Welcome to the August edition! We're getting ready for the Global Evidence Summit in Cape Town, and we have a special feature on the workshops and meetings that might be of interest to the information specialist community. We're also celebrating a new era for CISs with the close of CRS Stand-Alone. There's plenty of reading material available this month too, and you might want to sign up for the new CIS forum to talk more about what you've read. Keep in touch with us - cis-support@cochrane.org.
Global Evidence Summit
Are you coming to Cape Town?
If you are joining us at the Global Evidence Summit in Cape Town, you might be particularly interested in coming along to the following sessions:
You can now sign up to workshops and other sessions via the GES website. An App will also be available soon (search for GESummit2017, or Global Evidence Summit in the Google Play Store, or the Apple App Store).
CRS Update
Closure of CRS Stand-Alone
The stand-alone desktop version of the Cochrane Register of Studies (CRS) has been closed down as of Friday 18th August. If you still have the database on your computer, you will be able to view the records and perform searches, but you will no longer be able to synchronize the database with the Metaxis servers in Oxford. Features such as tracking will also no longer work because the stand-alone database will not be linked to Archie from this point onwards. Stand-alone will no longer be supported, and any bugs in the stand-alone system will not be fixed in future. All support from the Cochrane Information Specialist Support Team and Metaxis will now be directed to CRS Web.
How to manage a search... CRS Web tips
The CIS Support Team have put together a 20 minute video on how to manage a search from start to finish in CRS Web. This shows you the best way to deal with searches for a review author in CRS Web at the moment, though things will change over the next few months as CRS Web develops and improves.
If you have any questions or issues you'd like to raise, get in touch with us: cis-support@cochrane.org.
Updated HarmoniSR guidance
Updated guidance on study and reference records, and new guidance on books and theses
The HarmoniSR rules were recently updated, and now include guidance on books and theses. The HarmoniSR Working Group comprised representatives from the CIS Exec, the CIS Support Team, the Cochrane Editorial Unit and Metaxis (the developers of the CRS). The aim of the group was to establish rules for the formatting and core content of reference and study records to ensure consistency.
You can find the latest guidance on the CIS Portal:
The final report of the HarmoniSR Group can be found here.
HarmoniSR and authority records: upcoming webinar
The CIS Support Team have organized a webinar to look at the HarmoniSR rules, and how to apply them in CRS Web. We will also cover the implications this has for authority records within CRS Web. It will take place on 31 August at 3pm (UK time), find your time zone here. If you can't attend, we will be recording it, and will make the recording available soon afterwards.
To sign up for the webinar, click here. Once you have registered, you'll then be sent an email with details of how to join.
Launch of the new look CIS Forums
A new place to discuss issues of interest to information specialists
New discussion forums have been launched on Cochrane.org for Consumers, Managing Editors, and now for Information Specialists. Our mailing list is great for discussion, but a forum means that we can search, view and respond to discussions more easily.
If you would like access to the Information Specialist forum, let us know by completing this Doodle poll.
The forum moderators (Doug Salzwedel and Charlene Bridges) will monitor the poll and provide access as soon as possible. The CIS forum is launching with several top-level categories that for the most part correspond to those used on the CIS Portal (Searching, Managing your specialised register, CRS-Web, Professional development & training, etc.) Under each category, separate threads can be added by the moderators and by community members as the need arises.
We’ve populated some initial topics and hope that you’ll add to them so that we end up with discussions viewable in a threaded way that will provide a useful resource for existing and future CISs as time passes.
Exec news
The Exec want your help!
The CIS Exec are planning to launch a blog featuring "A Day in the Life" of Cochrane Information Specialists. The idea is to increase the visibility of CISs and the work they do. They are currently looking for volunteers who would be willing to be interviewed for the blog.
Colleen Ovelman is leading this initiative. If you're going to the Global Evidence Summit and are willing to be interviewed, email Colleen.
Articles
Items for your reading list
Anne Eisinga from Cochrane UK got in touch with us to highlight some really useful articles she had spotted recently (details below). Thanks very much to Anne for her continuing support and for letting us know about these. If you have anything you want to share, get in touch with us at cis-support@cochrane.org.
Pussegoda K, Turner L, Garritty C, Mayhew A, Skidmore B, Stevens A, Boutron I, Sarkis-Onofre R, Bjerre LM, Hrobjartsson A, Altman DG, Moher D. Systematic review adherence to methodological or reporting quality. Systematic Reviews 2017;6:131. DOI: 10.1186/s13643-017-0527-2
Carol Lefebvre (co-convenor of the Information Retrieval Methods Group) circulated the following article recently. It concerns an audit of pharmaceutical companies' policies on access to trial data, results and methods. An associated podcast can be accessed here. Thanks to Carol for sending this around.
