Minutes of the RevMan Advisory Group Meeting held at the UK Cochrane Centre on Monday 30 November 1998

Minutes approved on ?

Present: Phil Alderson, Christopher Cates, Mike Clarke (chair & minutes), Jon Deeks (for part of meeting), Lelia Duley, Monica Fischer, Seokyung Hahn, Sonja Henderson, Rasmus Moustgaard, Mark Starr, Lindsay Stead.

In attendance: Jacob Riis (Nordic Cochrane Centre).

Contents:
Welcome and apologies for absence
Correction and approval of the minutes of the last meeting
Matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting
Statistical methods in MetaView
Mandate of the RevMan Advisory Group
Membership of the RevMan Advisory Group
Short titles
Proposed timeline for release of RevMan 4.0
Discussion of alpha version of RevMan 4.0
Plans for beta testing of RevMan 4.0
Documentation for RevMan 4.0
Wishlist for RevMan 5.0 etc
Implications for The Cochrane Library
Comments and Criticisims
Next meeting

Welcome and apologies for absence

Mike welcomed everyone to his first meeting as convenor of the RevMan Advisory Group. Phil Alderson and Seokyung Hahn were especially welcomed to their first meeting of the RevMan Advisory Group. Seokyung replaces Rieve Robb on the Group. Apologies had been received from Clive Adams.

Correction and approval of the minutes of the last meeting

The minutes of the last meeting (12 May 1998) were approved, subject to a change in section 2c to clarify that guidance was also needed on how to cite a particular reference for a study with more than one reference.

Matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting

1. Section 2c: The citing of a particular reference for a study with more than one reference would be done by adding the relevant reference to the "Additional references" section. This needs to be noted in the User Guide.
   Action: Mike
2. Other matters arising would be dealt with under the relevant items on the Agenda for this meeting.

Statistical methods in MetaView

1. Jon had prepared a document which shows the statistical methods (including the formulae) used within MetaView. Rasmus has converted this from Latex into Word. It was agreed that the document should become an appendix to the version of the Cochrane Reviewers' Handbook which will be released with RevMan 4.0 (ie, Handbook 4.0). Mark agreed that it would be satisfactory for Update Software to receive the documentation when they receive Handbook 4.0 in May 1999.
   Action: Mike
2. In the interim, because this document applies equally to RevMan 3.x, it will be made available on the Cochrane website, once Jon has checked that the conversion (from Latex to Word) did not introduce any errors. The RevMan email discussion list will be informed when the document is on the website
   Action: Jon, Rasmus
3. Jon and Doug Altman are still working on a paper commenting on the use of the different statistical methods.
   Action: Jon
4. Jon will liaise with Mike on the updating of the statistical sections of Handbook 4.0.
   Action: Mike, Jon
5. The option for statistical testing between subgroups needs to be removed from RevMan 4.0 as this was not supported by the Statistical Methods Group in its report to the last meeting of the RevMan Advisory Group.
   Action: Rasmus
6. Funnel plots: Rasmus demonstrated the new funnel plot software. i. It was agreed that this should use the same scale and statistical method chosen by the reviewer as their default in MetaView. When a log-scale is chosen, the horizontal axis should be labelled with standard logarithmic intervals.
   Action: Rasmus
7. A note should be added to the funnel plot to indicate that it will not be displayed when the review is published on The Cochrane Library.
   Action: Rasmus
8. It was agreed that the principle that users of Cochrane reviews should be able to view the graphs available to a reviewer within RevMan, should also apply to funnel plots. This needs to be taken to the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group.
   Action: Monica

Mandate of the RevMan Advisory Group

1. The sections outlining the expectations on members of the RevMan Advisory Group and on the Group as a whole were agreed.
2. It was clarified that the role of the RevMan Advisory Group is to make recommendations to the Software Development Group who then make recommendations to the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group for decision.
3. It was agreed that the mandate document, which currently deals with the RevMan and ModMan Advisory Groups, should be revised to add the mandate of the new Comments and Criticisms Software Advisory Group and of the Software Development Group. This revised document would then be circulated to members of these groups for comment.
   Action: Monica

Membership of the RevMan Advisory Group

1. It was agreed that the following types of users of RevMan must be represented on the RevMan Advisory Group: reviewers, Review Group Coordinators and trainers of users; but that it is difficult to assign people to "constituencies" finer than these. It was agreed that the representation of the latter two categories is adequate but that extra reviewers are needed - in particular inexperienced reviewers. These would be sought through the RevMan email discussion and the RevMan training workshops. A message will also be sent to ADMINORS to suggest that an article is included in CRG Newsletters.
   Action: Mike, Phil, Sonja, Lindsay
2. It was agreed that it would be useful to obtain comments about RevMan from reviewers who use older computers but it was recognised that the majority of such users would be from outside the UK and unable to attend meetings of the RevMan Advisory Group. Instead, Lelia will give details of some suitable people to Rasmus for him to contact.
   Action: Lelia, Rasmus

Short titles

1. With the recent revisions to long titles, short titles should no longer be needed. It was agreed that the only titles in RevMan should be the "long" ones and that short title fields should be removed. The long titles would continue to be limited to 256 characters as it was not clear that a shorter limit would not cause problems. However, the guidance should recommend that reviewers try to keep their titles as short as possible. When short titles are imported into RevMan 4.0 during the conversion step, these will be stored in the Private Notes field rather than being lost.
   Action: Rasmus
2. This recommendation will need to be considered by the Software Development Group .
   Action: Monica

Proposed timeline for release of RevMan 4.0

1. Beta testing will take place from 1 March to 30 April 1999. The live version of RevMan 4.0 will be released generally on 19 July and the Nordic Cochrane Centre will provide a conversion hotline on some days between 20 July and 31 August to deal with installation problems. The exact days are still to be determined. The subsequent deadline for submissions to The Cochrane Library is 27 October and protocols and reviews must be in RevMan 4.0 format. Responsibility for the conversion of reviews from RevMan 3.x to RevMan 4.0 will lie with the Collaborative Review Groups - it will not be feasible for Update Software to do it.
2. This timeline needs to be widely disseminated as soon as possible after the relationship of the testing of RevMan to the testing of ModMan is agreed. The timeline will need to be accompanied by details of the hardware requirements and a notice that the final date for submissions of reviews using RevMan 3.x is 14 July 1999. It was suggested that this dissemination could be done by sending postcards to everyone on the Cochrane contacts database. Monica and Mark will discuss this further.
   Action: Monica, Mark
3. A decision still needs to be made about whether the live version of RevMan 4.0 should be released to Review Group Coordinators in advance of 19 July 1999 and about the distribution process for the software. This will be discussed by the Software Development Group.
   Action: Monica
4. A list of things to check after converting a review from RevMan 3.x to RevMan 4.0 will be drawn up following the beta testing.
   Action: Rasmus

Discussion of alpha version of RevMan 4.0

1. a. The following issues, which had been identified at the Colloquium or subsequently, were discussed:
   1. It will be possible to paste data from a Word or WordPerfect table into a RevMan table, one row at a time.
   2. A simple search has been implemented which will allow reviews to be selected (for example on the basis of a specific items in their notes field). All selected reviews could then be exported to ModMan.
   3. The data source (ie, published, unpublished, etc) will be shown next to each study when the study references are printed.
   4. When reviews are converted from RevMan 3.x into RevMan 4.0, the software will attempt to parse the reference into the new fields as though it was a journal article being cited in the Vancouver style. The entire citation will be placed in the "Notes" field (to be renamed "Unpublished notes" - see below). Therefore, if a reviewer currently stores information on ongoing studies in the "citation" for such references, they will need to cut and paste this into the new section of RevMan 4.0 concerned with Ongoing studies (Characteristics of Ongoing Studies).
   5. The implementation of shortcuts by key combinations to various screens will be investigated.
      Action: Rasmus
   6. It was agreed that it should be possible to paste data from a spreadsheet into the double data entry screens.
      Action: Rasmus
   7. It was agreed that all study tables should be printed in columns.
      Action: Rasmus
   8. It was agreed that the reference IDs currently shown in the tree structure should be replaced by the formatted citations. The possibility of using a different icon in the tree structure to indicate the primary reference for a study will be investigated. If only one reference exists, this should be shown as the primary reference.
      Action: Rasmus
   9. It was agreed that, where possible, any study or reference IDs that were found when importing reviews from RevMan 3.x into RevMan 4.0 should be converted to links.
      Action: Rasmus
   10. It was agreed that the fields relevant to a particular reference type should be highlighted (probably by colour) when the reference type is selected.
       Action: Rasmus
   11. It was agreed that the two-character tags for each reference field should be shown on the references screen and that these tags should be the same as those used in CENTRAL/CCTR.
       Action: Rasmus
   12. It was agreed that the ID number field on the references screen should be divided into two fields: "MEDLINE ID" and "Other ID numbers".
       Action: Rasmus
   13. It was agreed that the "Notes" field in the reference screen should be renamed to "Unpublished notes" and that a blank line should be added to separate this field from the others on this screen.
       Action: Rasmus
   14. It was agreed that there should be an option to view the formatted citation for a reference at the time that its information is being input.
       Action: Rasmus
   15. It was agreed that a facility should be added to export all references as tagged text. This will allow all of the references to be reviewed in a single place or to import the references into reference management software.
       Action: Rasmus
   16. It was agreed that an "Add study" button should be added to the characteristics and data entry screens.
       Action: Rasmus
   17. It was agreed that reviewers could add a World Wide Web address to the text of their review but that direct links from this to the relevant site would not be supported.
       Action: Rasmus
   18. It was agreed that the reviewer should be given three options when importing a review which already seems to exist: (1) overwrite, (2) make a copy, and (3) do not import.
       Action: Rasmus
   19. It was agreed that "Copies" of reviews should be renamed to "Versions" of reviews to avoid ambiguity about the "primary copy".
       Action: Rasmus
   20. It was agreed that a warning should be given if the reviewer tries to export a review which is not the "primary version". This warning should note that such reviews cannot be imported into ModMan.
       Action: Rasmus
   21. It was agreed that the relevant issue numbers of The Cochrane Library (rather than calendar dates) should be shown for "Date protocol first published" and "Date review first published".
       Action: Rasmus
   22. It was agreed that the date of last substantive update should be shown on the titles screen but that it could not be edited there.
       Action: Rasmus
   23. It was agreed that the "search" and "find/replace" commands should give the reviewer the option to search from the top of a document.
       Action: Rasmus
   24. It was agreed that links to references would show the Reference ID or the Study ID and the reviewer would need to add the appropriate punctuation. Likewise, table call outs should simply show "table X" and the reviewer would need to add the appropriate punctuation to this.
       Action: Rasmus
   25. It was agreed that the reviewer's selections for the column widths and row heights of tables should be saved to their next session.
       Action: Rasmus
   26. It was agreed that private notes should not be printed. If a reviewer wished to print these they would need to do so via the clipboard. The print selection screen would be modified to make it clear that the selection of Notes did not include the Private Notes.
       Action: Rasmus
   27. If a reviewer wishes to split a review into two, they should create two new reviews and cut and paste into these from the old review. This will need to be noted in the RevMan User Guide.
       Action: Mike
   28. It was agreed that an egg-timer (rather than the regular cursor) should be displayed when the program is working.
       Action: Rasmus
2. Any further comments on the alpha version which might require immediate action are to be passed to Rasmus by 4 December.
   Action: Everyone

Plans for beta testing of RevMan 4.0

1. The RevMan Bulletin distributed at the Colloquium had included an advert for beta testers and some people had volunteered.
2. A draft registration form for beta testers was circulated. Comments on this should be given to Monica as soon as possible for finalisation by 4 December. This form will then be disseminated as widely as possible with the deadline for the registration of beta testers being mid-February.
   Action: Everyone, Monica
3. The material for beta testers will need to be reviewed before release. Chris and Mike volunteered to help with this.
   Action: Monica, Chris, Mike
4. A sample review will be packaged with the beta-version of RevMan 4.0.
   Action: Rasmus

Documentation for RevMan 4.0

The Documentation Subgroup (Mike [chair], Jon, Monica, Rasmus, Jacob and Claire Glenton) met immediately before the RevMan Advisory Group meeting and will meet again afterwards. Separate minutes will be prepared for that Group and circulated to the RevMan Advisory Group.
Action: Mike

Wishlist for RevMan 5.0 etc

This will replace the current wishlist for RevMan 4.0 and, as now, will be maintained by the Nordic Cochrane Centre.

Implications for The Cochrane Library

Mark Starr reminded everyone that any decisions about the structure of RevMan have potential implications for the publication of Cochrane Reviews in The Cochrane Library.

Comments and Criticisims

RevMan 4.0 contains three sections for each "comment and criticism": SUMMARY of the comment, REPLY by the reviewer(s) and CONTRIBUTORS.

Next meeting

This will need to be close to the end of the beta testing. A suitable day between mid-April and 7 May will be decided at the Software Development Group meeting on 1 December. (Post hoc note: the next RevMan Advisory Group will be on 28 April from 11am-4pm).

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