Issue 7, October 2023

Welcome to this month's Author Digest

We hope you find it helpful.

This digest goes out to all active Cochrane authors and will continue to be sent to authors who are opted in. Please review your communication preferences in your Cochrane account and ensure you are opted in to communications.

Contents

1. Are you working on a review with a submission deadline after 1 January 2024?
2. New Cochrane Learning webinar series on Cochrane rapid reviews
3. New guidance on reporting ROBINS-I: Web clinic recording available
4. Next Methods Support Unit Web Clinic: Dealing with rare events in Cochrane reviews
5. Three new Cochrane-Campbell Handbook for Qualitative Evidence Synthesis chapters are now available
6. Do you want to only consider studies reporting on Randomised Controlled Trials in your review?
7. Upcoming Cochrane Learning Live webinar
8. Presentations of the 2023 Methods Symposium are now available
9. Top Tips
   

1. Are you working on a review with a submission deadline after 1 January 2024?

Switch to the focused review format in RevMan now!

Key benefits of the focused review format:

• Authors and readers can focus on a concise article presenting the review's main findings
• Data and information that enhance the main findings are available in a package of supplementary materials
• Cochrane Reviews are shorter, quicker to write and edit, and easier to read, understand and share

We have step-by-step guidance on writing your concise Cochrane Review in the focused review format:

• Use the Cochrane Review template as your guide
• Check each section in your review follows the template
• Submissions which follow the template guidance are less likely to need major revisions, and will move more quickly through editorial and production

Questions about the focused review format or template? Contact support@cochrane.org. 

2. New Cochrane Learning webinar series on Cochrane rapid reviews 

This webinar series is designed to provide you with a clear roadmap, helping you navigate the intricacies of rapid review methodologies. Whether you're a researcher, a healthcare professional, or anyone who relies on evidence to make informed decisions, these webinars can be helpful for you. Led by leading experts in this field, you can find out more and register for free here.

3. New guidance on reporting ROBINS-I: Web clinic recording available

The Risk of Bias In Non-randomised Studies – of Interventions (ROBINS-I) tool allows authors to evaluate the risk of bias in the results of non-randomised studies that compare the effects of interventions (NRSI). The ROBINS-I tool was originally developed by members of the Cochrane Bias Methods Group and the Cochrane Non-Randomised Studies Methods Group. In this web clinic, Dr Kerry Dwan introduced new guidance to help Cochrane authors and editors plan for the use of ROBINS-I in their protocol and report the results in their review.

4. Next Methods Support Unit Web Clinic: Dealing with rare events in Cochrane reviews

The next MSU web clinic will take place on Thursday November 9th at 9am UTC. The presenter is Afroditi Kanellopoulou, Statistics Editor in MSU.
Rare events are a common problem in Cochrane reviews, especially for secondary and safety outcomes. In the presence of rare events, standard meta-analytical models have important limitations and may lead to biased results. The objective of this web clinic is to provide guidance on handling rare events in a Cochrane review, present the properties of the inverse variance method and explain why this method is problematic when outcome data are rare. Afroditi will explain the advantages of one-stage meta-analysis models over two-stage models and will go through the assumptions and the properties of some of these models. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion.

Sign up here.

5. Three new Cochrane-Campbell Handbook for Qualitative Evidence Synthesis chapters are now available

Please check the Cochrane Training Website for the new Cochrane-Campbell Handbook for Qualitative Evidence Synthesis chapters, available for personal use via a Cochrane Account: Chapter 4 (Developing and using Logic Models), Chapter 11 (Conducting a Meta-ethnography) and Chapter 18 (Conducting a Qualitative Comparative Analysis). 

Don't have an account? Set one up for free here.

6. Do you want to only consider studies reporting on Randomised Controlled Trials in your review?

Now you can sort out non-RCTs so that you can focus your effort on studies more likely to be included in your review. The “Possible RCT” tagging functionality can be enabled on health-related reviews when creating a review or can be updated on existing reviews via the review settings page.

Click here to learn how this RCT classifier works in Covidence.

7. Upcoming Cochrane Learning Live webinar

We have an upcoming webinar on 15th November to demonstrate how to use the GRADEpro software to perform a GRADE assessment and make a summary of findings table.

This webinar is aimed at people who understand the analyses from systematic reviews and now want to present the findings from the evidence and its certainty.

Find out more and how to sign up here.

8. Presentations of the 2023 Methods Symposium are now available

Our 2023 Methods Symposium allowed attendees to learn from Cochrane experts and industry leaders and connect with like-minded professionals. Slides of the main presentations for session #1 (Facilitating review and data reuse across the research ecosystem) and session #2 (Equity in evidence synthesis) are now available for public consultation on Cochrane's Methods website.

9. Top tips for Cochrane Authors

We now have a new page in the RevMan Knowledge Base called References and citations. This is to highlight information on how to handle references and in-text citations correctly, in both the focused review format and the previous format. For information on internal and external links, see Links in text instead.

You may also find this page on submitting to Editorial Manager helpful.

Contact us

If you have any questions about any of the above items, please contact us at support@cochrane.org