IMSG minutes, 11 February 2003

Minutes approved: 29 April 2003

Present: Gerd Antes, Dave Booker, Chris Cates, Mike Clarke, Kay Dickersin, Monica Kjeldstrøm (Convenor and minutes), Sonja Henderson, Rasmus Moustgaard.

In attendance: Andrew Cullis.

Apologies: Julian Higgins, Elizabeth Pienaar, Mark Starr.

Contents:
1. Welcome and apologies
2. Approval of the agenda
3. Potential conflicts of interest
4. Approval of minutes and matters arising from the previous meeting (15 November 2002)
5. Resignations from the IMSG
6. RevMan 4.2 update
7. Tracking software for comments and criticisms editors
8. Update of remit for the ModMan Advisory Group
9. Bi-annual report to the CCSG
10. Report about the new IMS to the CCSG
11. Update on Cochrane web site
12. Update on new IMS web site
13. Cochrane News - special IT issue
14. Any other business
15. Date of next meeting

Welcome and apologies

Monica welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies had been received from Julian, Elizabeth and Mark.

Approval of the agenda

The agenda was approved. Two additional items were suggested for any other business: an update on plans for further development of CENTRAL; and comments on the document about the new IMS that was circulated to the IMSG list on the day before.

Potential conflicts of interest

Name	Group represented	Other group membership/roles	Other potential conflicts of interest
Gerd Antes	Steering Group	Director of the German Cochrane Centre	GCC is responsible for managing the Cochrane Collaboration's web site. GA is line manager for David Booker, whose work may be affected by decisions taken by the IMSG.
David Booker		Web Master of the Cochrane Collaboration's web pages, employed at the German Cochrane Centre	Job dependent on in-house web site development
Chris Cates	Criticism Management Advisory Group	Reviewer and statistical editor in the Airways Group
Mike Clarke	RevMan Advisory Group (Convenor), Steering Group (Co-Chair)	Editor of the Cochrane Reviewers' Handbook; Director of the UK Cochrane Centre; reviewer and editor in several CRGs
Kay Dickersin	CENTRAL/CCTR Advisory Group (Convenor)	Director of the US Cochrane Center
Monica Kjeldstrøm	(Convenor of the IMSG)	Director of the Collaboration's IMS; employed at the Nordic Cochrane Centre	Job dependent on in-house software development. Receives funding from the Cochrane Collaboration to co-ordinate the development of the IMS
Sonja Henderson	ModMan Advisory Group (Convenor)	Review Group Co-ordinator of the Pregnancy and Childbirth Group, which is the largest CRG in the Collaboration	Involved in the North West of England copy-editing pilot
Rasmus Moustgaard	Technical Implementation Advisory Group (Convenor)	Employed to work on software development at the Nordic Cochrane Centre	Job dependent on in-house software development

Approval of minutes and matters arising from the previous meeting (15 November 2002)

Sonja suggested that the sentence "Sonja reminded everybody that it had been agreed that the use of RevMan 5 by editorial bases would be mandatory", under item 6, should be removed. With this change, the minutes were approved and their status on the website can be changed.
Action: Monica

Wiley's proposal for copy editing (item 5)

Andrew reported that the workflow proposal had been updated in light of the feedback he had received from the IMSG following the last meeting and had been submitted to the Selection Panel for the new publishing deal. The understanding was that the document should be considered as 'work in progress', and after the contract between the Cochrane Collaboration and John Wiley & Sons has been signed, Wiley will organise a meeting to discuss the details of their proposed plans for copy editing further. Andrew said that that the Collaboration's new Style Guide would form a good basis for a Cochrane Collaboration house style, and expressed an interest to hear about the results of the North West copy editing pilot. Sonja reported that the pilot is planned to run for two module submissions, but agreed to send some interim feedback to Andrew after the next module submission deadline, which would be halfway through the pilot.
Action: Andrew, Sonja

Mike informed the Group that the Collaboration-wide consultation process about the proposal from Wiley finished the same day, and that depending on the feedback received and further discussions, if might be possible to sign the contract by the end of February 2003.

Andrew said that he had had discussions regarding advantages and disadvantages of quarterly versus continuous publication dates, and that he is planning to have a table of issues prepared for the next IMSG meeting on 28 April to help inform further discussion. Monica will put this on the agenda for the meeting.
Action: Andrew, Monica

Commercial tracking products (item 7b)

Monica reported that the Norwegian Branch of the Nordic Cochrane Centre had edited the document about the commercial tracking software packages they had evaluated. As soon as the Nordic Cochrane Centre has converted this to PDF, it will be made available on the IMSG web-site and Sonja will announce its availability more widely. Mike will also forward a link to a web address that contains a report on web-based journal manuscript management systems. Dave asked about Lotus Notes, which Georg Koch had suggested should be considered: Rasmus said that the IMS developers would be meeting in Oslo on 18-19 February 2003, at which time they would be evaluating Lotus Notes along with some other development tools, according to a set of predefined criteria. The results of this evaluation will be shared with the Technical Implementation Advisory Group (TIAG).
Action: Mike, Rasmus, Sonja

Reviewers e-mail discussion list (item 7e)

Rasmus plans to e-mail the RGCs about invalid and missing e-mail addresses for contact reviewers soon after the module submission deadline on 26 February 2003.
Action: Rasmus

Guidance on types of additional figures (item 8a)

Mike reported that the Handbook Advisory Group, Publishing Policy Group and Steering Group had agreed that it should be left to the editorial bases to control what types of additional figures are included in Cochrane reviews.

Links to other Cochrane reviews from within a Cochrane review (item 8c)

Wiley is considering how to make older versions of reviews available to users of the Cochrane Library (but not necessarily keeping them online). The question of linking between a review and its past incarnations is pending this decision.
Action: Andrew

Publication of co-reviewers' contact details (item 8f)

Mike reported that an e-mail has been sent to the RGCs and co-ordinating editors to let them know that it had been decided to publish a subset of co-reviewers' contact details (name, organisation and country) in Cochrane reviews. After the submission deadline for issue 2 of the Cochrane Library, he will assess how much work will be involved in order to get these details into a publishable state. Rasmus agreed to edit the documentation for RevMan 4.2 to say that the relevant parts of the co-reviewers' contact details might be published in future versions of the Cochrane Library.
Action: Mike, Rasmus

Information Technology (IT) survey of developing countries (item 9)

Elizabeth had provided a brief progress report via e-mail to Monica. About 10% of the people surveyed had responded to date. The majority of comments received so far were concerning the use of RevMan. The preliminary results showed that participants from developing countries would like to be able to work on their reviews in programs such as Word and Excel. This was in line with the results of the Collaboration-wide Software Needs Assessment Survey from 2001. The majority of the respondants had also indicated that they have permanent Internet connections.

Comments and criticisms (item 11)

The discussion about how to deal with the publication of comments in languages other than English (e.g. Chinese) is pending the new publishing arrangement.

Chris has planned a criticisms workshop at the UK Contributors' meeting on 17-18 March 2003 in Warwick, where he will discuss definitions of minor and major comments. Feedback from the workshop will be passed to the editors of the document describing the house rules for managing criticisms of Cochrane reviews.
Action: Chris

Resignations from the IMSG

Representative for coordinating editors

Due to new commitments within the UK Department of Health, Phil Wiffen has resigned from his post as representative for coordinating editors on the IMSG. Phil was thanked in his absence and Monica has already e-mailed to thank him for his valuable contributions to the work of the IMSG for the 3½ years he has served. Monica hopes to identify a new representative before the next meeting on 28 April, and will keep the IMSG informed.
Action: Monica

Convenor of the Criticisms Management Advisory Group

Chris Cates has assumed responsibility as coordinating editor of the Airways CRG, and will not be able to continue his work as convenor of the Criticisms Management Advisory Group (CMAG) and his role as representative of this group on the IMSG beyond the end of March 2003. Chris was thanked for his contributions to the work of the IMSG for the 4 years he has served. It will be up to the Steering Group to identify a new convenor for the CMAG, who will also become a member of the IMSG.
Action: Mike, Gerd

RevMan 4.2 update

Rasmus gave a brief update of the status of RevMan 4.2. The release is more or less on schedule but section 8 of the Reviewers' Handbook and an update of the permission for publication form is pending. The software has been beta tested in two versions by eight dedicated beta testers. The statistical part of the software has been extensively tested by a group of statisticians affiliated with the Cystic Fibrosis and Genetic Disorders CRG. The RevMan development team is waiting for Julian (in his capacity as representative of the Statistical Methods Group on the IMSG) to sign off on this. CD-ROMs will be produced about 4-6 weeks following the Internet release, to avoid having CD-ROMs printed that may contain small bugs.

Discussion took place about when to advise review groups to upgrade to the new version, and it was agreed that Rasmus and Monica would draft a plan and discuss this with Sonja.
Action: Rasmus, Monica, Sonja

Tracking software for comments and criticisms editors

Sonja explained that the Pregnancy and Childbirth Group had experienced a steady increase in the number of criticisms the group received, and that the tracking of these was a very time consuming matter for their criticisms editor, Lelia Duley. Chris confirmed that there had been a general increase in the number of criticisms of Cochrane reviews. Monica said that the tracking system planned for the new IMS would also cater for the needs of criticisms editors, and it was agreed to make this more explicit in the description of the new IMS. Chris and Sonja both supported the idea that the tracking of comments and criticisms should be integrated into the IMS generic tracking system, rather than having a separate tool for criticisms editors.
Action: Monica, Rasmus

Update of remit for the ModMan Advisory Group

Sonja reported that the mandate of the ModMan Advisory Group has been revised extensively, and that it was nearly ready to be shared with the rest of the IMSG. The mandate has been expanded to describe in more detail information about membership, criteria for becoming a member, administration of the group, expectations of the convenor, length of term, etc. Mike asked what had been decided about terms and Sonja explained that members would be able to stay on the group for 3 years after which the post should be opened for other candidates. However, members would be allowed to re-stand. The length of term for the convenor would have implications for the IMSG, so this should be discussed when Sonja sends the updated mandate of the MAG to the IMSG for approval.
Action: Sonja

Bi-annual report to the CCSG

Monica will draft the bi-annual report to the CCSG and will circulate it for comments to the IMSG as soon as possible.
Action: Monica

Report about the new IMS to the CCSG

Monica said that she would draft a paper (5-6 pages long) for the IMSG that would probably contain the following sections: brief introduction of the new IMS; how is the new IMS likely to change the working of the Collaboration; who will find it difficult to work with the new IMS; how does the new IMS relate to the draft strategic plan (e.g. how the new system will help achieve its targets); time schedules, deliverables and roll out of the system; and estimates of cost implications (administration, maintenance and training). Monica planned to circulate a first draft by 16 February 2003.

Update on Cochrane web site

Beta test

Dave explained that he planned to start the beta testing of the Cochrane Collaboration's new web site within the next two weeks. He would run a demonstration of it via a web cam for staff at the UK Cochrane Centre on 25 February 2003. If this seems to be a suitable mechanism for getting feedback, he would investigate similar sessions with other Cochrane entities. Demonstrations were also planned for the UK Contributors' meeting in Warwick, UK and an evidence-based symposium in Freiburg, Germany (both in March), and the Continental-European contributors' meeting in Rome, Italy, in May. Kay said that it was important to seek feedback from users outside the Cochrane Collaboration (journalists, policy makers, clinicians, etc.), and it was agreed that Dave should explore the idea and discuss it with the Publishing Policy Group (PPG) at its next meeting on 24 February 2003. Dave also encouraged everyone to send him an e-mail if they have any thoughts for what they think is crucial to test during the beta testing period, and how this could be done.
Action: Dave, everyone

Concepts for web site development in the Collaboration

Kay asked if a set of concepts existed for what the Collaboration wants to achieve with its web site presence, and if there should be a standard approach across web sites of all registered entities, for example by applying uniform colour and looks. Chris suggested that the trademarked logo on all entity web sites should link to the Collaboration's main web site when clicked on. Dave said that as part of the announcement of the release of the beta version of the web site, he would ask members of the Collaboration if they felt the beta provided a desirable standard. The venue for discussing standardisation issues in general could be through the discussion list that Dave established last year to discuss the development of the Collaboration's web site newwebdev. (This can be joined by sending an email with subject field "subscribe" to newwebdev-request@cochrane.de.) It was also suggested that Dave might want to organise a workshop at the Barcelona Colloquium for those with an interest in this issue. Taddy suggested that web developers from entities with good web sites should be actively invited to the workshop. Dave asked anybody with ideas for workshops in this subject area to send him an e-mail. The deadline for proposing workshops for the Colloquium is 28 February 2003.
Action: Dave, everyone

Update on the technical developments of the web site

Dave agreed to write a summary of his plans on the technical implementation of the new web site and send this to the members of the Technical Implementation Advisory Group (TIAG) for their input. Dave also informed the IMSG that, in response to a request from the PPG, a Collaboration website advisory committee had been established to advise him on the contents of the web site.
Action: Dave

Update on new IMS web site

Rasmus reported that the IMS team at the Nordic Cochrane Centre were nearly ready to launch the new IMS web site. It has been implemented using the open source software, PLONE (www.plone.org), which is a content management system. It will allow searching across both a private and public section, and can allow users with appropriate user rights (e.g. convenors of advisory groups) to add and edit contents online. The new IMS web site will be a source of information for members of the IMSG and its advisory groups as well as members of the Collaboration with an interest in the development of the new IMS (and other IT projects in the Cochrane Collaboration). It will also contain the proposed register of software projects that was discussed in the IMSG meeting of 15 November 2002 (item 6)

Cochrane News - special IT issue

The next issue of Cochrane News is dedicated to information technology issues within the Cochrane Collaboration. Everyone was encouraged to think about relevant material for this and contact Darren Spithof, editor of Cochrane News, with ideas. The IMS team at the Nordic Cochrane Centre has three articles planned, and Dave Booker one. The deadline for submissions is 14 March 2003.

Any other business

Update on plans for CENTRAL

Kay explained that the US Cochrane Centre, following the provision of funding from the Cochrane Collaboration, is keen to move forward with improving CENTRAL. The CENTRAL/CCTR Advisory Group have been discussing two areas in particular that need attention: standardisation of journal names and MeSH indexing.

Journal names

The lack of standardisation in journal names is leading to duplication of entries. It has previously been agreed that references in specialised registers (and Cochrane reviews) should contain full journal names, but the majority of output from specialised registers still contains abbreviations or other variations on the full journal names. Kay asked for ideas for how the CRGs could be helped to change their registers, and it was suggested that she writes to the TSCs lists copied to the Adminors list (for RGCs), for their input. It was noted that Meerkat allows users to use a pick list of full journal names, which would make it easier to switch from abbreviated names. For CRGs not using Meerkat, it was suggested that it might be possible to develop macros to search and replace abbreviated journal names with the full ones. Rasmus suggested having a system to return edited versions of registers to the relevant CRGs, so that changes made centrally could be channelled back to the source.
Action: Kay

MeSH indexing

Kay reported that the Eyes and Vision Group are conducting a pilot project in which a MEDLINE indexer has been commissioned to index references in their specialized register. This will cost about $5.50 (US) per reference, and will be almost $20,000 (US) just for the Non-MEDLINE references. Kay confirmed that this will involve the indexer reading and indexing the full article, and that there may be extra costs if the article is not readily available. There will also be extra cost associated with photocopying and sending all the articles.

Date of next meeting

The date of next meeting is 29 April 2003. The meeting will be held in the UK Cochrane Centre's meeting room in Oxford.