3.2.3.4 Providing technical support

The editorial base of a Cochrane Review Group has to be able to provide technical support to authors on methods, applying inclusion criteria, statistical and data analysis, use of software, and electronic means of communication. Prompt support of authors helps to maintain momentum and avoids delay. In many circumstances, the Managing Editor will be the first person approached to support authors. The Co-ordinating Editor needs to ensure that systems are in place to ensure prompt response to queries. Editors are unlikely to have the skills or knowledge to be able to answer all the questions an author might raise. In these circumstances editors can consult their reference Cochrane Centre, or get in touch with others in The Cochrane Collaboration (for example, a member of one of the Methods Groups), to help solve the problem.

Authors may need technical support with using the RevMan software. If the editorial team has organized proper computing support, they will be able to help and advise authors who raise technical questions.

Each new team should ensure that all authors of the review fulfil the authorship requirements. Authors who have not had direct involvement with the present version of the review should probably not be quoted as authors but should be acknowledged. A form is required to be signed by all authors before final inclusion in The Cochrane Library.

Editorial teams must develop systems to monitor the progress of their Group’s reviews, from title to protocol stage and from protocol to completed review stage, so that delays in finalising protocols/reviews can be identified. This will allow the editorial team to identify which authors may be in need of help and also to ensure that the users of The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews are kept informed of when new reviews will be available.

Authors therefore need to supply a date by which a protocol will become a full review (usually 18-24 months). However, editorial teams should probably avoid imposing rigid deadlines on authors, since there is great variability in the time needed to produce reviews, depending on the subject of the review and the experience and workload of the authors.

Maintaining the review is one of the most important aspects of Cochrane reviews and one that sets them apart from most non-Cochrane systematic reviews. Whilst it must ultimately remain the author’s responsibility to update the review in the light of comments from others or new evidence, the editorial team must be able to monitor their Group’s reviews and identify those that may be seriously out of date. This will prove extremely difficult once the number of reviews grows, but some potential means of achieving this are:

• reminders to authors
• trials have been added to the reviews, and if so what their status is (i.e. included/excluded, ongoing/awaiting assessment). Software (‘Meerkat’) to assemble and manage specialist registers was developed by the UK Cochrane Centre and Update Software (www.update-software.com/meerkat/).

Editorial teams may have to consider removing protocols or reviews from their module if the authors concerned do not turn protocols into reviews or update reviews in a timely manner. Authors may also leave the Group, and unless replacements can be found their reviews will probably have to be ‘put to sleep’ until a new author is identified. Reviews that become out of date will eventually be removed from The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the abstract submitted to The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects.