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The Criticism Management System for the Cochrane Library
Melissa Ober1, Ryo Shohara, Drummond Rennie
1University of California, San Francisco, USA.
Evaluation & the Health Professions
|March 1, 2002
Summary
The Cochrane Collaboration
Area of Science:
- Health Sciences
- Medical Informatics
- Evidence-Based Medicine
Background:
- The Cochrane Collaboration introduced a system for managing reader criticisms of reviews in 1997.
- This system, The Cochrane Library's Criticism Management System, underwent three versions due to resource limits and user input.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the effectiveness and user engagement of the Criticism Management System.
- To identify challenges and areas for improvement in managing feedback on Cochrane reviews.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of the implementation and evolution of the Criticism Management System.
- Review of system access, automation features, submission rates, and author response rates.
Main Results:
- The system experienced challenges with access and automation.
- Low submission rates (171 criticisms per 1,388 reviews) and low author response rates (26 published responses) were observed.
- These metrics indicate underutilization by readers and authors.
Conclusions:
- The current Criticism Management System is not effectively facilitating reader feedback on Cochrane reviews.
- Improvements are needed in system usability and strategies to encourage reader feedback and author responses.