The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close consultation with key stakeholders. In this post, the team describes their next case study. For more information, please see the Targeted Updates project page.

Case Study B: Questions commissioned by a Guideline Developer

1. Context
The Norwegian Directorate of Health (NDH) were introduced to Targeted Updates during a workshop at 2015 Guideline International Network (GIN) meeting. The NDH contacted the Targeted Update team asking for four Targeted Updates to be produced in order to inform guidelines that they were in the process of developing. Following the initial expression of interest, the Targeted Update team liaised with Clare Glenton, the Director of Cochrane Norway, who thought that producing the Targeted Updates would reinforce their relationship with the NDH in Norway.

2. Process
For each of the four identified reviews, we began the process by liaising with the original Cochrane Review Group (CRG), the Cochrane Review author team, and by conducting an initial assessment of the latest version of the full Cochrane Review.

Stroke CRG
The first of the four research questions identified as a priority related to a review from the Stroke CRG. This review update was recently completed and ready for publication. However, following discussion, the commissioner chose to proceed with the production of a Targeted Update, as the question they were asking was slightly different question to the ones addressed by the full review. The Targeted Update team completed all tasks for the Targeted Update and the editorial base served as content experts. The first draft of the Targeted Update was produced within 6 weeks. The peer review process for these documents was completed a further 8 weeks later. The input from the author team proved to be enormously valuable for finalizing the Targeted Update document.

Fertility Regulation CRG
The second of the four research questions identified as a priority related to a review from the Fertility Regulation CRG. This Cochrane Review had just been updated and published; consequently no searching, screening or data extraction work was required. After consulting the NDH, a decision was taken to make changes to the analyses by including some additional data that had been provided in a table, and by combining cluster RCTs with regular RCTs. The Targeted Update team completed the Targeted Update with the help of a statistician for the analyses and advice from the first author of the review. The first draft of the Targeted Update was produced within six weeks. The peer review process for these documents was completed a further seven weeks later.

Common Mental Disorders CRG
The third of the four research questions identified as a priority related to a review from the Common Mental Disorders CRG. As the question of interest to the NDH differed substantially from the original Cochrane review, and the review had not been updated since 2007, it was necessary to seek the involvement of the CRG editorial base, and particularly the Trial Search Coordinator (TSC). The TSC proved especially valuable due to the complexity of the topic and the number of references identified for initial screening. The Targeted Update team completed all tasks for the Targeted Update with search, screening, data extraction and content expertise help from the CRG. The relevant Cochrane Review was split into two Targeted Updates. The first draft of the Targeted Update documents was produced within nine weeks. The first peer review of these documents was completed a further four weeks later.

Schizophrenia CRG
The fourth research questions identified as a priority related to a review from the Schizophrenia Cochrane Review Group (CRG). The Targeted Update team and freelancers completed all tasks for the Targeted Update with content expertise from the original author team. Work on this Targeted’ Update began in April 2016. The first draft of the Targeted Update was produced within 8 weeks. The first peer review of these documents was completed within one day.

Links available here

• Intensive speech and language therapy for aphasia following stroke
• Interventions for preventing unintended pregnancies among adolescents
• Cognitive behavioural therapy compared to any other psychological therapy for binge eating disorder
• Cognitive behavioural therapy compared to psychodynamic psychological therapy for binge eating disorder
• Maintenance treatment with antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia

3. Feedback from the CRGs involved
Two of the four participating CRGs were able to provide feedback on the process.

The process for completing TUs
The CMD Group had positive views on the process and, though the timeframe was a challenge, reported that “overall the teams on both targeted updates worked really well and efficiently together”. The Stroke Group provided extensive and valuable feedback on TU commissioning and would have been very much willing to work directly with guideline developers.

Challenges encountered/suggested improvements
The CMD Group felt their main challenge was “getting sufficient information regarding the inclusion criteria in a timely manner”. Other challenges centred on mechanisms for selecting reviews suitable for TUs. This is a routine step in the TU process, but is not always straightforward. For example, the commissioner of the Targeted Update undertaken with the Stroke Group used a different definition of ‘Intensive’ Speech and Language Therapy from that used in the review (i.e., ≥ 5 times/week) and, as a result, the full review update would not have addressed their specific question. The Stroke review authors noted the need for more detailed consideration of this process to ensure that a Targeted Update is genuinely required, suggesting, “prior to agreeing the scope for a TU, there should be a thorough examination of whether relevant Cochrane reviews (and review updates) are already underway”.

Implications for the management of the full Cochrane Review
The CMD Group indicated that although “the authors were not planning to update this review at this time”, the overall process did highlight the potential priority of this topic for CMD, and the necessity for considering a full review update. The authors of the Stroke review noted the “clear discrepancies between the findings of the TU and the associated Cochrane systematic review”, attributable to the different definition of ‘Intensive’ Speech and Language Therapy of interest to the NDH. The differences in conclusions were subsequently highlighted in the TU ‘What’s New’ section, and further clarified in the ‘Implications and Conclusions’ section. The Stroke Group authors also expressed concern that “the two documents are at a high risk of being perceived as arising from the same review team”. As part of the pilot, the TU documents were modified to include a statement as part of the cover page clearly outlining the authorship and ownership of the TU and the original review.

Use of financial incentives
The Stroke authors were concerned that “an externally funded Cochrane activity will appear in the public domain before the unfunded full update”. Although the authors were assured that their TU would not be made publicly available before their full review update, this did highlight potential problems around perceived competition between the two outputs. The funding for the CMD Group was used for freelance screening and data extraction, and the group found this level of funding helpful to expedite the work.

The presentation and format of the TU document
The CMD Group found the product “succinct, well presented, and clear answers to the targeted questions” and they were “really impressed with the output”. However, they felt that a separate section on quality assessment might be useful, as well as clearer presentation of the outcomes, as currently “you have to dig for them in the results and in the purple text on the 2nd page”. The Stroke Group authors felt that the “methodologies underpinning the TU and how these differ (if at all) from the Cochrane review” was unclear. This feedback resulted in increased clarity to the ‘Supplementary Materials’ document for all subsequent TUs, so that all differences in methods were highlighted.

4. Feedback from commissioners
The feedback from the NDH about their experience of commissioning TUs was predominantly positive.

The process of commissioning and delivering TUs
These TUs were “commissioned in order to reduce the work-load on the review team”. They were “very pleased with the customer engagement and responsiveness”, although they suggested that an ‘options menu’ might be valuable for commissioners. The NDH found the experience of working with the TU team “inspiring” and reported that they had “enjoyed being part of Cochrane’s TU project”.

Challenges encountered and suggested improvements
The NDH acknowledged that there was a delay in finalizing some of the commissions, due to the difficulty the TU team experienced in identifying relevant and available peer reviewers. They suggested that “a possible solution may be to involve us in the search for peer reviewers at an earlier stage in the process”. They also acknowledged that peer review is one of the less important features for them, as “we put all our national guidelines out for an open national hearing”. Finally, they thought that “in the future, you may consider to have a pick and choose menu with possible content elements, including any time delay of delivery if choosing extra content elements”.

Presentation and the value of different TU features
For the NDH, the most important features of a TU were the focused question, rapid production, and short, structured and concise layout, based on a Cochrane review. They were also pleased with most aspects of the final document, including “the design, layout and content elements”. For all TUs, the NDH transfers the information into a local template to share electronically through an API (Application Programming Interface) and the current TU presentation allows for this. They “would, however, also appreciate the possibility to link to the publication on the Cochrane website.”

Funding of TUs
The NDH confirmed that they would be likely to commission more Cochrane TUs in the future, even if the price was to increase to as much as £10,000 per TU, although “It would probably affect the total number of commissions, but we would still use and appreciate the opportunity to commission TUs when needed”.

5. Feedback from you
We are very interested to know what you think about these TU documents, and the project in general. We would really appreciate it if you could take just 5 minutes to read through and answer this short list of questions. Thank you very much for your participation!

6. Who are the team

Intensive speech and language therapy for aphasia following stroke

• Targeted Update team involved in production
  • Hanna Bergman
  • Nuala Livingstone
• Review authors
  • Marian Brady
• CRG team
  • Hazel Fraser
  • Peter Langhorne

Interventions for preventing unintended pregnancies among adolescents

• Targeted Update team involved in production
  • Hanna Bergman
  • Adriani Nikolakopoulou
  • Molly Grimes
  • Nuala Livingstone
• Review authors
  • Chioma Oringanje
• CRG team
  • Anja Helmerhorst
  • Frans M. Helmerhorst

Cognitive behavioural therapy compared to any other psychological therapy for binge eating disorder

Cognitive behavioural therapy compared to psychodynamic psychological therapy for binge eating disorder

• Targeted Update team involved in production
  • Hanna Bergman
  • Molly Grimes
  • Nuala Livingstone
     
• Review authors
  • Philippa Hay
• CRG team
  • Rachel Churchill
  • Sarah Dawson
  • Sarah Davies

Maintenance treatment with antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia

• Targeted Update team involved in production
  • Hanna Bergman
  • Artemisia Kakourou
  • Sarah Davies
  • Sarah Dawson
  • Loukia Spineli
• Review authors
  • Stefan Leucht
• CRG team
  • Clive Adams
  • Claire Irving

Taryn Young, Senior Specialist Scientist from Cochrane South Africa, shares news of a recent workshop in Cape Town.

How do you develop a diagram to show how HIV testing could reduce HIV transmission? Or how providing communities with latrines could reduce the number of children with diarrhoea? If you want to know, then you should have come to the recent advanced Learning Initiative for eXperienced Authors (LIXA) workshop, hosted in Cape Town in October 2016 - where the participants did just this, and more.

LIXA takes what’s in the editorial in-tray—the headaches, the dilemmas, the statistical or editorial problems—and reflects on them with participants. The three-day workshop was to help participants build Cochrane editorial skills. The face-to-face workshop sessions built on the previous 18 months of webinars between senior African Cochrane authors and editors.

In Cochrane, there is lots of discussion about GRADE. The workshop illustrated how this could influence systematic review structure and was a theme throughout the three days. Participants dissected ‘Summary of findings’ tables, and reassembled them during group work sessions.

The course was delivered by David Sinclair, who has 10 years of experience with the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group (CIDG), and Paul Garner, as part of the Effective Health Care Research Programme Consortium (EHCRC) (www.evidence4health.org). There were more than 20 participants from Cameroon, Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and The Gambia.

Feedback was good - participants particularly liked that the workshop was interactive and that they could apply the skills they had developed to their reviews and editing the next day. One participant remarked that all senior Cochrane authors and editors would benefit from this type of capacity development.

Visit the Cochrane South Africa website

Find training and workshops in your area

This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority settings page.

The Cochrane Consumers and Communication Review Group (CCRG) had a few goals in mind when they embarked on a recent prioritization exercise. They wanted to make sure their portfolio of reviews reflects the important questions in their field; to increase their capacity to meet stakeholder needs; and to foster stronger engagement with consumers, consumer groups and health and policy services and groups in this area.

They approached the task in three stages, beginning with the formation of a steering group, followed by an international online survey and finally a workshop. The group had hoped to have the exercise completed within a year, but in the end it took closer to 18 months. This included a 2-3 month preparatory period, where they talked with funders in Australia and sought advice from the Cochrane Priority Setting Methods Group (CPSMG).

Project steering group
The steering group proved to be vital to the success of the project. It was made up of consumer representatives, funders, representatives from government health departments/bodies, health service managers, health professionals, and researchers with previous experience of prioritization activities. The steering group helped determine how broad the range of topics should be and gave shape and direction to the project as it progressed. With their extensive networks, they were invaluable with promotion and recruitment, and helped shaped the dissemination activities to ensure greatest relevance and use to key stakeholder groups. They also identified opportunities for intersection with our work and current policy activities in Australia.

Online survey to generate ideas
An international online survey generated responses from 151 participants (75% Australian; 18 to 80 years; 30% consumers/carers, 50% health professionals) and identified 191 priority topics which were organised into 21 broad research priorities by the CCRG. A significant challenge was the lack of time between the online survey and the workshop. This meant that in the analysis and organization phase the group had to make some pragmatic decisions, but overall they were confident that the broad categories were representative of the needs and concerns they heard expressed in the survey.

Priority setting workshop
The workshop was attended by 28 people, 50% consumers or carers and 50% clinicians, researchers, policy makers, and health services managers.  After adding one additional research priority, the broad list of 22 priorities was further narrowed down to the most important 12 topics using a modified version of the James Lind Alliance approach.  This involved group discussion, a voting round, and then small group work to explore the top 12 research priorities in depth.

Selecting the top five Cochrane Reviews
After the workshop, the CCRG mapped the top 12 research priorities against their reviews, protocols, and title proposals to identify priority topics or gaps in their portfolio. Two existing reviews and three reviews in title proposal stage were selected, and were added to the Cochrane Priority Review List immediately. Work on these reviews is underway and another five titles will be commissioned in a second round of reviews (after 2016).

The Group’s reflections
This prioritization approach was demanding and resource-intensive at times, but the Group felt strongly that such an investment was necessary to explore the issues that mattered to stakeholders. Having asked people to get involved, they were keenly aware of their responsibility to deliver a workshop that honoured the commitment and interest shown by participants. They managed to secure a couple of small grants which helped to fund a part-time research assistant and cover workshop attendance costs for some consumer/carer participants. The exercise required significant commitment from the group’s Research Fellow, Anneliese Synnot, over the course of a year. As a result of this commitment and the ongoing nature of the work, Anneliese will continue to work on CCRG prioritisation as part of her PhD.

One of the most pleasing parts for the Group was the fact that participants were enthusiastic and committed. They were not only willing to invest their time throughout multiple stages of the project, but keen to know the outcomes of the day and stay involved in future prioritization activities. This strengthening of ties to their stakeholders was an important outcome for the CCRG, because it lays the ground work for ongoing engagement.

What’s next
The exercise hasn’t stopped with a list of prioritized reviews. The CCRG were keen to stress the importance of taking ownership of these priority reviews as a whole – not just producing them, but actively disseminating and advocating for more research where it’s clear there isn’t enough. For the CCRG, this exercise has set off a whole new thread of work to ensure that the reviews are done in a way that means they are meaningful and useful, and that they reach the people who need them. All priority teams are actively involving stakeholders as part of their review team, or as an advisory group.

To view the final report for this project visit the CCRG’s priority setting project page.

For any questions or comments about this blog series or if you’d like to tell us about Cochrane group prioritisation work please contact Ruth Foxlee at the Cochrane Editorial Unit – rfoxlee@cochrane.org

Ruth Foxlee - Information Specialist, Cochrane Editorial Unit

Lydia Wilson – Intern, Cochrane Editorial Unit

Cochrane Brazil manages a team of volunteer translators who work on systematic review abstracts and Plain Language Summaries. Part of this process involves editing and ensuring the quality of the Portuguese translations produced before they are published. Due to the popularity of WhatsApp in the country, Patricia Logullo, translation editor at Cochrane Brazil, has been using the app as a way to communicate with the translation volunteers. Here she tells us more about the initiative.

WhatsApp is hugely popular in Brazil, with over 100 million users. People use it both personally and professionally, individually or in groups with families or colleagues, without the need of a desktop computer. Nearly 100% of Internet users in Brazil use the messaging app, more than any other similar app or service. People stay connected through their mobile phones, which they use constantly.

Many of the Portuguese translation volunteers at Cochrane Brazil are also researchers at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo. They are part of a WhatsApp group whose purpose is to share information on a daily basis about research findings news, courses or symposia, exams questions, duty schedules, group meetings etc. Over the last year, we have been identifying the main mistakes and difficulties our translators have had with their own language. So, in December 2015, we started to send short texts, like tweets, about Portuguese grammar and writing but with a funny or ironic tone to the WhatsApp group, which I call 'Portuguese Pills'. They receive these short, easy to read messages (about 150 words) via their mobile phones, without needing to access a computer. The Portuguese Pills sometimes deal also with scientific terminology, symbols, and other issues our translators face every day.

The 'Portuguese Pills' are inspired and prepared during the revision process of the Cochrane Abstracts translated by the volunteers. They always touch on sensitive issues: the mistakes that translators make in their own work. The idea was to make them remember things they certainly learned in school, but as busy researchers, they did not have the time to study again, nor did they have appropriate grammar books to consult (and would not be familiar with those).

The response to the pills was very positive. Our translators have become accustomed to receiving these tips on the use of Portuguese and they often answer the messages immediately, with comments such as: "I did not remember this, thank you", or "I didn't know it worked this way! Now I understand!" They feel that the grammar tips can be used both in their translation activity for Cochrane and for their personal life: thesis, dissertations, research projects, grants reports.

Whenever I write and distribute a new pill through the WhatsApp group, I also save it to a folder, so I have a stock of pills ready to go if the same mistakes arise again. They are now being published online. Soon we intend to add new volunteers to the WhatsApp group, so that more translators can receive them too.

In conclusion, WhatsApp has proved a very useful tool to communicate with the volunteers. I would encourage other translation teams to consider using this system, which is more efficient than email.

Patricia Logullo
Translation editor
Cochrane Brazil

Taking a closer look at how we store blogshots and user engagement with them on twitter. 

Muriah Umoquit, Internal Communications and Content Officer with Cochrane’s Communications & External Affairs Department, spent the last quarter looking at the newest Cochrane dissemination product, blogshots. Here she shares the results:

We have a lot of dissemination channels in Cochrane and many different audiences we’re trying to reach. Many of our dissemination products and pathways could use some tweaking and ongoing monitoring. To make sure we’re making evidence-based decisions, the Communications & External Affairs Department is tackling one communication channel or product a quarter. We’re calling this a Dissemination Deep Dive (DDD). We started our DDD in quarter three of 2016 looking at the newest Cochrane dissemination product: blogshots.

Blogshots were created by Cochrane UK as a way to summarize Cochrane Evidence with a picture for sharing on social media. A lot of work goes into creating, storing, and translating blogshots, but previously we did not have an understanding of users engagement with them beyond a few anecdotes. For example, after sharing them Cochrane Iberoamerica found their Facebook and Twitter accounts grow. Also, there was no central area to view all blogshots, which made it difficult to search through and it was not helpful to our translators.

Blogshot storage fixes
Working with Cochrane UK and the web team we made some fixes to some long standing storage issues. We have established a Cochrane Blogshot folder on Dropbox. Here blogshots are sorted by Cochrane Group with the PowerPoint and picture used – which has made the translation process easier, by providing translators with everything they need for translation in one place. The CD number is included in the file titles for easy searching. This folder is useful for internal purposes – take a look! Does your Group have blogshots there that you can share?

We also launched our Cochrane Tumblr account, which will be maintained by Cochrane UK. This makes the blogshots searchable by CD number and name and they are grouped by categories/tags. One month after launching, it had 1,460 page views with an average of six pages per session and 144 unique users. We’ll continue to promote the Tumblr account through the link in the bottom footer of all Cochrane pages and with a rotating news item on Cochrane.org, and monitor how it is being used.

Blogshot engagement on Twitter
Given the time frame of the deep dive, we focused on engagement on Twitter. We suspected that having some type of image with a tweet would get more clicks, likes etc. on average than a tweet without an image. It was however unclear how much impact having a blogshot with a tweet would have in comparison to just an image. Over a month we used the main Cochrane account to do tweets, tweets and a picture, and tweets with a blogshot. We controlled for the order presented, time of day, day of the week, and content of the tweet. We had five data sets with 15 tweets in total; 5 tweets with just text, five tweets with a picture, and five tweets with a blogshot. Our small-scale study suggested that sharing a blogshot on average almost doubles the click-throughs, likes, and retweets that you get over a text-only tweet. However, sharing a related picture with text in a tweet on average triples the click-throughs and likes, and doubles retweets. There are quite a few limitations to this outcome, however - the biggest one probably being our small sample size.

We hope that the Cochrane Community views this as a ‘proof of concept’ or ‘pilot stage’ for larger studies. This may be done by several people or groups working together and combining evidence, or several smaller studies done separately. Ideally it would also be good to have a sample of non-English tweets and perhaps a sample from a specialized audience, like a Review Group. If you’re interested, please get in touch! We’re happy to share our methods and full report so that your group can scale it up.

Overall lessons learnt

• Take the time needed to look at issues: We’ve got lot of things already on the go and there are many potential dissemination products to tweak. Looking at one item per quarter made it more manageable for our workload and also gave us the time to really look into the issues.
• Make evidence-based decisions: If healthcare decisions should be evidence based, then so should how we share the healthcare information to make those decisions! One easy first step is contacting support@cochrane.org with a gmail account to get access to look at the traffic to your Cochrane website.
• Collaborate!: We had a lot of help doing this from Cochrane UK, and scaling up the Twitter experiment needs help from other groups. The Cochrane community has a wealth of skill sets so make use of it – check out Cochrane Engage if you haven’t already!
• Rotate news items: We used to only have ‘fresh’ news item on Cochrane.org. Now we have news items or ads for our external newsletter, Tumblr account, Cochrane iPad Edition, etc. We change the publication date and move it to the front page of the website on a rotating basis – and watch the hits to what we’re advertising spike!
• Share with an image: try to add an image on your social media posts: photo or blogshot, you should include something other than just text. . 

What’s next for the dissemination deep dive?
In Q4 we’re taking on podcasts. In 2017 perhaps newsletters and Facebook…but what else should we look at? We’d love to hear your feedback! Please let us know your thoughts by emailing me or attending the upcoming CommsNetwork Meeting at the Colloquium where the dissemination deep dives will be discussed further.

Muriah Umoquit
Internal Communications and Content Officer
Communications & External Affairs Department

This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page.

The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (CTAG) has a longstanding commitment to prioritization, largely through informal discussions at the editorial base and by monitoring emerging research. In 2016, the year of their 20th anniversary, the Group decided to undertake a more in-depth prioritization exercise as part of the birthday celebrations.

As their starting point the group started looked at the well-established and successful prioritization framework developed by James Lind Alliance (JLA) in the UK. The JLA Priority Setting Partnership approach focuses heavily on clinicians and consumers, and the Cochrane CTAG wanted to ensure that the voices of researchers, commissioners, funders, and policymakers were also heard. Moreover the JLA approach would have taken more time than CTAG had to ensure completion before the 20th anniversary celebrations, so ultimately the group decided to use a modified version of the JLA framework to fit their circumstances.

The first task was to develop an online survey using Survey Monkey, which was disseminated on social media and through stakeholder mailing lists, and aimed to identify the stakeholder's most pressing unanswered questions about interventions and policies for the prevention and treatment of tobacco addiction. This survey allowed each person to propose up to four questions and explain why each was important to them. It was completed by several groups, including people who smoked/had smoked in the past, healthcare professionals, policymakers, service commissioners, research funders, and tobacco addiction researchers. In total this survey produced more than 600 questions - far more than had been anticipated!

Next, the process of narrowing down the questions to a more manageable number began. The group started by removing duplicate questions, using a dual decision making process to determine whether the question posed had already been answered by an existing, good quality systematic review or other reliable guidance. An unexpected but very useful consequence of this exercise is that it identified where Cochrane Review findings had not been adequately publicized. This knowledge was carried forward to the workshop stage of the process, when participants were asked to contribute ideas about improving evidence dissemination.

After all the sifting, 180 questions remained. This was far too many to ask people to rank individually, so the group sorted the questions into 15 categories.  A second survey was sent to those who had already taken part and then the Delphi method used. Participants were asked to pick their top three of the 15 categories and then rank only those questions that appeared in their chosen categories.

The final piece of the process was a workshop attended by members of the public, guideline developers, stop smoking advisers, clinicians, and funders. They were invited to the CTAG 20^th anniversary celebration to decide on the final list of high priority questions. These workshops were led by an independent facilitator who was paid through a grant that the CTAG received from the NIHR School for Primary Care Research. These funds also helped to support attendance at the workshop of members of the public, and covered venue costs, video, and photography. To ensure that participants understood the scope of the task, members of the CTAG editorial team spent the first half of the workshop talking about the history and work of CTAG, the history of tobacco research generally, and the steps in the process leading up to the workshop. The actual ranking exercise took place in the second half of the day and whilst it did focus on the results of the survey, the facilitator took care to allow new ideas to emerge. 

The methodology of this process was presented at Evidence Live (UK) in June 2016, and even received some attention from a BioMed Central representative keen to see the exercise written up. The CTAG do plan to document their approach to prioritization, as it produced questions and ideas that are not only relevant for Cochrane, but also will be of great interest to others, such as the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in the UK.

Despite attracting some financial support, the CTAG were not permitted to use these funds to hire staff to assist with the process, so all of the work leading up to the day of the workshop had to be absorbed at the editorial base. The fact that they all had extensive knowledge in the field of tobacco addiction meant that the de-duplication and categorization work that occurred ahead of the workshops was comparatively easy; however not all Cochrane Groups will have the resources to be able to process such a large quantity of data.

Despite the cost and resource challenges, the CTAG felt the approach worked well – it was rigorous yet relatively short, it engaged a broad range of stakeholders, identified gaps in the CTAG portfolio, generated a list of questions that are relevant both in and outside of Cochrane, and galvanized the group into creating a more formal dissemination plan for their reviews.

For any questions or comments about this blog series or if you’d like to tell us about your prioritization work, please contact Ruth Foxlee at the Cochrane Editorial Unit – rfoxlee@cochrane.org

Ruth Foxlee - Information Specialist, Cochrane Editorial Unit

Lydia Wilson – Intern, Cochrane Editorial Unit

This week is Peer Review Week, a global event to celebrate and debate peer review. This is the second year the event has taken place and it has expanded to involve over 20 organizations with an interest in peer review. You can read more on the Peer Review Week website and by following #PeerRevWk16 on Twitter. This year's theme is Recognition for Review, exploring all aspects of how those undertaking peer review could be recognized for their contribution.

The week includes webinars, videos, interviews and other social media activities on various aspects of peer review and there is also a curated list of resources for peer reviewers, including how-to guides, tutorials, best practice recommendations, guidelines and research.

Many discussions about peer review seem to focus on its failings or what hard work it is for everybody involved, and if you do a Google search for “problems with peer review” you’ll find plenty to read. While some view peer review as an outdated, expensive, ineffective process that slows down science and may introduce bias, surveys of authors, editors and reviewers consistently show that peer review remains a valued part of scholarly communication, while acknowledging a need for training and credit. For those seeking good-quality evidence, there is little on the benefits or harms of peer review. Even explorations of the more testable components of the peer review process generally conclude that more research is needed. But initiatives such as PEERE are seeking to address that.

Furthermore, editors and publishers are tasked with uncovering increasingly sophisticated manipulation and abuse of the peer review process, as researchers seek peer-reviewed publications, which remain the currency of academic standing. This prompted the publication of the World Association of Medical Editors’ best practice for editors, which includes a section on how to identify fraudulent peer review, and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ ethical guidelines for peer reviewers, which includes a list of principles to which peer reviewers are expected to adhere.

So, what about peer review for Cochrane Reviews? Cochrane has not published a formal policy on peer review. Each of the 52 Cochrane Review Groups organizes its own peer review process to suit their field, methodology, resources, and working preferences. This variation can be viewed a strength, as it allows flexibility, but the process also needs to be transparent to users of Cochrane evidence, and also evidence-based where possible.

Earlier this year the Cochrane Editorial Unit convened a peer review advisory group, following an exploratory workshop at the 2015 Cochrane Colloquium. The advisory group represents various roles within Cochrane groups, and has helped us to develop a Cochrane-wide policy on peer review. The group was asked to consider and comment on the best practice for peer review in a Cochrane context, including procedural aspects, such as recommendations for the use of named versus anonymous peer review, the number and type or peer reviewers, and when to peer review updates, as well as expectations for the conduct of Cochrane peer reviewers and options for acknowledging peer reviewers. We also need to highlight the involvement of consumers in the peer review process.

The aims are to provide guidance and support to the editorial teams managing peer review and to peer reviewers, and to provide transparency about the process to readers of Cochrane Reviews. The proposed policy will be shared with the wider Cochrane community for consultation in the near future.

Developing and publishing a policy is only part of the work. Our next focus will be to work with Cochrane Review Groups to support them in implementing the policy. With this in mind we recently conducted a survey of Cochrane Review Groups to inform the implementation phase and identify where additional resources will be required. We are grateful to all those who took part in the survey, and we will be sharing some of the findings at a presentation on peer review at the forthcoming Cochrane Colloquium. One finding from the survey was that there are limited options for recognizing the contribution of Cochrane peer reviewers, beyond inclusion on an annual 'thank you' list. Should we be finding more creative ways to recognize the contributions of peer reviewers, especially as Cochrane Reviews are generally longer and more methodologically complex than many journal article? And, as the peer review landscape is changing, do peer reviewers expect more recognition? We’d welcome your comments on this topic, and we’ll also be tuning in to Peer Review Week 2016 to find out more.

John Hilton

Editor, Cochrane Editorial Unit

jhilton@cochrane.org

Bryony Urquhart

Editor, Cochrane Editorial Unit

burquhart@cochrane.org

Angéline Serre has joined the Cochrane Communication and External Affairs Department (CEAD) in September 2015 with the aim of stimulating and accompanying the participation of Cochrane teams in European funding programs. She has a background in health research (PhD in neurosciences) and an expertise in developing applications for EU calls for proposals and managing successful projects. She is now ready to support the blossoming of your ideas and tells us more in this blogpost.

You need to fund research activities, training actions, or to establish strategic partnerships….
Have you ever considered the opportunities provided by the European Commission (EC)?

The European Commission (EC) provides a wide range of possibilities to cover the costs linked to research activities implemented in the European Union and beyond. Its most important programme, Horizon 2020 (H2020), will distribute almost €80 billion through 2020 to enhance excellent science, encourage industrial leadership, and address societal challenges. The selection of the most deserving projects relies on the publication of annual calls for proposals. Strict rules and procedures have to be followed here. Cochrane and Cochrane Groups have already been successfully involved in several projects funded at the European level, including HimL (Health in my Language); ECRAN (European Communication on Research Awareness Needs); DECIDE (Developing and Evaluating Communication Strategies to Support Informed Decisions and Practice Based on Evidence); and more recently INTERACT (the INTernAtional network on Crisis Translation). This illustrates the potential of EC funding for Cochrane. To increase your chances of success it is essential to do the following:

1. Be informed of open and forthcoming calls. Calls for proposals are published in advance and can be consulted on the EC participant portal: open and forthcoming calls. National Contact Points (NCPs) might also be able to orientate your search or support your watch. They regularly organize workshops and information days to communicate about work programs. In addition, many academic institutions have people in charge of EU matters and are there to help their staff with EU bids. Check whether your institution has such an EU liaison person that can support you with your bids.

2. Become familiar with recurrent programs, such as the 3rd EU health program, the Active and Assisted Living (AAL) program, Marie Curie actions, initiatives targeting societal challenges, Erasmus +, or the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). Mechanisms, objectives and thematic vary largely from one to another and you need to identify the program and topic that best meets your needs.

3. Advocate your ideas at the European level – isn’t it the ideal situation to answer a call for proposals that has been specifically designed for your project? National entities (e.g., ministries or research organisations) are regularly consulted by the EC to identify the national challenges and research priorities. Transmitting your ideas, reflections and suggestions to your national network (e.g., NCPs and EU liaison persons in your institutions) might therefore impact the subsequent work-programs, satisfy your needs and increase your chances of success. 

4. Develop high-level cooperation and be ambitious – excellence and innovation are primary evaluation criteria. The coordinator of a consortium needs to be a leader in the thematic area the call is trying to address. It is this leader that should establish the consortium of partners, combining complementary skills and expertise. Each consortium partner thus contributes a unique part to the proposal.

5. Get advice and support for drafting proposals and meeting EC expectations - don’t hesitate to contact experienced colleagues and specialists. The network of National Contact Points (NCPs) is the main structure to provide guidance, practical information, and assistance on all aspects of participation in Horizon 2020. The Cochrane EU funding coordinator (Dr Angéline Serre) can also provide information, answer questions, accompany initiatives, and facilitate project submission and implementation for Cochrane Groups.

For more information, also have a look at the webinar on EU funding opportunities which is now accessible on Cochrane's YouTube channel. It briefly introduces the major funding programs, explains the general application procedures, and provides some indications related to the management of the grant if successful.

Please do get in touch with the Cochrane EU Funding Coordinator should you need more information: Angéline Serre

Thanks to Sylvia de Haan for her valuable contribution to this post.

Salomé Planas is the Spanish translation coordinator for Cochrane Iberoamérica and has been involved with Cochrane since 1998. Here she reflects on her experience and the changes she has seen during the last 18 years, as well as explaining why she is proud to be part of Cochrane.

How did you first get involved with Cochrane?
"I got involved in 1998. I was working in a hospital in Sabadell, Barcelona, while I was studying. When I finished studying, a doctor friend of mine told me about Cochrane. I hadn’t heard of it. The first time you hear the name, it sounds strange. She told me to send my CV to Dr Bonfill, who was working on lots of projects and might need help. I sent my CV, went to meet him, and he suggested I got involved in an anti-smoking project he was preparing. That was the beginning.”

Have you held several different roles?
“At the beginning of the Spanish translation project, we had to organize every single step. We had to find a team of translators and editors. Since then, we have been working to improve the team. Now I make sure the team runs smoothly and achieves high quality standards.”

Can you sum up your current role?
“I coordinate the Spanish version of the Cochrane Library, La Biblioteca Cochrane Plus. My responsibility is to ensure Reviews are translated and published as quickly as possible, as well as some other documents. This means I help translators with technical issues and queries about vocabulary that arise along the way.”

What is the hardest part about your job?
“The main problem is that everything has to be done very quickly, we are always against the clock. Sometimes different types of problems crop up which we need to solve, but we still also need to keep working while we try to find solutions.”

As one of very few people who have read every Cochrane Review, can you tell us more about this?
“Some of the Reviews are very long. At the beginning of the translation project, and for some years after, we translated the entire Review. I prepared the translation, did some of the translation, and did the final editing before publication, so I ended up reading them two or three times! There were not very many of us so we had to work very hard. It’s better now that we don’t translate the whole Review. Also, at the beginning we did not have any translation software to help us.“

How do you define what Cochrane does, to those who don’t know us?
“We do our best to make the most reliable medical information available to others. In our case, to Spanish speakers, in an understandable way, so that they can correctly apply the information.”

How have things changed?
“At the beginning everything was very traditional. We did not even have translation software. To detect changes in a translation we used the compare function in word. Over the years we have changed, to now have a professional team, working with translation software.”

What is the best thing about working for Cochrane?
“The altruistic aim of the organization. We have a wonderful working team at Cochrane Iberoamérica, Dr Bonfill has been able to involve very compentent people in his team. We refer to each other as ‘cochranitos’ – good people who do their best to do a good job, and help each other out. It’s something you feel in your daily life. If you have a problem, of any kind, you can share it and we find a solution. That’s a really great characteristic of Dr Bonfill and the team.“

You’ve been at Cochrane for almost 20 years. Have you never been tempted to leave?
“The main reason for staying is because I love the team, and it is not easy to find this collaborative spirit elsewhere.  Many people are here like my family, and we are doing something that is really worth doing.”

How important is Cochrane’s work for the global health community?
“It’s very important. Cochrane has become a reference of quality in health information. Not only for professionals, but for ordinary people.”

How important is Cochrane’s work in your personal experience?
“For me it has reinforced the conviction that working together in a different manner, to achieve altruistic objectives, gives great and profound satisfaction. I really love this feeling. I remember a relative of mine who had a health problem. She had doubt about it, and it was good to see she could access good information and decided what was best for her. I have seen this many times over the years.”

What makes you proud?
“The way we work at Cochrane is an excellent example that could be applied to many other disciplines. It shows how working together, instead of prioritizing egos, can have excellent results for communities. Also, the commitment of this organization to stay free of economic interests and so to be able to be critical of those who do not defend accurate, reliable, and ethical information; no matter if they are famous doctors, pharmaceutical companies, other industries, or even governments.”

How can Cochrane get better at what it does?
“The fact it has expanded in size could create issues. When we started, the team was smaller, and it was easier to handle. This is something I think about, how things should be organized as we grow in size."

Is there anything you’d like to say to the senior management team?
“Don’t forget about this collaborative spirit. Forget about individual egos. I’d also like to say thanks for all they have done over the years. Keep working so that good information is available for as many as people in the world as possible."

Thank you for your contribution and dedication, Salomé!

Would your Cochrane Group like to tell the community about a beloved contributor? Email mumoquit@cochrane.org

Cochrane Russia has had great success translating and recording podcasts at Kazan Federal University. The initiative involves students, medical residents, and others interested in Cochrane evidence, and is le by Liliya Eugenevna Ziganshina, Director of Cochrane Russia, and Head of the Department of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at Kazan Federal University. Liliya coordinates the volunteer Russian translation project with the help of Ekaterina Yudina, Russian translation manager. They took part in an interview about the podcast initiative – keep reading to learn more.

How did the idea of a podcast club start?
“Masters, residency, and PhD students have been meeting at a weekly journal club. When we realised we could translate Cochrane podcasts, we discussed this with these students and they wanted to get involved.”

What is the process for translating and recording a podcast?
“Initially, two students shared a podcast and worked together to translate it, however we have progressed since then, with students taking charge of their own. There are two rounds of editing to make sure the Russian translation can be easily understood. At the journal club we discussed the importance of emphasis and pronunciation when recording. The first series of podcasts were recorded on the students’ mobile phones.  One of the students suggested asking if we could use the university’s media centre. Once a podcast has been translated and edited, the students go to the centre to use the recording equipment. The staff at the media centre have been very helpful, by recording the introduction and the ending of podcasts. They also feel like they belong, through contributing. ”

How many students are involved?
“There are 15 students in total.  Interestingly, only six of these are native speakers of Russian, the others are from other countries, including a student from France. Special credit should go to one of our PhD students, Azat Gabdrakhmanov, who works very hard behind the scenes to put together soundtracks for the podcasts.”

Why do the students like it?
“They like seeing their pictures and voices on cochrane.org. They are very proud. They say it is very stimulating and educating. They respond quickly to emails asking for their pictures, and are efficient at doing the translation of the script. They find themselves belonging to a big organisation and are really proud of contributing. I think they are really happy about that. They have the chance to work together, and it is more interactive than translation, which is something young people enjoy. Doing podcasts is more unusual, for some of them it is the first time they have done something like that.”

What’s the best part about podcast translation?
“The students’ favourite part of the process is being able to record the podcast in a professional studio, standing there in front of the microphone with proper equipment.”

How important is a podcast in disseminating Cochrane’s evidence?
 “Last week I was invited to a major hospital in Kazan.  I had not been there for quite some time. Of course I used the opportunity to tell them about Cochrane. I was amazed that they said they consult our Russian Plain Language Summaries, and listen to our podcasts when they are trying to make decisions. I was absolutely delighted because I had not visited for quite some time, so they found this information on their own. That was very rewarding to hear.”

How important is it to transfer this knowledge?
“I think it is very important. Not only because we are part of Cochrane Russia but also for people to realise there is a source of independent health information. The most important thing is changing the way people think. Working with Cochrane teaches you to think differently. The more we do translations and disseminate in a variety of ways, through podcasts and plain language summaries, and social media, the more this helps.”

What would you say to other translation teams who might be interested in starting podcast translation?
“To those who haven’t started yet, they should join and enjoy it. I think when they deliver evidence through a podcast, they will feel that they belong.”

How would you like to take this forward?
“We hope we will be able to improve the quality of our podcasts. It is more difficult and time-consuming to edit a podcast than a Plain Language Summary.  We hope professional language specialists will soon be able to join us, which will help with this issue.”

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