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Name of Collaboratory :
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Cochrane Collaboration
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Logo :
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URL :
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http://www.cochrane.org/ |
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Collaboratory Status
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| Operational
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Start Date :
1993
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End Date :
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Primary Collaboratory Function :
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Community Data Systems |
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Secondary Collaboratory Functions :
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Virtual Community of Practice, Distributed Research Center |
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Domain(s)
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Evidence Based Medicine, Healthcare |
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Brief Description
of the Collaboratory :
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The goal of the Cochrane Collaboration, and evidence-based healthcare in general, is to make relevant research available to practitioners in a form that they can use. Cochrane publishes reviews of clinical trials, both published and unpublished, in a standard format. These reviews--which cover topics such as lung cancer, oral health, pregnancy and childbirth, and musculoskeletal injuries--are published and open for comment by users. Some reviews are written by Cochrane staff, others by volunteer contributors. As of 2004 Cochrane had published over 1700 reviews, and had 10,000 active participants.
Subscriptions to full Cochrane content is available for a fee through John Wiley & Sons. This subscription gives access several interactive databases which publish trials, research, and systematic reviews of healthcare interventions. Several countries have nationwide site licenses to Cochrane databases. Abstracts can be browsed and searched without a fee.
The Cochrane Library is the major product of activity in the organization. It contains the Database of Systematic Reviews-which aggregates protocols and reviews of healthcare interventions where practitioners and researchers share their experiences, studies, and data in a formal and moderated space. Reviews are created and structured (according to clearly defined methods) with a locally developed open-source tool called RevMan. Comment and criticism of published reviews are encouraged. Volunteer moderators manage the publication and annotation of reviews according to the Cochran 'house rules'. Often, original authors revise or defend their reviews based on comment from other users. All reviews are mandated to be updated every two years.
The Cochrane organization holds non-profit status in the UK (where it was founded by Iain Chalmers’s Oxford database of Perinatal Trials) and supports several staffed regional centers throughout the world. These centers provide language and region specific coordination and training to Cochrane participants and serve as the main contact point for the general public. In addition to regional centers, several other groups share management and administrative tasks of the collaboration. These groups and their responsibilities are:
Collaborative Review: Produce Cochrane Reviews
Steering: Monitor performance and set policies and procedures for the organization
Methods: provide support in the development of systematic reviews
Fields/Networks: identify health issues of importance
Consumer: work to ensure involvement of consumers
Ombudsmen and Publication Arbitrator: help to negotiate and resolve conflicts in the organization
In addition to membership in a group, participants may also contribute as an editor, handsearcher (searching through medical journals for accounts of controlled trials which are not yet indexed in major electronic databases like Medline), or translator. All participation, with the exception of staff at Regional Centers, is voluntary.
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Access to
Instruments :
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Reviews are written with RevMan software, an open source tool developed by the Nordic Cochrane Center with local grants. Support is fee based. RevMan provides the structure of a review and integrates well with MS Office's export/import capabilities.
The Cochrane Library displays and stores comments and criticisms submitted in response to systematic reviews. These comments are moderated and comments must conform with published house rules.
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Access to
Information Resources :
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Cochrane publishes these databases:
The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects
The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL)
The Cochrane Methodology Register
The NHS Economic Evaluation Database
Health Technology Assessment Database
Cochrane Database of Methodology Reviews (CDMR)
Cochrane Libray offers information and study/trial reviews in several languages. Access to the full text database is mandated by subscription. Browsing and searching of abstracts is available for free. Nationwide site agreements have been negotiated with Australia, England, Finland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, and Wales.
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Access to
People as Resources :
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Active communication between groups via moderated email lists, direct email, local region staffed centers, meetings, and regional training workshops (ex. US-2004 Summer Institute on Evidence Based Practice). Once a year, worldwide participants meet for the Cochrane Colloquium. Center directors also have mid-year meetings. 2004 US is April 1-2 in Providence, RI.
In addition, there is a directory of contact details for all participants.
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Funding Agency
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| Australian Department of Health and Aged Care |
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| Canadian Ministry of Health |
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| Department of Health (UK) (DOH) |
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| Health Technolgoy Board for Scotland |
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| World Health Organization |
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Notes on Funding Agencies/Sponsors:
Funding is bottom-up. Individual studies and reviews are funded by their authors, not by Cochrane. Many studies are funded through the NIH, or other national/international health organizations. There are co-publishing agreements with many journals. Any funding from a commercial entity that may pose a conflict of interest (i.e. pharmaceutical or medical device company) must be declared. Cochrane is considering accepting funds from for-profit corporations. There is intense debate about this. Cochrane awards small grants from a discretionary fund that mainly go toward software development and documentation. The funding agencies listed above have funded local conferences or specific infrastruture building projects.
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| TOTAL
PARTICIPANTS: |
10000
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Notes on Participants/Organizations:
All participants (except administrative staff at Regional Centers) contribute reviews and time voluntarily--still trying to negotiate academic credit for reviews that appear solely in Cochrane's databases. Many reviews and trials go unpublished. Most participants believe passionately that evidence-based medicine as promoted by Cochrane will improve patient care and the profession overall.
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Communications Technology
Used :
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The Cochrane Library displays and stores comments and criticisms submitted in response to systematic reviews. These comments are moderated and must conform with published house rules.
Conference telephone calls are frequent; groups have applied for (ouside) grant money to subsidize cost. Some teleconferencing with NetMeeting happens. Webcams are used more frequently by the Eyes & Vision group.
Several moderated email lists are utilized by participants at every level of participation.
Electronic, language/region or topic specific newsletters are also available at the web site.
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Technical
Capabilities :
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Key Articles : |
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Dickersin, K.; Eric Manheimer, Susan Wieland, Karen A. Rovinson, Carol LeFebvre, Steve McDonald (2002). Development of the Cochrane Collaboration's Central Register of Controlled Clinical Trials Evaluation & The Health Professions, 25, 39-63.
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Project-reported performance data
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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews contains the full text of more than 1700 complete Cochrane reviews; 1300 protocols for reviews are in progress.
Hundreds of newly completed reviews and protocols are added each year.
several hundred existing reviews are updated so substantively that they can be considered to be the equivalent of new reviews.
The electronic publishing system for the Cochrane Library has just recently moved from a home-grown system to a partnership with John Wiley & Sons. One of the perceived benefits of this partnership will be access to system wide usage statistics. Currently, the entry page of the Cochrane Library at the National Electronic Library of Health in the UK received more than 50,000 hits per month by the middle of 2003. |
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