MAG minutes, 27 September 2001

Minutes approved on: 12 December 2001

Present: Claire Allen (minutes), Mandy Collingwood, Jane Dennis, Jan Arve Dyrnes, Monica Fischer, Sonja Henderson (Convenor), Rasmus Moustgaard, Graham Mowatt, Reive Robb, Lois Sims (from 11.30am).

Apologies: Phil Wiffen

Contents:
Welcome
Approval of agenda
Tracking
Budget
Membership of MAG
Approval of minutes of 27 March 2001
Date of next meeting

Welcome

Sonja welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Jan Arve Dyrnes, a programmer working with the Oslo Branch of the Nordic Cochrane Centre. Apologies had been received from Phil Wiffen.

Approval of agenda

It was agreed that this extraordinary meeting should concentrate on the issue of tracking. The agenda previously circulated was re-numbered and it was agreed to discuss the issues contained in the 'Contents' section (above).

Tracking

Rasmus had produced a software specification document based on Sonja's report to the SDG in October 2000 following her survey of RGCs about their need for a tracking system. This document was discussed at length and, in particular, the tables of examples of events relating to titles, protocols, reviews and updated reviews. Sonja and Claire agreed to amend the tables of events to reflect the discussions at the meeting and to circulate it to MAG members before sending a revised version to Rasmus to include in an update to his document. It was agreed that it was not necessary to send the tables of events to RGCs for comment as it was based on the comments RGCs had sent to Sonja in 2000.
Action: Sonja, Claire

It was agreed that ideally:

1. Review groups should be able to add fields that were specific to them rather than only being able to use specified fields.
2. It is important to link relevant software together to ensure that there is no unnecessary duplication of effort.
3. Jan-Arve would investigate (at the implementation stage), whether once a title was entered in the final stages of the title events, whether this could automatically generate e-mails to the titles management database. It was agreed to wait until the next meeting to discuss this further.
4. The events tracking system should be linked to the person specifications database (contacts database) to avoid duplication of information. It was agreed that all items relating specifically to people rather than their relationship with documents would be removed from the events tables and kept in a separate list for further discussion.

Paul Garner and Reive had produced a paper detailing the aims and objectives of a generic tracking system for CRGs. Reive agreed to pass on thanks to Paul for this helpful paper and to produce a section for Rasmus' paper detailing why the tracking system was required as well as the objectives of such a system. Reive agreed to circulate this paragraph to the MAG prior to forwarding it to Rasmus.
Action: Reive

Concerns were raised that funds should not be spent on trying to develop an in-house Collaboration tracking database, but rather purchase a commercial database if there was an appropriate one on the market. Rasmus confirmed that once the specification document had been agreed, the first step would be to evaluate available tracking software against the agreed specifications before discussing the option of developing Collaboration software. He pointed out that cost would also have to be considered when evaluating available software as some commercially available software is prohibitively expensive. It was agreed that someone should be identified to collate information about commercial software and to evaluate it against the agreed specifications. Jan-Arve agreed to take on this role. He agreed to investigate commercial web-based software (including assessing cost) and everyone was asked to pass information about tracking software that they might come across to Jan-Arve.
Action: Jan-Arve

Rasmus agreed to rename his document 'Specification for a tracking system' and to add a section at the beginning of the document explaining what the MAG's understanding of a tracking system is.
Action: Rasmus

The next step is to outline the questions that RGCs need a tracking system to easily answer. Sonja had already sent such a list to Rasmus and agreed to send this list to MAG so that MAG could comment on it before she sent a revised version to Rasmus.
Action: Sonja

Sonja mentioned that the software specifications should reflect 'good practice' and therefore it was important to liaise with the newly appointed Quality Improvement Manager, Nancy Owens. Consequently, at 1300, the MAG teleconferenced with Nancy Owens whose work, in her role as Quality Improvement Manager, would feed into the MAG. Nancy had not been able to download the document that Rasmus had produced. Sonja outlined the discussions that had been taking place prior to the teleconference. Sonja raised concern that Nancy did not have the tracking questionnaire and the summary of results that she had circulated last year so that Nancy could build on the work already undertaken when she is visiting editorial bases and discussing tracking issues. Sonja agreed to send Nancy the original questionnaire from which the paper had been produced.
Action: Sonja

Nancy outlined the task in hand, that of visiting all CRGs worldwide to discuss their practices, which would include tracking issues. Nancy was asked if she was aware of any commercial software packages that could be evaluated for use by CRGs. Nancy said that she did not know of any suitable packages but would let MAG know if she came across any. Rasmus agreed to forward the 'Specification for a tracking system' document once it had been edited.
Action: Rasmus

Membership of MAG

Sonja reminded the MAG that Kate Henshaw had resigned in March. Graham, due to taking up a new post within the Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen at the beginning of December, tendered his resignation. He was formally thanked for his contribution to the MAG over the last four years.

Reive outlined the current situation with regard to membership and agreed to produce a comprehensive paper for the December meeting detailing activities, skills, tenure, membership of other groups etc. The current status is that there is no defined representation but that the following groups are represented:

• Publisher
• Software developers
• Co-ordinating Editors
• Review Group Co-ordinators

Currently the RGC representation is from the UK only because of financial restrictions. It was agreed that it would be preferable to have RGCs on MAG who come from other regions as well as the UK. This would improve MAG communications with RGCs in regions outside of the UK (Australasia, Europe and North America) as there would be a member of MAG available to respond to (as well as bring to the MAG meeting) questions raised at these meetings.

After discussion, it was agreed that the following would form the MAG group:

• 1 x Convenor (RGC)
• 1 x Publisher (Update Software)
• 1 x Software developer (ModMan programmer)
• 1 x Co-ordinating Editor
• 6 x Review Group Co-ordinators

It was agreed that the restriction of membership due to financial constraints should be removed because there are now some funds available. Monica agreed to amend the document on the web about the structure of the group, removing the sentence relating to UK-based people being members of the MAG.
Action: Reive, Monica

It was agreed that consideration should be given to holding a MAG meeting during Colloquia, so that people from far away places could be included without additional cost to MAG given that MAG funds are limited.

There is an immediate urgency to fill the vacancies created by the resignation of Graham and Kate. Sonja agreed to e-mail the adminors e-mail discussion list asking for volunteers alerting them to the fact that some funding might be available. She also agreed to outline what was high on the agenda at the present time and that volunteers must be willing to make time available for face-to-face meetings as well as to be able to beta-test new software.
Action: Sonja

Budget for the MAG

Monica reported that she had requested a budget from the Steering Group, which incorporated a total of £800 for travel expenses for two people based outside of the UK.

Minutes of the last meeting (held on 27 March 2001)

The minutes of the meeting held on 27 March 2001 were approved and had already been uploaded to the web site.

Date of next meeting

The next meeting will be held on 12 December at the UK Cochrane Centre, Oxford.

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