IMSG, 12 September 2003

Minutes approved: 16 January 2004

Present: Gerd Antes, Jacqueline Birks, Dave Booker, Mike Clarke, Andrew Cullis, Kay Dickersin, Sonja Henderson, Julian Higgins, Monica Kjeldstrøm (Convenor), Rasmus Moustgaard, and Elizabeth Pienaar.

In attendance: Claire Allen (minutes), Colleen Finley by teleconference for items 9 and 13.a, Jini Hetherington for item 10.

Contents:
1. Welcome and apologies
2. Approval of the agenda
3. Potential conflict of interest for members present at this meeting
4. Approval of minutes and matters arising from the previous meeting
5. Update on the IMS development
6. Report from special meeting of RevMan Advisory Group (10 September 2003) on RevMan 5 and the structure of Cochrane reviews
7. Integration of third party solutions with RevMan
8. DOI and splitting, merging and deleting Cochrane reviews
9. Specialised registers, CENTRAL and the IMS
10. www.cochrane.org
11. Bi-annual report to the Steering Group
12. Proposal for co-convenor of the IMSG
13. Any other business
14. Date of next meeting

Welcome and apologies

Monica welcomed everyone to the meeting, particularly Jacqueline Birks as the new representative for Co-ordinating Editors.

Approval of the agenda

The agenda was approved with no additional items.

Potential conflict of interest for members present at this meeting

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 Dave Booker, whose work may be affected by decisions taken by the IMSG.
Jacqueline Birks	Co-ordinating Editors	Co-Co-ordinating Editor, Cochrane Dementia & Cognitive Improvement Group
Dave Booker		Web master of The Cochrane Collaboration’s web pages, employed at the German Cochrane Centre.	Job dependent on in-house web site development.
Mike Clarke	RevMan Advisory Group (Convenor), Steering Group (Co-Chair)	Director of the UK Cochrane Centre; reviewer and editor in several CRGs.
Andrew Cullis	Publisher	Wiley Production Technical Group, Chichester, UK.	May have preferences for systems, processes and formats that streamline the publisher’s own publication infrastructure.
Kay Dickersin	CENTRAL/CCTR Advisory Group (CCAG) (Convenor)	Director of the US Cochrane Centre.	Responsible for CENTRAL/CCTR, so work may be affected by decisions taken by the IMSG in relation to integration of study-based registers.
Sonja Henderson	ModMan Advisory Group (Convenor)	Review Group Co-ordinator for the Pregnancy and Childbirth Group, which is the largest CRG in the Collaboration. Co-Convenor of the Style Guide Working Group.
Julian Higgins	Statistical Methods Group (Co-Convenor)	Co-editor of the statistical section of the Cochrane Reviewers’ Handbook; Editor for the Developmental, Psychosocial and Learning Problems Group; statistical advisor and reviewer in several CRGs.	Consultant to a commercial software company.
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. Manages funding from The Cochrane Collaboration to co-ordinate the development of the IMS.
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
Elizabeth Pienaar	Developing countries	Employed at the South African Cochrane Centre.

Approval of minutes and matters arising from the previous meeting

The minutes were approved once the following changes had been made:
Item 3 should read: ‘No changes were needed for other members of...’.
Item 5, 1st paragraph should read: ‘would allow’.
Item 5, 3rd paragraph should read: ‘over the next twelve months’.
Item 8b should read: ‘The web site will be available to the public in October 2003’.
Action: Monica

Matters arising from the previous meeting

Reviewers e-mail discussion list (Item 4b)

Sonja advised that an e-mail had been sent to all reviewers in July to identify incorrectly formatted or missing email addresses for contact reviewers. Rasmus advised that 78 e-mail addresses were missing, 11 bounced and 45 were incorrectly formatted. He agreed to report back to the IMSG, Sonja, and Mark Davies (reviewers’ representative on the Steering Group), with similar statistics for Issue 4 before deciding if a similar message should be sent. If the numbers had improved (compared to the first validation message), it was agreed to reconsider the frequency of the validation messages.
Action: Rasmus

Update on plans for CENTRAL (item 4h)

Kay advised that an e-mail had been sent to TSCs asking them to use full journal names within their specialised registers in future. She will discuss this issue further with Wiley and the CENTRAL/CCTR Advisory Group before recommending any change to current policy.
Action: Kay

Update on the development of the new IMS (item 5)

Monica reported that she and Nick Royle had arranged to provide an update to RGCs, TSCs and Co-ordinating Editors at their joint meeting during the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.
Action: Monica

Quarterly versus continuous publication dates (item 6)

Andrew circulated the document detailing advantages and disadvantages to changing the current publication cycle, which he had updated in response to the feedback he had received from members of the IMSG and others. Andrew reported that Wiley would continue to publish at quarterly intervals for the time being.

Status on developing country survey (item 7)

Elizabeth advised that she and Valeria Marinho would be circulating the report and analysis of the developing country survey by the end of September 2003. The various documents will also be made available through the IMS web site. Elizabeth advised that there would be two presentations of the results during the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003. Monica said she would add these to the Communication Plan for the new IMS.
Action: Elizabeth, Valeria Marinho, Monica

Cochrane Collaboration web site – the next phase (item 8)

Mike chaired the meeting for this item, as Monica was conflicted. Monica reported that she and Dave had met and had circulated a joint report to the IMSG in June 2003. This outlined the software items that would be co-ordinated as the IMS develops. The report is available from www.cc-ims.net/projects/newIMS. Concern was raised that there was not enough co-ordination between the two developments but Monica stressed that this was so that there would be no delays to the development of the IMS. She and Dave had decided to focus on the items that can be jointly developed without delaying the development of the IMS. Dave reiterated that nothing that was being developed was incompatible and that users of the IMS would not be confused by the relationship to the main Collaboration website. Monica and Dave agreed that they would formalise the meetings they have together, which are currently undertaken on an ad hoc basis, and would report back to the IMSG after each of these meetings. They agreed to keep the issues of divergence, streamlining, and integration of software under regular review.
Action: Monica, Dave

Publisher representative (item 9b)

Sonja reported that Pauline Howarth is the official representative of the publisher on the ModMan Advisory Group. She also advised that Lois had agreed to remain on the MAG for the next 12 months (as an ex officio member), because she manages all the data transformation systems for Update.

Additional images (item 9c)

Monica reported that for issue 3, 2003 of The Cochrane Library, 15 images had been submitted, 12 of which required editing. She and Andrew had agreed to prepare a brief report for the Publishing Policy Group at its meeting on 2 October 2003, about the kind of editing that was required. They would also recommend that the Collaboration should provide stronger editorial advice for CRGs about which additional images they should consider rejecting. At a technical meeting between Wiley and members of the IMS team on 11 September, it was agreed to suggest that more validation checks and technical restrictions should be implemented in RevMan. Rasmus would liaise with Simon Newton about this. Andrew confirmed that the majority of editing was of excessive white space around the images. He also commented that several of the additional figures were tables, which could have fitted into the existing RevMan structure. It was agreed that discussions need to take place about whether editing should continue, as it could become a major burden in the future. Andrew agreed to let the relevant CRGs know about any editing that had taken place for issue 3, and also to include information about this in the report to the Publishing Policy Group. Julian agreed to raise the issue of guidance on using additional images with the Handbook Advisory Group, and Rasmus agreed to expand the section on technical requirements in the RevMan Help file once the new validation checks and technical restrictions had been agreed. Rasmus agreed to consider the possibility of adding an alert for reviewers asking them to consider the amount of white space used in additional figures. If appropriate, it was agreed that the Publishing Policy Group could present the issues at the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.
Action: Monica, Andrew, Julian, Rasmus, Mike

pdfFactory for all editorial offices

Monica advised that pdfFactory had been distributed to all CRGs who had accepted the offer. The Nordic Cochrane Centre had funded the licences.

Policy on withdrawn reviews in The Cochrane Reviewers’ Handbook (item 9f)

This item was not yet done. Sonja agreed to draft a replacement paragraph for Mike for the Cochrane Reviewers' Handbook as well as to draft a paragraph for the Cochrane Manual.
Action: Sonja

Specifications for a tracking system (item 9g)

Sonja had contacted Sally Green and Phil Alderson, as the Quality Advisory Group now has responsibility for processing the Quality Improvement Manager’s recommendations, highlighting the need for a document describing best practice in the editorial process. Sally had advised that the QAG had assessed some of the recommendations, but that there did not appear to be any changes to the processes documented by the ModMan Advisory Group. She also advised that the issues would be discussed at the joint RGCs/TSCs meeting, and during the QAG meeting at the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.

Proposed new remit of the ModMan Advisory Group (item 10)

Monica reported that the MAG remit has been published on the IMSG web site. Mike advised that he will be revising the RAG remit based on the MAG’s new remit.
Action: Mike

Style in reviews prepared in RevMan 4.2 (item 11a)

Sonja advised that she had fed back the comments about the advice on how to use sub-headings within the text of Cochrane reviews from the last RAG meeting to the Style Guide Working Group along with the follow-up advice from Wiley. The Style Guide would be updated when approval has been given by The Cochrane Collaboration and Mike will discuss this with the Publishing Policy Group.
Action: Mike, Sonja

RevMan on CD-ROM (item 11b)

Monica advised that she had not written to CRGs, as the RevMan team had only received one request for RevMan on CD-ROM since RevMan 4.2 was released.

o. Publisher representative on the RAG (item 11c)

Mike reported that Simon Newton was now the publisher representative on the RAG.

Search strategies in reviews (item 11d)

Mike reported that he had received a favourable response to the suggestion that search strategies were detailed in the additional tables section within RevMan. He had sent the recommendation to Phil Alderson as one of the Co-editors of the Handbook Advisory Group.

Reviews on institutional web sites (item 11f)

Wiley still needs to discuss this issue of whether they will be able to provide PDF versions available through the InterScience web site. Andrew agreed to report back to the IMSG when he knows more.
Action: Andrew

Update on prospective copy edit pilot (item 15)

Andrew reported that Brian Southward (copy editor from Wiley) had assisted with the pilot copy-editing project. Sonja advised that the final report on the experience of the CRGs involved had been circulated via CCInfo and was available on the Style Guide web site. Andrew confirmed that Laura Mellor would be the new Cochrane Library Desk Editor at Wiley. The Copy Editing Pilot Project Group’s report has been sent to the QAG and will be discussed by the Steering Group at its meeting in October 2003. In the meantime, the Group had submitted a proposal to continue to develop the Style Guide over the next 12 months. If approved, the Cochrane Style Guide working group will meet quarterly and will increase the number of its members by inviting Laura, along with two new people (one from a non-English speaking country), to join the Group.
Action: Sonja

CENTRAL (item 16b)

Monica had met briefly with Sally Hopewell to learn more about Meerkat and how widely it is used. Eleven CRGs were using or are exploring the use of Meerkat and the support required equated to one person, one day per week. Two CRGs had used Meerkat but had, for reasons unknown to Sally, decided not to continue. Kay reported that currently only one CRG submits its register in Meerkat. Kay would be meeting with Sally after the IMSG meeting to learn more about the software.

Digital object identifiers (item 16c)

Andrew reported that members of the Cochrane Library Users’ Group had raised concern that hyperlinks to reviews may not always be up-to-date. Andrew agreed to respond to this issue on behalf of Wiley.
Action: Andrew

Beta testing of The Cochrane Library on Wiley InterScience (item 16d)

Concern had been raised about the ability to run advanced searches and the ability to save those searches. Andrew reported that Wiley are aware of problem and that Colleen Finley had responded to the concerns (see also item 13.a).

Update on the IMS development

Copyright issues

Concern was raised over the copyright of the new IMS. The programmers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre have developed various systems that include ‘© 2003 The Cochrane Collaboration’ in the About sections. It was agreed that this should be formalised by getting an official assignation of the software to the Collaboration. Rasmus pointed out that such an assignation should also make clear that the developers could not be held responsible for any errors that may follow from using the software. Monica agreed to ask Nick Royle to liaise with Peter Gøtszche to ensure that it was legally possible for developers to assign copyright to the Collaboration in relation to their host institution. Gerd also agreed to liaise with Nick Royle about copyright of the main Collaboration website.
Action: Monica, Gerd

Time schedule

Monica reported that the development of the IMS was on schedule. As reported earlier by Rasmus, the IMS team had moved away from using Quickstream as the basis for the document management part of the new IMS, and a timetable has been developed on the basis of using a J2EE framework and Dralasoft workflow. The time schedule allows the team to work on document management in the first instance, and they hope to be able to present how a reviewer would check reviews in and out of the system at an IMS workshop at the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.Thereafter, the Contact Management System integration will be followed by workflow integration. These items should be ready for testing in the last quarter of 2004.

Andrew confirmed that Wiley would test their systems simultaneously with the beta testing of the new IMS. When the beta version has been tested, the system will be rolled out to a few groups to ensure that any bugs are resolved before releasing the system Collaboration-wide. Mike suggested that the timescale for development should be checked against the Collaboration’s timetable for training, that it should not clash with submission deadlines (both for CDSR and for CENTRAL) and major events such as Colloquia and regional meetings of contributors to The Cochrane Collaboration. Monica said she would take these dates into consideration when planning the project in more detail. Andrew confirmed that he would undertake these comparisons in relation to Wiley’s plans for the production of The Cochrane Library. Monica agreed to add the timescale of the new IMS to the minutes of this and future meetings. The timescale will also be available through the IMS web site to ensure all users are able to follow progress.
Action: Monica, Andrew

It seems likely that RevMan 5 will be delayed compared to the original plan. Instead, the IMS team will plan to develop an interim version, RevMan 4.3, which will allow reviewers to check reviews in and out of the IMS. Two advantages of not releasing RevMan 5 at the same time as the new IMS would be that the CRGs would have more time to change to the new IMS without having to cope with a substantial upgrade of RevMan at the same time and the new IMS would facilitate the central conversion of reviews should this be necessary.

IMS communication plan

Monica explained that the purpose of the Communications Plan was to define all parties with an interest in the IMS project and the means and frequency of communication between them and the IMS team.

Discussion took place about the document and the following items were noted:

• The word ‘Stakeholders’ should be removed from the document, as it was pointed out that all users are stakeholders.
• The plan should be more explicit about Cochrane Centres having a special role (akin to CRGs).
• The plan should be more explicit about the roles of the IMSG members and how those members communicate with their constituents. Elizabeth agreed to be responsible for communicating with users from developing countries.
• It was agreed that it would be appropriate for CRGs to communicate with their reviewers through their own mailing lists. Before this is implemented, Monica agreed to discuss it with RGCs, at their meeting during the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.
• Ad-hoc meetings between Monica and Dave should be changed to monthly meetings.
• Regular meetings have been scheduled between the members of the IMS team and Wiley. The first took place on 11 September and the next meeting is expected to be in December or January. Details of these will be added to the plan.
  Details about the workshop ‘Using the Contact Database’ and the presentation on the survey of people in developing countries should be added to the section for October 2003.
• The planned communication to all CRGs about IMS activities at the Colloquium should be sent to all entities.
• Monica confirmed that a workshop was planned for the 3rd Canadian Cochrane Symposium and agreed to add this to the section for November 2003.
• Details of future Cochrane colloquia should be added, including dates for the relevant deadlines associated with these (e.g. deadlines for abstract submissions)
  Action: Monica

The document will be revised in time for it to be referred to at the Colloquium as appropriate, and it will also be uploaded to the IMS web site. It should be on the agenda of future IMSG meetings.
Action: Monica

Monica confirmed there is a ‘News’ section on the IMS web site, which is used to alert users to new and updated material. The IMSG members would also like an e-mail notification when relevant updates are uploaded (including a hyperlink to the relevant document).
Action: Monica

After discussion of whether it was appropriate for consumers to be represented on the IMSG, Mike agreed to investigate whether it was more appropriate for them to be represented on the RAG.
Action: Mike

Sonja raised the issue of involving the new convenor of the Criticism Management Advisory Group in IMSG meetings. Mike advised that the Steering Group had prepared a draft list of responsibilities in consultation with the Criticism Management Advisory Group. This would be circulated to The Cochrane Collaboration, asking for volunteers. If someone is appointed in time, s/he will join the next IMSG meeting.
Action: Mike

Julian raised the issue of suggested changes to the structure of reviews and whether anyone is compiling a list of such suggestions. Mike advised that some of this was already collected via the RevMan wish list, but that the Cochrane Library Users’ Group could be canvassed specifically for their views on changes to the structure of reviews. Andrew suggested that discussion of what a review looks like could take place in other forums, for instance the CLUG Day. Mike agreed to raise this issue with the Publishing Policy Group in the first instance, and Julian agreed to raise it with the Handbook Advisory Group.
Action: Mike, Julian

IMS training plan

At a meeting on 11 September 2003, Monica, Phil Alderson (Training Director, UK Cochrane Centre) and Sonja had discussed the training needs of members of The Cochrane Collaboration, and in particular the needs of editorial base staff, in the introduction and maintenance of the new IMS. They had agreed that it would be necessary to have a dedicated IMS trainer to support the CRGs. Sonja explained that she and Monica would draft a job description and employee specification and circulate this for input by various groups at the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.
Action: Monica, Sonja

Training needs of reviewers, Cochrane Centres and other entities had also been discussed at the meeting, and these too will be described in an IMS training plan. It was recognised that this plan overlaps with the Communication Plan and Monica agreed to look into whether it was appropriate to merge the two.
Action: Monica

Plans for Barcelona Colloquium

Monica suggested that IMSG members promote the new IMS at every opportunity, and refer interested people to the IMS team if unable to answer possible questions. IMSG members should help to ensure that discussion of the new IMS takes place at relevant meetings. Rasmus agreed to upload a PowerPoint presentation to the IMSG website that could be used by the IMSG members.
Action: Everyone, Rasmus

It was agreed that it would be useful to have a place to put information posters during the Colloquium. Mike agreed to ask to Jordi Pardo if this could be implemented.
Action: Mike

Report from special meeting of RevMan Advisory Group (10 September 2003) on RevMan 5 and the structure of Cochrane reviews

Mike noted that the new IMS was likely to be released in advance of RevMan 5, but that the new RevMan software would be developed in parallel with the IMS. It was currently expected that RevMan 5 would be released towards the end of 2005. Structural changes to RevMan were discussed, and the main changes were to the ‘dates section’. There would be a new field indicating the issue in which the review was last substantively updated. This may impact on the citation, discussion of which could take place at a future RAG meeting.
Action: Mike

Other structural changes included adding a field for the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all references. The RAG members had agreed that now was a good time to reassess the structured format for references, and Kay agreed to bring this up with the CCAG for their advice. For example, should the author field be divided into separate fields for surname and first name, should there be fields that are currently not available, and are there any that are redundant? It had also been suggested that there should be a new field for MeSH terms for the possibility of terms being assigned pre-publication.
Action: Kay

Andrew advised that Simon Newton and Laura Mellor would assess the problems with the current reference format, and might be able to provide recommendations for the future format. He also agreed to raise this issue with Colleen Finley so that she could raise it at the CCAG meeting during the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.
Action: Andrew

It was agreed that a new field should be added for keywords assigned by reviewers, but that editorial bases would make the decision as to whether it would be a pick-list, or whether it would be a free text field. Mike agreed to ask the Information Retrieval Methods Group (not yet registered) for their opinions. Kay advised that MeSH terms and CRG keywords should be stored separately.
Action: Mike

Mike advised that the inclusion of a DOI field for each Cochrane review enable it to be tracked to see how many times it is cited.

It was agreed that a future update of RevMan should include a journal name pick-list based on Index Medicus. Kay agreed to ask the CENTRAL/CCTR Advisory Group to discuss whether to include all journal names listed in Index Medicus.
Action: Kay, Rasmus

Mike advised that a small working group would be established to decide which functionality and formatting should be available in each section of Cochrane reviews. Sonja agreed to ask Harriet MacLehose and a volunteer from the MAG whether they would be interested in joining the group. Kay raised the issue of hyperlinks becoming broken and how to keep them up-to-date as there is no guidance in Handbook.
Action: Sonja, Mike

Integration of third party solutions with RevMan

Monica advised that she had corresponded with Peter O’Blenis from the Chalmer’s Research Group in Ottawa, Canada. They are keen to explore integrating the output of their software, Systematic Review System (SRS), with RevMan. A number of people in the Chalmers Research Group are also Cochrane reviewers who assimilate their data in SRS. The Group is also visiting the Colloquium in Barcelona if anyone would be interested in seeing their software.

DOI and splitting, merging and deleting Cochrane reviews

This item was deferred to the next IMSG meeting. Andrew agreed to summarise the item and forward his summary to the IMSG and the PPG.
Action: Andrew

Specialised registers, CENTRAL and the IMS

Colleen Finley joined the IMSG meeting by teleconference for this item.

Kay explained that each CRG and Field contribute their specialised register quarterly to CENTRAL. CENTRAL comprises specialised registers, handsearch results and a download from MEDLINE (of documents having Randomized-controlled-trial or Controlled-clinical-trial as their publication type). There is also a compiled file that is downloaded from EMBASE but this is not a regular download.

One FTE at the US Cochrane Center processes approximately 80 registers and sends them to Update Software. Kay reported that independent computer programmers had assessed the processing to consider whether the process could be streamlined. She explained that specialised registers have to be corrected when they arrive at the US Cochrane Centre, and that logs are sent to TSCs detailing the mistakes. The US Cochrane Centre has tried to return correct versions of registers to TSCs, but it had not made a substantial difference to the workload. She explained that one reason that CENTRAL is not clean, is that not all TSCs comply with the guidelines.

Andrew advised that the size of CENTRAL makes full refreshing every quarter untenable over the long-term. However, Colleen explained that whilst Update Software was involved in publication of the database, the process would probably continue as it has in the past. She agreed to look into issues relating to not reloading the full database each quarter, but only adding new records.

Andrew agreed to work out the deadlines for specialised register submission for 2004 and publicise this to the TSCs.
Action: Andrew

Monica pointed out that for the new IMS, it would be ideal if CRGs could have their study registers accessible from within the IMS to allow them to link from their reviews to relevant studies. Kay suggested that for The Cochrane Collaboration to evolve, a sustainable system is needed and that possibly the Secretariat or other core resources should help the US Cochrane Centre to convert specialised registers. Kay agreed to discuss the meaning of ‘clean’ with the CENTRAL/CCTR Advisory Group.
Action: Kay

It was agreed that members of the IMSG would discuss CENTRAL with their various constituents to find out their needs, and would report back to the next IMSG meeting.
Action: Everyone

Andrew suggested that Kay meet with other Wiley representatives to assess the broader picture and agreed to arrange a one-day meeting. Monica suggested CENTRAL be discussed more actively at regional meetings. She agreed to add CENTRAL as a standing item on each IMSG meeting agenda.
Action: Andrew, Kay, Monica

www.cochrane.org

Jini Hetherington joined the meeting for the presentation on development of www.cochrane.org.

Update on development

Dave gave a short presentation showing the beta version of the main Collaboration web site. He advised that it will be launched soon, and that the content is in the final stage of development. The Web Content Advisory Group is now actively involved in the process, and user testing will take place in Freiburg at the end of September 2003. The server currently residing in California will serve as a back up to the server in Freiburg, and new servers will be added as necessary in more southern locations of the world.

Web Content Advisory Group

The Web Content Advisory Group will meet during the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003.

Content Management System (CMS) functions

OpenCms will be used by the various contents editors for maintaining the text for which they are responsible. OpenCms is free, intuitive, available for commercial hosting and mirroring, works with an Apache server and has easy XML integration. It works as a check in/check out system for each document and allows administrators to create documents. Dave and Georg Koch have ensured that the new system is able to present web pages the way the Collaboration prefers. Dave advised that training for web editing would take place after the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003. He confirmed that the Style Guide is being adhered to.

Dave raised the issue of blocking e-mail address harvesting, and discussion took place on how to block robot access to e-mail addresses that are currently shown on the web site. There was a general agreement that Dave should implement as many restrictions as possible. Dave agreed to send the page template, and the architecture of the web pages to Kay so that the US Cochrane Centre could use the pages as templates. Dave suggested that any other comments or questions should be sent to him by 19 September. Jini reminded everyone that Nick is carrying out an evaluation of web sites throughout the Collaboration.
Action: Dave

Plans for Barcelona Colloquium

Dave reiterated that the web site would be presented at the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003 via workshops and a poster. At the time of the launch, the site will be based on static pages (the move to OpenCms will happen after the Colloquium).

Bi-annual report to the Steering Group

Monica reported that she had to write the bi-annual report for the Steering Group meeting at the Cochrane Colloquium in October 2003. She confirmed that there would be a separate report about the IMS submitted to the Steering Group. Gerd agreed to consider the questions that might be asked of the IMSG by the Steering Group and to send any suggestions to Monica before 26 September 2003.
Action: Monica, Gerd

Proposal for co-convenor of the IMSG

This item was deferred.

Any other business

Wiley InterScience site

Colleen Finley joined the IMSG meeting by teleconference for this item.

Colleen reported that over 100 people had viewed the beta web site and there had been good feedback throughout the process.

The main issues when the beta-version is further developed are to enable the MeSH thesaurus (to be implemented in October 2003), and more complex searching. The site will contain information about national provision (product) pages. A new beta-version will be launched at the end of December 2003 including additional functionality.

Questions about the beta site should be directed to Colleen Finley (cfinley@wiley.com).

Date of next meeting

Monica agreed to canvass the IMSG for dates in early December 2003 or January 2004.