7th February Update
As of January 2018 we started sending out these membership activation emails through a gradual process. We hope to have sent out all emails by the middle of February. Everyone who does not respond will receive a reminder after 6 weeks.

Key messages

• We are writing to everyone in Cochrane for two reasons
  • For those eligible, we want them to activate their membership status
  • We want everyone to opt in to receiving communications from us in future
• All Group staff are eligible for membership, please activate yours as soon as you receive the message
• The information below is so you are aware what is going on in case anyone comes to you with concerns.

Who we are contacting

We need to write to every contact that we hold on our systems.

We appreciate that some contacts have a higher level of engagement than others, e.g. if you are a author on multiple reviews you are highly engaged in Cochrane work, but if you are a peer reviewer who once did a peer review then you may be surprised to be on Cochrane’s systems. With this in mind we are sending a variety of messages tailored to people’s level of engagement, so that everyone receives appropriate messages.

Why we are contacting people

We have two primary objectives for the mailings:

1. Membership: we will be offering all eligible contributors the chance to activate their membership
2. Data protection: we will be asking everyone to ‘opt in’ to receive future communications in order for us to be data protection compliant.

We will also be asking people to set up their Cochrane account if they do not already have one.

Who qualifies for membership

For the initial wave of members, we have tried to identify everyone who has actively contributed to Cochrane in recent years and also anyone who has ever written a Cochrane Review. These people, alongside anyone with a staff role in a Cochrane Group or a role on a key committee, will be offered membership in the initial round.

In future, membership will be based on thresholds of contribution now that we are able to track a broad range of contributions.

What is involved in activating membership

In the email people will receive instructions to activate their membership. It is a simple process of reviewing terms and conditions and accepting them.

The main feature of the terms and conditions is that to be a member you must declare that you are not employed by a pharmaceutical or medical devices company.  For more information, please see the full terms and conditions.

Why we need people to ‘opt in’ for future communications

We are updating our data protection policies to bring us in line with EU legislative changes which come into effect in May 2018. The key point is that in future we will only be able to send newsletters and similar communications to people who have actively opted in to receive such mailings.

We think it is really important to stay in touch with our community, and we see our newsletters showcasing our evidence and other exciting news as a really useful channel to do this, so we are urging people to opt in to receive communications from Cochrane and also sign up for Cochrane Connect and any other newsletters of interest.

The email around opting in relates to everyone who we have on our databases, so people will be contacted about this regardless of whether they qualify for membership or not.

Why we are asking people to set up their Cochrane account

We want people to be managing their own user accounts as much as possible. The Cochrane account is your key to accessing Cochrane tools and services, including RevMan, Crowd, and TaskExchange. My Account is the new area to manage your Cochrane account. We’re actively developing the My Account area, and over time we hope to be able to display information about what you have contributed to Cochrane, what learning you have completed, and provide a service to download contribution certificates. We will also be using this space to display membership status and other details around available benefits.

At present, My Account allows you to customize your preferences around newsletters and communications and confirm your interests so that we can contact you with specific issues that might be of interest to you.

Who to contact

If you have any queries about the mailing or if you receive any questions from people who have received the mailing please contact membership@cochrane.org

FAQs

We have put together some anticipated FAQs below and we will add to this list as questions come in.

What are the benefits of membership?

• We want membership to be a recognition of what someone has contributed to Cochrane’s work, but in addition, we also offer a range of benefits to members, which include:
  • voting rights and eligibility to stand for internal governance positions;
  • allow you to track all of your contributions to Cochrane
  • discounts on certain products and services, e.g. Cochrane Interactive Learning; and
  • members only communications.
• Over time we will gradually expand on these benefits as the membership concept develops.

Why haven’t I received an email?

• We are contacting most people we have on record, but some people have already proactively given consent to be contacted. If you have done that in My Account, then you might not get the opt-in opt-out email. You can always check your opt-in/opt-out status by logging in to My Account and going to the Communications tab.

I think I should be a member, but I have received an email that just asks about my communications preferences.

• If the email you receive doesn’t talk about activating your membership, but you believe you should be a member, you are welcome to contact us to ask why you are not a member and where appropriate we will correct any mistakes in our records. Our contact address is membership@cochrane.org

What sort of communications are you talking about?

• We use the term ‘communications’ to mean general email messages from the organization;  this may include newsletters, Annual General Meeting information, key news or decisions. Examples of our newsletter can be seen at the Cochrane Connect page.

I am an author and I want to opt out. Will the Cochrane Review Group still be able to email me?

• Yes, personal contact with individuals in Cochrane relating to your work with us is not covered by this.

Can I opt out, but still choose to receive the Connect Newsletter?

• No, opting out will mean you cannot receive newsletters.

What is the legislation that has caused these changes?

• We are responding to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which takes effect on 25 May 2018. For more information please see the GDPR Guide. 

I still have a question…

• If after reading this you still have a question, please contact membership@cochrane.org

Dear Cochrane colleagues,

I wrote to you last week reflecting on Cochrane’s 2017 achievements and outlining the key organizational priorities for us over the next twelve months. 2018 promises to be another exciting year of transformation and change as we increase still further our capacity to produce and disseminate high-quality evidence to impact health decision making around the world.

Today we’re unveiling some structural changes to Cochrane’s Central Executive Team (CET) designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the way that it works, both in leading and supporting the Cochrane community. Over half way through Strategy to 2020, and five years after the CET was first designed as a fully-integrated team, we wanted to make some changes that would equip the CET better for delivering the complex and demanding organizational changes and product development that the Governing Board has set us. Here are some of the major CET structural changes:

• The Cochrane Innovations team is being formally integrated within the charity’s management structure and we are establishing a new ‘Innovations, Research & Development Department’ that will allow us to integrate the Innovations team’s product development and commercialisation work (which in the coming years will be focused on the Cochrane Library) much more fully and efficiently within Cochrane’s structure and decision-making. We will continue to have a Cochrane Innovations Trading Company (with Charlotte Pestridge continuing to be its CEO) through which we will commercialize some of our non-Library products (like Cochrane Interactive Learning).
• We are introducing a new ‘Knowledge Translation Department’, drawn from the existing Communications & External Affairs Department (CEAD), focusing on facilitating and supporting Cochrane’s organizational KT; communications; translations; ‘content’ advocacy, partnerships & external engagement; as well as events & marketing. The new department highlights the centrality of Knowledge Translation to Cochrane as an organization, and this team will act as the principal driver of the development and delivery of Cochrane’s KT work: maximising the dissemination, use, and impact of Cochrane evidence; and ensuring that all our KT outputs and activities are provided in an effective and efficient manner to support Cochrane’s strategic aims and objectives.
• To support this, the Head of the new KT department will also take on responsibility for the line management and coordination of Cochrane Fields.
• We are introducing a new ‘Membership, Learning & Support Services’ department, which broadens the scope of the existing L&SD to cover membership, learning and development, our support to consumers and patients (including the Consumers Executive) and other (future) community subsets (such as Cochrane Students for Best Evidence). The new department will also be responsible for Cochrane’s user/community support (excluding that for the Cochrane Library, which remains with our publisher, Wiley).
• The ‘Finance & Core Services’ department takes on business services/planning/monitoring/ reporting responsibilities, including management of Cochrane’s future publishing arrangements.
• The Editorial & Methods Department is essentially unchanged but will be divided into three units within it, covering Editorial Policy & Publication; Review Production & Quality; and Methods Research & Development.

You can see a full overview of the structural changes and a presentation, entitled ‘Working Better Together’ we developed to introduce and explain the realignment to CET staff. Last week we launched recruitment processes for two new Senior Management Team positions: the new Head of Knowledge Translation Department and the new Head of Membership, Learning & Support Services and I hope that you will have a close look at the two job descriptions.

I am also delighted to inform you of two further items of news. Firstly, that we have started activating Cochrane membership accounts as part of the next phase of our membership programme. Everybody who has contributed to Cochrane in the past is being informed that they are eligible for membership and being asked to activate their membership account. Please activate your account as soon as you see that email and urge others to do the same - everyone needs to take this step to confirm their Cochrane membership. Launched in the last quarter of 2017, Cochrane’s Membership scheme is the critical organizational initiative that will enable us to grow our collaboration and attract many new people with a wider range of experience and skills into our work, but an important foundation of the scheme is ensuring that those Cochrane collaborators already listed on our Archie database want to continue their involvement with us.

Secondly, we are proud to be announcing the official launch of the first Cochrane Review Group Networks: Cochrane Cancer, and Cochrane Public Health and Health Systems. The new CRG Networks provide an opportunity to optimize leadership and support at a new editorial level within Cochrane; and you will be hearing more about their work from our newly-appointed Senior Editors later this week.

If you have any questions about the new Central Executive Team structure, please do not hesitate to contact me or another member of the Senior Management Team. We are confident that these changes will improve our support to you; and help us all to achieve our Strategy to 2020 goals over the next three years.

With my very best wishes,

Mark
Mark G. Wilson
Chief Executive Officer

Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to announce that we are establishing a new community support team. The team will be providing a helpdesk style support service to the community managing support areas such as IT support, learning enquiries and general contact enquiries. For most enquiries from the community this team will be the first point of contact.

The team consists of three part-time Community Support Officers (CSO) and one part-time Senior Community Support Officer.

Starting today are our three CSOs:

Denise Mitchell - Denise already works part-time for the CET as the Executives Support Officer as well as being a copyeditor. She also has valuable experience of working in a Review Group.

Diane Gal - Diane has previously been involved in Cochrane projects when working at the University of Portsmouth. She is also an author on two Cochrane Reviews with the EPOC group.

Ursula Gonthier - Ursula is the editorial assistant at the Cochrane Wounds Group and will be continuing in that role alongside this new role. She has extensive experience of supporting authors from her work in the Review Group.

We are delighted to be able to launch this team with three CSOs who already have a great depth of Cochrane knowledge and experience and we hope that this will allow us to develop this support service rapidly.

In addition to the three CSO posts we have appointed a senior CSO who will be one day per week. That role is an escalation point for the team if any enquiries are particular challenging and need an even deeper knowledge of Cochrane. We will confirm that appointment in due course.

The team will be responding to a range of email inboxes, but they will also have one unified mailbox where people can send enquiries: support@cochrane.org.

Chris Champion
Acting Head of Membership, Learning and Support Services

Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility Group in Auckland, New Zealand in collaboration with the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, has established a new Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility satellite. The satellite will start off with gathering, evaluating, and disseminating reviews on the effectiveness and safety of interventions in subfertile women undergoing intrauterine insemination and in women with polycystic ovary syndrome.  

The Netherlands Satellite is under the direction of Dr Madelon van Wely, who is a clinical epidemiologist and a long-serving editor with Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility. Dr Elena Kostova will act as the managing editor. The satellite office is based in the Center for Reproductive Medicine of the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

The Editorial Team behind the satellite includes Madelon van Wely (Co-ordinating Editor),  Selma Mourad (gynaecologist, editor of this Cochrane group and author of several reviews), Sebastiaan Mastenbroek (clinical embryologist, editor of this Cochrane group and author of several reviews), Jack Wilkinson (statistician, statistical editor of this Cochrane group, and author of several Cochrane reviews) and Elena Kostova (Managing editor) who is in charge of the editorial development and daily function of the satellite.

The group behind the satellite has been very active within Cochrane for the last 15 years and has contributed to many Cochrane Reviews.

“I am delighted to welcome the new Netherlands Satellite," said Professor Cindy Farquhar, Co-ordinating Editor of Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility. "I am delighted with this new addition to the group. I am sure it will make a big contribution to moving along our priorities in gynaecology and fertility.”.  Professor Sjoerd Repping, head of the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Amsterdam, adds. “We are proud and honoured to host the Cochrane Satellite in Amsterdam. It fits perfectly with our long-standing efforts in promoting evidence-based medicine.”

• Visit the Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility website

The 25th annual Cochrane Colloquium, to be held in Edinburgh 16-18 September, has now been officially granted ‘Patients Included’ status, appearing on the official list of ‘Patients Included’ accredited conferences.

The Patients Included conference charter provides conference organisers with ‘a means of demonstrating that their events are committed to incorporating the experience of patients as experts in living with their condition while ensuring they are neither excluded nor exploited’. Conference organizers must demonstrate that they are able to fulfil 5 criteria in order to be recognized as a ‘Patients Included’ event.

You can read about these criteria, and the steps being taken to meet them, on the Colloquium website.

Further details on how patients, carers and other healthcare consumers have been helping to shape the event so far can be found here:

• Cochrane for all: making our conference a Patients Included event
• What’s in a name? Patients, people and the power of words
• In with the new! Cochrane For All: the patients’ view

Further information

To keep up to date with plans for the Cochrane Colloquium Edinburgh, please visit colloquium.cochrane.org and follow on Twitter: @CochraneUK and #Cochraneforall.

Registration is scheduled to open in mid-February 2018, and the call for abstracts and workshops is now open.  We ask that all abstracts consider their impact on, and relevance to, patients and other healthcare consumers. We particularly welcome abstracts that are co-designed, co-produced and/or co-presented with patients or other healthcare consumers.

• Website: colloquium.cochrane.org
• Twitter: @CochraneUK #cochraneforall
• Facebook: facebook.com/CochraneUK

There are some keen Australians who’ve been asking for a Cochrane Classmate webinar. Well, we do aim to please, so here is one especially for you!

Brought to you by the Cochrane Crowd team, Cochrane Classmate is a trainers’ toolkit that lets you create exciting, interactive tasks to 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.

Who is Classmate for?

Anyone who teaches on topics related to evidence production, such as evidence-based medicine, systematic review production, understanding PICO, study designs, citation screening or research reporting standards. Classmate can be used in a variety of contexts such as university courses, workshops or other events.

What will be covered in the webinar?

The webinar will be presented by Anna Noel-Storr, Co-Lead of Cochrane Crowd. Anna will take you on a tour of Classmate and show how you can easily create a learning activity, invite students to that activity, and monitor their progress. Anna will introduce the modules that are currently available on Classmate and talk about others that will launch soon.

What do I need to do?

Go ahead and register for the webinar here

Sign up to Cochrane Crowd, follow us on Twitter, and contact us at crowd@cochrane.org

Working together to speed up medical research

Got a burning passion for health? Ready to make a difference? We’ve got you covered.

Join Cochrane Crowd, our partner platforms Mark2Cure and Stall Catchers and our collective global volunteer network for the CitSciMed Blitz. Together we can speed up medical research and make a difference.

CitSciMed Blitz kicks off with a welcome webinar on Wednesday the 21st of February. You’ll hear why our platforms are important, how your contribution influences medical policy and practice, and more details about the Blitz. You’ll also meet the founders and coordinators of Cochrane Crowd, Stall Catchers and Mark2Cure and have a chance to ask any burning questions.

The following week each platform runs a 24-hour online challenge. You’ll get a chance to contribute to the platforms at the exact same time as hundreds of people across the globe, while keeping up with everyone on Twitter. For maximum fun, keep your eye on the challenge stats and contribute to the mini ‘challenge in a challenge’ adventures along the way. Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to contribute for the whole 24 hours of each challenge! More on that in a moment.

All challenges start and end at 3pm GMT. The Stall Catchers challenge begins on Monday 26th February. Mark2Cure comes next, starting on Wednesday 28th February. And we are lucky last! The Cochrane Crowd challenge begins on Friday 2nd March.

Read on for more details.

First things first. I don’t know all the platforms. What are they?

Cochrane Crowd is Cochrane’s new citizen science platform. Our main focus is identifying studies that provide the best possible evidence of the effectiveness of a health treatment. Once identified by the Crowd the studies go into a central register where health researchers and practitioners can access them. The more studies identified by the Crowd, the more high-quality evidence is available to help health practitioners treat their clients. Watch this 2-minute video to learn more, and sign up to get started!

Mark2Cure is a citizen science platform that enables volunteers to help in the process of biomedical discovery. Volunteers extract information from biomedical abstracts in order to help researchers find clues on a rare disease known as NGLY1-deficiency. Take a look at the platform and sign up here.

Stall Catchers is a citizen science game speeding up Alzheimer’s research. In the game, you’re analyzing movies from a live mouse brain, and looking for signs of stalls - clogged blood vessels. By putting many eyes on the task, we can hope to find promising Alzheimer’s treatment targets in just a couple of years, instead of decades. Take a look at the platform and sign up here.

Importantly, no special knowledge is necessary to contribute to any of these platforms! Just a desire to help progress medical research and treatment.

What if I can’t attend the webinar? 

That’s not a problem. We will tweet the webinar recording the very next day from @crowd_cochrane. And if you don’t get time to listen before the challenges, that’s okay, you’ll still be able to take part.

How do I sign up to the challenges?

There is no need to sign up to the challenges. You just need to sign up to the platform(s) corresponding to the challenges you’re interested in.  We’ll email you with a reminder or two as the Blitz approaches.

How much time do I need to commit?

Of course, we’d love you to do all challenges in their entirety! Just kidding. All jokes aside, any contribution is welcomed, whether it be a few five-minute grabs or a more focused effort. We hope you’ll contribute to all three challenges but it’s totally fine if you want to focus on one or two. To be eligible for a CitSciMed Blitz prize you’ll need to contribute to all; more on that in a moment.

What exactly will I be doing for the challenges?

Attend the webinar for demos and details! But here’s a brief summary:

Your mission in Cochrane Crowd will be to help identify reports of randomised trials. Don’t worry if you aren’t sure what a randomised trial is. Brief, interactive training on the Crowd platform will take you through everything you need to know for this task. So far our wonderful community has helped identify thousands of reports of trials, helping researchers around the world answer important questions about treatments.

Your mission in Mark2Cure will be to identify how genes, diseases, and drugs are conceptually related, based on biomedical text. Mark2Cure works by teaching citizen scientists to precisely identify concepts and concept relationships in biomedical text. Once these tasks are completed, statistical algorithms take the data provided by the volunteers and use it to provide scientists with new tools for finding the information that they require.

Your mission in Stall Catchers will be to help find stalls - clogged blood vessels - in the brains of mice. You’ll look at movies of mouse brains, focusing on a single blood vessel in each movie, and try to identify whether the vessel is flowing or stalled. Each annotated blood vessel gets us closer to understanding & crushing Alzheimer’s!

Don’t be spooked by the science speak! Trust us, you don’t need any prior knowledge to contribute to any of the platforms.

Will there be prizes?

We’re glad you asked! Prizes will go to the top three CitSciMed Blitz contributors. The winners will need to have taken part in all challenges. What are the prizes, you ask? You’ll have to wait and see!

As for the details: your contribution score will be calculated as the sum of number of citations screened in Cochrane Crowd plus number of relationship annotations submitted and/or abstracts annotated in Mark2Cure plus number of vessel movies annotated in Stall Catchers.

What’s the twitter hashtag?

We’ll be tweeting with #CitSciMedBlitz. Please join in!

Sounds fun, can I tell my colleagues about this?

Yes please! We want as many as possible to join us. You could share this page (buttons below), retweet our tweets, or include information about the CitSciMed Blitz in your organisation’s newsletter or website.

How can I find out more?

You can email Emily from Cochrane Crowd at crowd@cochrane.org. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

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.