Cochrane is delighted to announce the full launch of all nine modules of its new online introductory training course on how to conduct a systematic review of interventions, available at interactivelearning.cochrane.org.

Cochrane authors and other producers of systematic reviews from across the world will be able to access self-directed learning on framing a review, searching for studies, risk of bias assessment, meta-analysis, GRADE, and the complete systematic review process, developed by world-leading experts in systematic review methods

New learners will have the chance to embark on modular, interactive training on how to produce systematic reviews, and experienced authors can refresh their skills with the latest guidance and best practice.

Cochrane Interactive Learning offers dynamic, flexible, and engaging content with nine modules and over 100 bite-size learning units, building knowledge for new and existing authors one step at a time. They provide clear explanations with stimulating interactions, quizzes, animations, examples, and reference resources, and enable learners to tailor their learning experience, in their own time, and from anywhere in the world, from a laptop, tablet, or phone.

The course will also serve educators in evidence-based health care, providers of professional development to researchers or health professionals, researchers within guideline development or HTA settings, commercial research organizations, and commissioners of systematic reviews who rely on rigorous methods to make evidence-informed decisions.

One early adopter of Cochrane Interactive Learning says, “This learning tool is absolutely brilliant and of high quality… [and] would offer all researchers a unique opportunity to learn how to conduct high-profile scientific reviews and...undoubtedly enhance our scientific output."

Module 1: Introduction to conducting systematic reviews will remain free to all learners.

Cochrane Authors will have free access to all the Cochrane Interactive Learning modules, as will Cochrane editorial teams and Group staff (see here for a complete list). Residents of WHO Hinari A and B countries will also be eligible for free access.

Other users will be able to take out a paid subscription (personal or institutional), with Cochrane Members eligible for a discount on personal subscriptions.

Find out more:

• interactivelearning.cochrane.org
• interactivelearning@cochrane.org

Open for submissions until 31 December 2017

Call for submissions
Cochrane is piloting a Fast-Track Service. This is a ‘journal-like’ process whereby high-quality, MECIR-compliant reviews that require no major revision, can be submitted directly into an accelerated editorial process. We aim for a turnaround of three months from submission to publication.

Eligibility requirements
This call is open to experienced Cochrane authors who wish to submit a Cochrane Review in 2017. The threshold for acceptance will be high, and we expect submitted manuscripts to be of publishable standard and to meet the specified criteria, found in the Information for Authors and Fast-Track Service webpage. Consequently, authors can expect a higher rejection rate than with the non-Fast-Track submission process. For more information about the threshold for rejection please see Appendix 3 of the proposal.

Submitted reviews should be accompanied by a research protocol, which may be - but does not need to be - a published Cochrane protocol. The protocol must be pre-registered in PROSPERO as a minimum requirement.

Applications
Author teams who wish to apply for the Fast-Track service can submit a short expression of interest using this online form. We will respond within 14 days. Agreement from the relevant review group will be sought before a review can enter the pilot.

Timeline
The pilot is open and will be accepting applications until 31 December 2017.

• For more information about eligibility onto the scheme and details regarding the editorial process, please see the Fast-Track Service webpage.
• News item: First publication produced with the support of Cochrane's Fast Track Service (Sept 2017)
• For any other enquiries, please contact Karla Soares-Weiser (ksoares-weiser@cochrane.org) or Helen Wakeford (hwakeford@cochrane.org).

Cochrane’s organizational Dashboard presents our achievements in key metrics.

We use it as an excellent tool to reflect on our accomplishments on a quarterly basis.

Here are just a few highlights from Q3 2017:

• Cochrane South Africa successfully hosted the Global Evidence Summit (GES) in Cape Town in September with four other organizations. Over 1,300 delegates from 75 countries attended.
• Cochrane’s new Membership scheme was launched at the GES, and the rollout for existing collaborators will continue in Q4.
• Cochrane Interactive Learning, our new systematic review online learning tool, was launched in September with free trial usage available until early November.
• Demand for the Cochrane Library continues to be strong with 13% growth year on year.
• Sales of the Cochrane Library continued its significant growth in 2017 with a 14% increase in royalties for Q3 compared with Q3 2016.
• Cochrane.org usage also grew, though at a lower rate than in earlier quarters. Mexico remains the leading user of cochrane.org, with substantial growth across South and Central America.

See Cochrane’s Q3 Dashboard in full

Find out more about Cochrane’s organizational Targets for 2017

Cochrane is delighted to announce the official launch of Cochrane Argentina, a new Cochrane centre with a vision to increase the use of best evidence to inform healthcare decision making throughout Argentina.

Cochrane Argentina consists of three institutions working in collaboration: Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria (IECS, Buenos Aires), Instituto Universitario Hospital Italiano (IUHI, Buenos Aires) and Centro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales (CREP, Santa Fe). Cochrane Argentina’s inaugural Director will be Agustin Ciapponi supported by the leaders of the other two institutions, Juan Franco (IUHI) and Yanina Sguassero (CREP). Together they will offer methodological support, mentoring, and supervision to the region.

Director of Cochrane Argentina, Agustin Ciapponi, says this is a hugely exciting opportunity: “The launch of Cochrane Argentina is very important, both to our country and globally. Producing and increasing the dissemination of the best available information on health care is critical for clinicians and patients everywhere in the world.”

Cochrane’s CEO Mark Wilson, warmly welcomed today’s news: “We are delighted by the launch of Cochrane Argentina and look forward to welcoming more Argentine collaborators to our worldwide network of volunteers. I am sure the new Centre will greatly expand the scope, reach, and impact of Cochrane evidence on health and healthcare decision-making across Argentina and the whole of South America. We are continuing to offer through a sales trial programme one-click access to the Cochrane Library in Argentina; and downloads of Cochrane Systematic Reviews have increased by nearly 900% in the last two years. This is tremendously encouraging as we seek to help clinicians, researchers, policy makers, patients and the general public improve health outcomes across the country.”

• Read about Cochrane Argentina in the official Press Release
• Visit the Cochrane Argentina website

Dear Cochrane community colleagues,
 
I am writing to inform you that after 14 years working with Cochrane our Head of Learning and Support, Miranda Cumpston, has decided now is the time to pursue new life and career opportunities and sadly will be leaving us at the end of the year.
 
Miranda has led the Learning and Support Department in its current form since 2015, developing a team that now oversees Central Executive leadership and support in the areas of Cochrane’s learning and development activities across the organization. Miranda has been Cochrane’s lead on author training whilst overseeing the launch of Cochrane Training (http://training.cochrane.org) with a suite of fabulous online learning resources and support for Cochrane Editors, Group staff, consumers, methodologists and other contributors.
 
During her many years with Cochrane Miranda has worked with all our contributor Groups on the implementation of new policies, processes, methods and technologies; and more recently has also been heavily involved in Cochrane’s governance reforms, including the establishment of Cochrane’s Governing Board, new electoral processes and related structures. Through her work in these areas she has made a wide-ranging and long-lasting contribution to Cochrane’s present strength and future development, for which we are immensely grateful. We will miss her enormously: not only for her wide-ranging expertise, passionate commitment to Cochrane’s mission, and influential contributions to many Central Executive activities; but also for the kindness, consideration, conscientiousness and good humour which she extended to all her colleagues.
 
Miranda leaves us at the end of December so there is still time and opportunity to thank her for her outstanding service. We will be working together with the Senior Management and Learning & Support teams over the coming weeks to review the current structure and work priorities of Cochrane’s learning and development, methods, user and consumer support; and we will communicate our plans to you before the end of the year.
 
Yours sincerely,

Mark

Mark G. Wilson
Chief Executive Officer

The recordings from this year’s Annual General Meeting are now available! Watch Governing Board Co-Chair Cindy Farquhar; CEO Mark Wilson; Deputy Editor in Chief Karla Soares-Weiser; and Treasurer Martin Burton give their views on Cochrane’s performance in 2017 and plans for the organization’s future.

Cochrane AGM videos: officers’ reports

The AGM also featured a series of videos showing stories from the Cochrane community in 2017.

The 2017 AGM was the first to be held under Cochrane's new Articles of Association, with every member entitled to vote. All resolutions put to the vote were approved and the full breakdown of results is available on the AGM website. Full minutes will be available in due course.

For any questions about the AGM, please contact lmcalley@cochrane.org.

We hope you enjoyed the Global Evidence Summit in Cape Town. Your feedback is important, please fill in our short survey on your experiences of the event here: surveymonkey.com/r/GESummit

The Global Evidence Summit was the first time that Cochrane, The Campbell Collaboration, Guidelines International Network, International Society for Evidence-based Health Care, and Joanna Briggs Institute have joined forces to create this premiere event in evidence-based policy.

A Cochrane.org news piece provides a summary of the highlights from The Global Evidence Summit.

Below are a few highlights that will be of particular interest to the Cochrane Community:

• Decisions from the Cochrane Governing Board meeting.
• Videos from the AGM
• 2017 Cochrane contributor prize and award winners.
• Cochrane Croatia celebrates the GES on Cochrane Croatia.
• The Nordic Cochrane Centre at GES Summit 2017 on Cochrane Nordic.
• Cochrane Austria shares the experience of the GES on Wissen Was Wirkt.
• Thoughts from the Global Evidence Summit on Students 4 Best Evidence blog.
• Professor Martin Burton elected as Co-Chair of the Cochrane Board on Cochrane UK.
• My experience as a PhD student at the Global Evidence Summit 2017 on Cochrane Rehabilitation.
• Cochrane Rehabilitation at the Global Evidence Summit on Cochrane Rehabilitation.
• Global Evidence Summit: Croakey wrap of #GESummit17.
• Announcing Cochrane Colloquium Edinburgh 2018
• Blog post: 'What's it like being on the Governing Board?'
• View and download photos from the Summit:
  • Web-ready photos (small file size): stevenbooth.smugmug.com/Conferences-/GES-2017/GES-web/n-45SCXT/ (these have also been added to the shared CommsNetwork photo folder under 'events')
  • Print-ready photos (large file size): stevenbooth.smugmug.com/Conferences-/GES-2017/GES/n-vH3V9b/

Cochrane is delighted to announce the official launch of Cochrane Africa; a network with a vision to increase the use of best evidence to inform healthcare decision making across the sub-Saharan African continent.

The Africa Network consists of regional centres including its co-ordinating centre at Cochrane South Africa, South African Medical Research Council, and the establishment of hubs at the University of Calabar, Teaching Hospital, Nigeria, Stellenbosch University, South Africa and Yaoundé University, Cameroon.

• Read the full press release on Cochrane.org
   
• Visit the new Cochrane Africa website

Dear Community colleagues and members,

Your Governing Board met in Cape Town, South Africa, on 10-12 September. We are writing to you at this early stage with information about some of our key decisions. More information will be available in due course (as will the full open access minutes) but if you have any questions about these decisions, please contact one of us, any member of the Board, or Lucie Binder in the CEO's office.

We are pleased to report that the Board approved:

• The Structure and Function of Cochrane Review Groups: Implementation of the Networks and Editorial Board Plan. More information on this will be announced in the coming weeks.
• The CRG Transformation Programme Implementation budget.
• The CRG Transformation Programme appeals procedure set out in the paper, “Process for an appeal against the Editor in Chief’s decision during the Structure & Function Review CRG Transformation Programme”, with modification to paragraphs 10 (a) changing 14 days to 30 days, and 10 (b) 30 days to 60 days.
• Cochrane’s Knowledge Translation (KT) Implementation Plan.  As next steps, the Central Executive will further develop the implementation plan for 2018-2019 focusing on a prioritized 10 (out of 17) work-packages outlined in the KT Framework, working together with the KT Advisory Group.
• The hosting of the Colloquium 2020 in Toronto, Canada, by Cochrane Canada; and the hosting of the Governance Meetings in April 2019 in Krakow, Poland by Cochrane Poland.
• The establishment of two new Cochrane Centres in Argentina and Chile.
• The Cochrane Neonatal Review Group application for Strategic Development Support .
• The Cochrane Lung Cancer Review Group application for Strategic Development Support.
• The appointment of Marguerite Koster as Treasurer of the Cochrane Governing Board.
• The appointment of Gerald Gartlehner as Cochrane Governing Board Representative on the Cochrane Innovations Board.
• And, finally, the Senior Management Team’s proposed Strategy to 2020 priorities for 2018, to guide development of the 2018 Plan & Budget (which will be considered and approved by the Board in December). These are:

1. Successful implementation of the Cochrane Review Group Transformation Programme.
2. Establishing a Cochrane content strategy and improved product development processes.
3. Work to develop Cochrane’s sustainable business model, based on increased subscriptions to the Cochrane Library, and plans made for re-alignment of the Central Executive Team accordingly.
4. Development, expansion, and implementation of Cochrane’s Knowledge Translation initiative across the organization in a sustainable way.
   
   More information on these priorities will follow in due course.

The Agenda and open access papers are available here on the Community site. The full Minutes will be available soon.

The next Governing Board face-to-face meeting will be during Cochrane’s Governance Meeting, 19 -23 March 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.

With our best wishes,

Cindy Farquhar and Martin Burton

Cochrane Co-Chairs

13 September 2017

Hot off the press and hot on the tail of the publication of Cochrane’s first living systematic reviews on the Cochrane Library, the LSR Network is pleased to announce that it has published a series of four articles in the September issue of the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, along with a commentary by Alex Sutton.

Here’s a brief overview of each of the articles:

Living Systematic Reviews: 1. Introduction - the Why, What, When and How (Julian Elliott et al)

Systematic reviews are difficult to keep up to date, and failure to do so leads to a decay in review currency, accuracy and utility. We are developing an approach to systematic review updating we term ‘living systematic review’ (LSR): systematic reviews which are continually updated, incorporating relevant new evidence as it becomes available. We hypothesise that a continual approach to review updating will achieve greater currency, and therefore accuracy and benefits to end users, with feasible resource requirements over time.

Living Systematic Reviews: 2. Combining Human and Machine Effort (James Thomas et al)

This paper outlines the way in which new technologies – which encompass human and machine effort – can make the living systematic review approach viable and sustainable. This paper describes the potential – and limitations – of new ways of undertaking specific tasks in living systematic reviews. It pinpoints areas where these human / machine technologies are already ready for use, and where further research and development is needed. We consider each stage of the LSR process, and describe how people and machines can cooperate in mutually supportive ways.

Living Systematic Reviews: 3. Statistical Methods for Updating Meta-Analyses (Mark Simmonds et al)

Frequent updating increases the likelihood of changing the conclusions of the meta-analyses. If using standard meta-analysis methods, with conventional 95% confidence intervals. The chance of incorrectly concluding that any updated meta-analysis is statistically significant when there is no effect (Type I error) increases as more updates are performed. Inaccurate estimation of any heterogeneity across studies may also lead to inappropriate conclusions, particularly when there are few studies in the analysis. New statistical approaches are needed to better handle these challenges.

Living Systematic Reviews: 4. Living Guideline Recommendations (Elie Akl et al)

Living Guidelines linked to living systematic reviews holds the promise of providing timely, up-to-date and high quality guidance to target users. However, achieving living guidelines requires specific methodology for their set up, continual development, and dissemination. This paper defines living guidelines and discusses when they are appropriate, the workflows required to support them, the thresholds for changing recommendations, and potential approaches to publication and dissemination.

We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback about these articles – please get in touch with us via lsr@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.

Support for the Cochrane Review 'Interventions for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in children aged five years and under' and application of machine/crowd technologies to monthly searches was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.