Minutes of the Information Management System Group meeting held at the UK Cochrane Centre, Oxford on 28 March 2001

Minutes approved on 12 September 2001

Present: Gerd Antes, Chris Cates, Mike Clarke, Monica Fischer (Convenor), Sonja Henderson, Julian Higgins, Rasmus Moustgaard, Mark Starr, Phil Wiffen.

In attendance: Claire Allen (minutes).

Contents:
Welcome
Approval of agenda
Potential conflict of interest
Approval of minutes and matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting (7 December 2000)
Feedback from Criticism Management Advisory Group
Matters arising from the RAG meeting and other issues concerning RevMan
Needs assessment survey
MetaView 4.1 with the CD-ROM version of The Cochrane Library
Feedback and matters arising from the MAG meeting
Feedback from the Steering Group in response to the IMSG report and budget
Any other business
Date of next meeting

Welcome

Monica welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Approval of agenda

The agenda was approved. Monica added the items 'Name change and expansion of the group' and Chris Cates added 'Feedback from the Criticism Management Advisory Group meeting'. It was agreed to take the second item before item 6 of the agenda.

Potential conflict of interest

• Gerd Antes: Representing the Steering Group. No potential conflicts known, but possibly in relation to the German Cochrane Centre's responsibility for managing the Collaboration web site.
• Chris Cates: Convenor of the CritMan Software Advisory Group and the Criticism Management Advisory Group; the latter looks at non-software aspects of the comments and criticisms system.
• Mike Clarke: Convenor of the RevMan Advisory Group. Representing the Steering Group. Editor of the Reviewers' Handbook.
• Monica Fischer: Convenor of the IMSG. Co-ordinator of software development at the Nordic Cochrane Centre.
• Sonja Henderson: Convenor of the ModMan Advisory Group. Review Group Co-ordinator of the largest review group which desperately requires a tracking system.
• Julian Higgins: Representing the Statistical Methods Group. Co-editor of the statistical section of the Reviewers' Handbook.
• Rasmus Moustgaard: Technical Advisory. Ex-officio. Working on software development at the Nordic Cochrane.
• Mark Starr: Representing Update Software. Involvement in the development of commercial software e.g. Metaxis, and software for the Cochrane Collaboration as publisher of The Cochrane Library.
• Phil Wiffen: Representing co-ordinating editors. No potential conflicts known.

Approval of minutes and matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting (7 December 2000)

Monica advised everyone that they should send any comments on the minutes to her by 4 April. After this the minutes would appear on the web site as formally approved. For future set of minutes, it was agreed that members would be given two weeks in which to provide comments. Following this, the minutes would be corrected as necessary and be added to the web site specifying clearly that these minutes were awaiting formal approval at the next meeting of the Group.
1. XML Codes - Items 3f and 9b
   Rasmus agreed to follow up on matters concerning XML coding with Lois (specifically for reviews and the steering group module).
   Action: Rasmus
2. Importing reviews from RevMan 4.1 - Item 5iii
   Mark had not yet passed relevant information to Rasmus with regard to the problems Update Software had experienced when importing reviews from RevMan 4.1. Rasmus agreed to discuss these problems directly with Lois.
   Action: Rasmus
3. Collaborative Review Group glossaries - recommendation - Item 6
   Mike advised that the Executive would discuss comments on the combined glossary on 3 April. It was agreed by everyone that the glossary could not be published in the form it was in now and that it would take considerable work to convert it into a meaningful document. It was agreed that Sonja should flag in the ModMan Guidelines that there was a place for a glossary and that people could use it. Mike agreed to feed back from the Executive meeting.
   Action: Sonja, Mike
4. Feedback and matters arising from the ModMan Advisory Group meeting on 6 December 2000 - Item 8
   Mike reported that Lois had agreed to provide him with suggestions for non-CRG citations.
5. MetaView bugs - Item 10
   Mark agreed to check that that all bugs concerning MetaView and The Cochrane Library were posted to the web site and it was agreed that information on these bugs should be available to users of The Cochrane Library.
   Action: Mark
6. Feedback from the Steering Group
   Monica expressed her thanks at the Steering Group's decision to approve the budget for the IMSG. She asked that if people attended two or three meetings of software development advisory groups (MAG, RAG or IMSG) that they claim from the IMSG budget. The budget had been submitted so that three meetings per year could be held in the UK and one in Denmark. A form to claim expenses claim would be available from Monica and should be accompanied by original receipts.
   Action: All
7. Contact Management System - Item 13
   The Contact Management System Group is yet to be established and it was agreed to defer the establishment until the results from the needs assessment survey are available.
8. Collaboration web site - Item 14.C
   Gerd reported that he had been successful in obtaining funding from a health insurance company for a full-time member of staff for one year.

Feedback from Criticism Management Advisory Group

Chris reported that the web based system now seemed to be working. He outlined the process that took place whenever a criticism was submitted and advised that Melissa Ober would take responsibility for checking contact details of Criticism Editors bi-annually.

The Criticism Editors had asked if it was possible to list the comments on the web site in chronological order and whether they could be flagged once they had been dealt with. Discussion took place on whether this web site could be used as a tracking device for comments but this was considered inappropriate at this time.

In relation to tracking comments, Rasmus agreed to extract active comments and criticisms text boxes from the Parent Database, to send to Melissa on a quarterly basis to help keep her informed of the status of submitted comments.
Action: Rasmus

Chris agreed to update the document 'The Comments and Criticisms system - some questions and answers (13 December 2000)' as this was already out of date and to re-circulate it to all the e-mail discussion lists and Georg Koch for inclusion on the web site.
Action: Chris

Mark agreed to update the 'Comments/Criticisms' button in the CD-ROM version of the Cochrane Library as Chris advised that this was taking people to the old web site for comments and criticisms. It was suggested that the 'Conflict of Interest' text box should be emptied but after discussion, it was agreed to add the text 'Edit if necessary' prior to the sentence.
Action: Mark

Mark agreed to investigate, if people do not complete their contact details, whether it is possible to prevent submission of their comment.
Action: Mark

Matters arising from the RAG meeting and other issues concerning RevMan

1. Additional graphs in Cochrane reviews
   It was agreed that the preferred option to include additional graphs was to issue a non-mandatory version of RevMan 4.2, which would be able to include graphical images. In the interim, it was agreed that Phil Wiffen and Tess Moore's offer that PaPaS and Heart, respectively test the suggested system of including additional graphs as .gif files.
2. Inverse variance meta-analysis in RevMan
   Several problems with adding the inverse variance method to RevMan were identified, and a number of possibilities were discussed concerning the entering of data, the calculation of data, and the display of data. Monica and Rasmus agreed to draw up a list of the various possibilities, including their pros and cons, and circulate this to the other members of the Group so that a plan to move forward can be agreed upon. Julian would canvass his constituent for their views - in particular whether a small program could be made available to do inverse variance analyses as an interim solution. Mark agreed to report on Update Software's plans for MetaView. Once it was agreed how to move the issue forward, Monica would recommend the course of events to the Steering Group.
   Action: Julian, Monica, Mark, Rasmus
3. Discussion took place about revisiting the Collaboration's policy about providing the users of the Cochrane Library means to do the same data manipulation as can be done in RevMan. An alternative would be to only display the graphical images, which the reviewer thinks is relevant. This could help to introduce new methods in RevMan (e.g. inverse variance) more quickly. However, if this line was pursued it was agreed that it should be possible to export data from the Cochrane Library, which would allow users with a special interest to re-analyse data in another program (e.g. RevMan). Monica agreed to raise this issue at the PPG teleconference on 3 April.
   Action: Monica

Needs assessment survey

Mike had reported the status of the survey in the RevMan meeting earlier in the day. Julian reported that Paul Whatling had agreed to set up the web based data entry survey. Julian agreed to advise Paul of the intended timescale for the survey. Mike reported that once amendments had been made, the survey should reach Julian by mid-May.
Action: Julian

The following people should receive the survey in their own right:

• Contact reviewers (data would be taken from the Parent Database).
• Co-reviewers.
• Anyone involved in editorial bases.
• Methods Group e-mail discussion list.
• Contact people for registered titles.

The NCC will compile the mailing list based on data from the Parent Database and additional data provided by entities. Mike agreed to check the mailing list for duplicate names. It was agreed to make the mailing list available to centres for information along with a copy of the survey. This would allow them to send the survey to anyone they thought appropriate, who was not on the list
Action: Rasmus, Monica, Mike

Mike asked for any feedback on the survey by 12 April and he agreed that there should be two versions of the survey, one for editorial bases and one for all other responses.
Action: Everyone

MetaView 4.1 with the CD-ROM version of The Cochrane Library

Monica agreed to remind all RGCs just prior to the release of MetaView 4.1 on The Cochrane Library that default statistics would now be displayed on the CD-ROM version (32 bit systems only) as well as on the Internet version. Various inconsistencies between the CD-ROM and Internet versions of MetaView had been reported and Monica agreed to provide a list of these to Mark. Mark reported that MetaView 4.1 is not likely to be released with Issue 2, 2001 of The Cochrane Library and agreed to compile a list of implications and options.
Action: Monica, Mark

Feedback and matters arising from the MAG meeting

Sonja reported that beta testing was completed on ModMan 4.1 but because the MAG had recommended the validation rules that Lois had proposed, the release date had been delayed until probably June 2001 (just after the European RGCs' meeting). It had been agreed to convene a special one-day meeting, probably in early June to discuss tracking in detail.
Action: Sonja

Sonja expressed the need for co-ordination of the tracking issues and Mike advised that the new person's role at the Secretariat would cover the mapping of the review process within the first two months of them starting the job. He was explicit that the new person would not be evaluating software however. Rasmus agreed to draw up specifications on the basis of the material prepared by Sonja.
Action: Rasmus

It was agreed to explore hiring a student for work experience to evaluate the commercial software available. Phil agreed to speak to his son who was at Imperial College, London and Mike agreed to speak to Carol Lefebvre who had contacts at Loughborough University.
Action: Phil, Mike

Feedback from the Steering Group in response to the IMSG report and budget

The CCSG had confirmed that the IMSG should be responsible for overseeing the development of any software developed in-house, which is to be used Collaboration-wide. Monica agreed to write to the Norwegian branch of the Nordic Cochrane Centre advising them that the IMSG should be kept informed about the development and maintenance of the Titles Manager System that is now used by all editorial bases.
Action: Monica

It was also agreed that the IMS Group should expand their membership taking more members from outside the UK. It was further requested that the IMSG consider a plan for five-year funding (reporting to the Steering Group in October 2001) although funding would be approved on a annual basis only.
Action: Monica

Any other business

1. Article for Cochrane News Monica advised that she had written an article for Cochrane News about the new name of the group, the proposed expansion of its international membership, and the new advisory groups to be formed. She would circulate this via e-mail to get input from the Group.
   Action: Monica

Date of next meeting

Provisionally 12 September 2001 in Copenhagen.
Action: Monica

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