delivers on its mission to promote evidence-informed health decision making by producing high-quality, relevant, accessible systematic reviews and other synthesized research evidence.

In line with the usual requirements for UK charity Trustees, these are voluntary, unpaid roles. Each year you will need to commit to attending at least three face-to-face meetings at different locations internationally, and at least two teleconferences. You will be expected to be a member of one or more Board Sub-Committees. Your expenses will be paid to attend meetings. The term of appointment is three years, from December 2018 to December 2021. In 2019, you should be available to travel to London, UK, 19-20 January; Krakow, Poland, 1-5 April; and Santiago, Chile, 22-25 October.

The deadline for nominations is Wednesday 14 November 2018. To find out how to stand for election, please visit elections.cochrane.org.

With best wishes,

Cochrane Governing Board

For many years, Cochrane authors have imported their RevMan 5 files in GRADEpro to build their summary of findings tables. The new integration brings a completely new experience for the use of RevMan 5 or RevMan Web together with GRADEpro - linked via Archie and your Cochrane Account. This blog post by Evidence Prime explains how it works and how to get the maximum benefit of the integration.

This integration with Cochrane Account and Archie lays the ground work for even closer integration between RevMan Web and GRADEpro in the future.

Cochrane Interactive Learning is a series of high quality, online learning modules for conducting intervention reviews following Cochrane review methodology. Useful for both introductory-level and more experienced learners, the modules are designed for both individual distance learners and for trainers looking to create blended online and face-to-face learning.  We have created this video to promote how Cochrane Interactive Learning is being used as a fantastic addition to courses for students as part of a blended learning approach.

Cochrane Interactive Learning is available to purchase as part of an institutional license, and you can contact Richard Hollis on CILsubscriptions@cochrane.org to discuss your requirements.

If you are a Cochrane Author (or hold an eligible Cochrane role) you have free access to Cochrane Interactive Learning and can register to use it at interactivelearning.cochrane.org.  The course is also made freely available to registered users who are resident in HINARI countries. If you need any further help with accessing Cochrane Interactive Learning, please contact support@cochrane.org

• Cochrane Interactive Learning website
• Cochrane Training website

Help Cochrane curate and deliver health evidence

Cochrane Crowd is an online citizen science platform that enables anyone with an interest in health to contribute to health evidence. Our volunteers make it easier for health researchers to find the latest, high-quality evidence on what treatments work and don’t work. This means health practitioners can more easily access current evidence to inform the treatments they provide. Just a few minutes each day makes a huge difference.

This webinar introduces Cochrane Crowd and how you can get involved. This webinar is scheduled for an Australasian audience. If you can’t make it at the scheduled time, feel free to register and you will be sent a copy of the recording.

Tuesday October 30th 12.30-1.30pm AEDT

crowd.cochrane.org

Support for Project Transform was provided by Cochrane and the National Health and Medical Research Counc12/12/1996il of Australia (APP1114605). The contents of the published material are solely the responsibility of the Administering Institution, a Participating Institution or individual authors and do not reflect the views of the NHMRC.

On 4th - 5th October 2018, Cochrane’s Governing Board held a series of three webinars at different times across the two days so that Cochrane’s global community could easily attend at least one of them. The webinars were hosted by the Governing Board Co-Chairs, Marguerite Koster and Martin Burton, and were open to all Cochrane members. A total of 175 individual attendees joined the webinars, although this number was an underestimate as some Cochrane members gathered around a single computer to join. The aims of the webinars were:

1. To provide context and more information about the Board’s decision to end Professor Peter Gøtzsche’s membership of Cochrane, and therefore his position as a Member of the Governing Board and as Director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre.
2. To hear perspectives from across the Collaboration about this decision and its impact on the organization; and to address questions and concerns.
3. To look to the future for Cochrane.

The slides presented by the Co-Chairs and CEO Mark Wilson can be seen here. Following this presentation, the majority of the time on the webinar was spent answering questions received from the Cochrane community by e-mail before the webinars, and from those attending the webinars. Despite this, not all of the questions posed were able to be answered due to time constraints. The Board Co-Chairs promised to answer every question received in writing in addition to the answers given during each of the webinars. This Questions and Answers document fullfils that pledge.

The three webinars can be accessed here. They are unedited and all Cochrane members are encouraged to watch and listen to one of them. If you have any further comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Governing Board at support@cochrane.org.

• View PDF of slides
• Read the Q&A document
• Watch the webinars

Cochrane Taiwan aims to promote evidence informed health care in Taiwan, and develops partnerships with institutions in the country to achieve this aim. One of these institutions is the Chang Gung University of Science and Technology (CGUST). CGUST has now been given Cochrane Affiliate status.

CGUST is committed to training healthcare personnel, and promotes evidence informed health care actively. This is the first affiliate of Cochrane Taiwan. Cochrane Taiwan and President Ying-Tung Lau of CGUST signed a memorandum of cooperation in the presence of Taipei Medical University (TMU) President Chien-Huang Lin. It is expected that the Cochrane Taiwan and CGUST will collaborate in teaching, research, promoting evidence informed health care and enhancing knowledge translation to raise awareness of synthesized health evidence in Taiwan.

Cochrane Taiwan, hosted by TMU, was established in 2015 as a Cochrane Associate Centre. Cochrane Taiwan is striving to promote Cochrane’s mission to “promote evidence-informed health decision-making by producing high-quality, relevant, accessible systematic reviews and other synthesized research evidence”. Cochrane Taiwan focuses on establishing a cooperation network to encourage domestic communication and promotion of evidence informed health care.

• Visit the Cochrane Taiwan website

The EBM Netzwerk in Germany recently submitted a letter to Cochrane’s CEO and Editor in Chief, which was published on its website. You can read this letter and the Governing Board response to it, here.