Study offers insight on factors influencing choice of publication in Cochrane and non-Cochrane sources.

New evidence published in BioMed Central’s Systematic Reviews provides some insights into authors’ experiences preparing and publishing systematic reviews, as well as factors that influence choice of publication arena, specifically Cochrane and non-Cochrane sources.

“The value of publishing systematic reviews in Cochrane was very evident. Cochrane authors valued the support, guidance and the technical resources offered. Even authors who did not conduct and publish their systematic reviews with Cochrane used Cochrane resources, such as The Cochrane Handbook,” says Dr. Lisa Hartling, lead author of the study.  "There was a lot of interest from authors in increasing efficiencies for producing and publishing systematic reviews. Cochrane Crowd and the Organizational Structure and Function review of Cochrane groups may work towards this goal. While this study may be limited by generalizability, we hope it provides some insight on the motivations of authors when they are deciding where to publish their systematic review.”

Read the full news story on Cochrane.org
 
Related resources:

• Publication of reviews synthesizing child health evidence (PORSCHE): a survey of authors to identify factors associated with publication in Cochrane and non-Cochrane sources
• Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
• Cochrane Crowd
• Organizational Structure and Function

Dear colleagues,
During 2016, the Cochrane Steering Group has been developing a proposal for the transition to a new governance structure for Cochrane, including a transition from the Steering Group structure to a new Cochrane Governing Board.

Following an initial round of consultation in February and March, the proposals were the subject of detailed and very productive discussions at the Mid-Year Meetings in London in April (see documents on here). An amended proposal has now been drafted, along with more detailed plans for amendments to Cochrane’s Articles of Association and the establishment of a Cochrane Council.

This proposal arises from a review of governance that the Steering Group conducted during 2015. Key aims for the new Board include ensuring that its membership reflects Cochrane as an evolving organization and our environment; supporting the Board's role in making decisions on behalf of Cochrane as a whole; opening the membership to bring in external perspectives and valuable skills; and refreshing our electoral procedures.

The current Steering Group believes that the proposed changes will deliver improved governance for Cochrane, while ensuring that Cochrane Groups and contributors retain an active and effective voice in Cochrane's leadership and direction.

Consultation and next steps
All Cochrane Groups and individual contributors are invited to discuss and have input into the current proposal. Final decisions on how to proceed will be made at the Steering Group meeting and Annual General Meeting at the Cochrane Colloquium in Seoul in October 2016.

• Consultation document [pdf]
• Current Articles of Association [pdf]
• Draft new Articles of Association [pdf]

Cochrane Group Executives are asked to lead these discussions and collating feedback among their constituents. All contributors are invited to contribute their feedback through the Execs, where applicable. Written feedback from the Execs should be submitted to Miranda Cumpston, Head of Learning and Support at the Cochrane Central Executive by Tuesday, 23 August.

Authors and other individual contributors are also invited to submit feedback directly via the online survey by Tuesday, 23 August.

All feedback received by this deadline will be collated and used to finalise documents for the Colloquium. The new Articles of Association will be put to the membership for ratification at the AGM, and the detailed policy documents will be considered for a decision by the Steering Group.

For more detailed information about the history of this project, please see the Governance Restructure Project page.

Best wishes

Miranda Cumpston
Head of Learning and Support

As of the end of 2013, Wikipedia's health content was assessed at more than 155,000 articles, which had been viewed more than 4.88 billion times. Wikipedia therefore provides a major source of health information for people across the world.

The Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership, formalized in 2014, supports the inclusion of relevant evidence within all Wikipedia articles on health, as well as processes to help ensure that health information included in Wikipedia is of the highest quality and accuracy. For more information on the Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership, please click here.

We are now pleased to announce a pilot programme through which Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs) can benefit from having a volunteer work with them in improving the medical and health content of Wikipedia that is of relevance to their Group.

In 2016, we will recruit three volunteers that will work with three CRGs for a period of three months. At the end of the year we will evaluate this pilot phase and consider improvements that can be made, before deciding whether to continue the programme in 2017. Volunteers will receive a small honorarium for their efforts.

What we expect from CRGs:

• One to two hours per week of a named contact person’s time to work with the volunteer and provide:
  • editorial oversight of the edits and writing conducted by the volunteer;
  • guidance on priority topics and articles.
• Feedback on this pilot.

What we expect from the volunteer:

• Interest in communicating about evidence informed health care.
• Willing and able to write and edit Wikipedia articles and understand systematic reviews.
• Availability during a 3-month period (October–December 2016) for 8 hours per week.

What you can expect from the Communications and External Affairs Team at Cochrane:

• Guidance on Wikipedia editing, including providing training resources and facilitating connections to Wikipedians where needed.
• Overall project management: this will include a virtual kick-off meeting with the volunteers to provide training, as well as monthly meetings with CRGs and volunteers to monitor progress, facilitate work where needed, and share best practice between CRGs.

If your CRG is interested in supporting a volunteer in conducting this work, please send an email by 20 August to Sylvia de Haan, Partnerships Coordinator at Cochrane, explaining your interest and indicating who will be the main contact person for the pilot project. If we receive more than three expressions of interest, we will make a selection based on CRGs’ motivation to join this pilot project and the thematic areas most in need of updating within Wikipedia. If we receive more than three expressions of interest, and all are of the same quality and urgency, we may decide to keep some of the expressions of interest for 2017 when considering the next phase of this project.

For the past twelve years, the Department of Health in England has funded an annual scheme, the National Institute for Health Research Cochrane Review Incentive Scheme, which offers small incentive payments to Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs) to support preparing key new or updated Cochrane Reviews by agreed dates. Although these awards cannot meet the full costs of conducting reviews, they provide CRG Co-ordinating Editors opportunities to distribute support in ways that will facilitate and possibly accelerate activity that is already planned or underway.

Since the Scheme's launch, more than 240 awards have been made. This year, the funders expect to make around 10-20 awards. They encourage Co-ordinating Editors of all CRGs, not only those whose editorial bases are located in the UK, to nominate up to three new Cochrane Reviews or Review updates that they consider are of importance and for which they anticipate that the award of an incentive payment would lead to significantly earlier completion of work.

Nominations are being accepted until 31 August 2016. For complete information on what the scientific panel is looking for and how to apply, please see the submission criteria and form.

The International Society for Evidence-Based Healthcare is pleased to announce its fifth annual Congress, representing one of the largest gatherings of clinicians, researchers, and policy makers in the field of evidence-based health care and policy making.  The 2016 conference will take place on Kish Island, Iran from 7-9 December 2016, focusing on the theme of 'Best evidence and healthcare decisions: Connecting the dots.'

For complete information on the event, venue, and key dates, please visit the Congress website. 

The Finance and Core Services (FCS) team has announced that Maria Burgess is leaving Cochrane after seven years, deciding to enjoy other aspects of her life.

Maria has been a part of Cochrane since 2009 when she joined Cochrane UK. She has worked with the Central Executive team (CET) as Core Services/Office Manager for the last three years, and before that was part of the administrative team in the Cochrane Collaboration Secretariat in Oxford.

During this time, she has provided administrative management and support to a number of CET staff and teams, as well as supporting the change in leadership in the FCS team in late 2015 and the many changes to systems and process in FCS over the last seven months.

Maria’s last day with us will be 22 July.  Please join us in thanking Maria for her passionate contribution to Cochrane, and in wishing her every happiness and success for the future.

FCS are taking the opportunity to review how this role supports Cochrane’s future plans,  and there will be a further announcement in due course. For all relevant enquiries in the meantime, please email the team at admin@cochrane.org.

Sarah Watson
Head of Finance and Core Services

The Cochrane Steering Group (CSG) invites the nomination of candidates for the position of CSG Co-Chair. Cindy Farquhar’s first term as Co-Chair will be completed at the Seoul Colloquium in October 2016, and nominations are now open to fill this position. Cindy has indicated that she will nominate for a second term, but nomination is open to anyone who holds or has held a leadership position within Cochrane.

For full details of the position, including the duties and requirements, please see the job description and election questions.

To nominate for the position, the following documentation must be received by Lorna McAlley, Executive PA to the CEO, by Friday 29 July 2016:

1. Acceptance of the nomination by the candidate, and commitment of sufficient time to the position of Co-Chair.

2. Candidate answers to the ‘Questions to be completed by candidates’ provided on the final page of the attached document.

3. Nominations from three active members of the organization, including a current member of the CSG. Nominators should describe the capacity in which they know the nominee, why they consider the nominee to be an appropriate candidate in the light of this job description, and the extent to which they think the nominee has the necessary attributes. A CSG member cannot nominate more than one candidate.

Note that some remuneration is possible for CSG Co-Chairs – further details are available in the job description.

Final selection from amongst the nominated candidates will be made by the CSG following the close of nominations, and the successful candidate will take office from the CSG meetings at the Seoul Colloquium. The term of office is for two years, after which a Co-Chair may apply for re-election for a second two-year term.

We are investigating ways to improve the Plain Language Summaries (PLS) of Cochrane diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) reviews. We’re looking for a wide range of potential users to look at a sample of a DTA PLS and provide some feedback on its structure and how easy it is to understand. Editors, authors, and consumers from all Cochrane Groups are encouraged to take 15 to 30 minutes to share their input before 20 July.

Take the DTA PLS survey

Your responses to the questions in this survey will help to develop guidance for people writing PLSs, which will be refined over several rounds of the surveys. If you choose to leave your contact details, you may be invited to participate in a later round of the survey. We will report end results at the 2016 Cochrane Colloquium in Seoul and incorporate into Cochrane DTA review guidance training materials.

For more information, please contact Penny Whiting.

The Cochrane Editorial Unit has announced the 10 successful titles from the second Cochrane Review Support Programme (CRSP) funding round.

1. Delayed antibiotics for respiratory infections (Acute Respiratory Infections Group)
2. Bisphosphonates and other bone agents for breast cancer (Breast Cancer Group)
3. Psychological therapies for the treatment of mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries affected by humanitarian crises (Common Mental Disorders Group)
4. Drug eluting stents versus bare metal stents for acute coronary syndrome (Heart Group)
5. Withdrawal of antihypertensive drugs in older people (Hypertension Group)
6. Pharmacotherapy for hypertension in adults aged 18 to 59 years (Hypertension Group)
7. Interventions for preventing obesity in children (Public Health Group)
8. Taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages for reducing their consumption and preventing obesity or other adverse health outcomes (Public Health Group)
9. Interventions for treating depression after stroke (Stroke Group)
10. Interventions to prevent occupational noise-induced hearing loss (Work Group)

These titles were selected from a pool of 23 applications received from 16 Cochrane Review Groups. For complete details of the selection panel and process, please see the full announcement on cochrane.org.

The next funding round will open in September 2016 and will be advertised via the usual Cochrane communication channels.

The Cochrane Crowd team is delighted to announce that their work is going open access.

Cochrane Crowd's global community of volunteers has already identified thousands of reports of randomized controlled trials eligible for Cochrane’s Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), helping Cochrane Review authors around the world to find the evidence they need for their reviews.

Now the plan is to make the crowd’s data about trial identification available and accessible to everyone. For more information, please read the full announcement on cochrane.org.