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IMS Bulletin #80 (19 December 2008)

This is the last IMS Bulletin for 2008. We look forward to working with you next year.
Happy holiday and all the best for 2009!

Index

  1. Details of latest Archie deployment (10 December 2008) - important new features:
    (a) PDF versions of reviews and review reports
    (b) Super Users of entities other than a person’s Primary Entity can now create User Accounts
    (c) Super Users are now alerted when a User Account is created for a person who has an Entity Role with them
    (d) Publication History Graph can now be viewed in table format
    (e) Author Document Roles and Entity Roles are now linked
  2. Reminders: Authors should be advised to open RevMan 5 and check out their RevMan file from Archie before starting to prepare a new protocol, new review or updated review
  3. Licence for Publication forms in RevMan 5
  4. Tip: Use Validate as You Type option in RevMan 5 to help you identify missing study data
  5. Update on Workflow pilot
  6. Questions of the week:
    (a) How long are the Archie backups kept?
    (b) Can an author check in a RevMan 5 file which was not first checked out from Archie?

1. Details of latest Archie deployment (10 December 2008) - important new features

The latest deployment of Archie (version 2.3) took place on Wednesday, 10 December 2008 – see Help > What’s new for details of all Archie deployments.

Several important new features, many developed in response to your feedback, have been included in this deployment.

  • PDF versions of reviews and other documents: The document viewer in Archie now includes a Download PDF button. The addition of this new feature means that you can now create full reviews as PDFs from Archie (if you choose the document viewer ’RevMan + Graphs view' option first) without checking the review out to RevMan 5.
  • Super Users of entities other than a person’s Primary Entity can now create User Accounts for people in Archie.
  • Super Users are now alerted when a User Account is created for a person who has an Entity Role with them as long as the Super User has set his/her Notifications settings to receive notification when a record for a member of their entity has been modified. To check if your Notifications settings are correctly set, please go to the Settings tab of your Archie record and click Edit Notifications .... We recommend that Super Users select all the options available to them.
  • Publication History Graph can now be viewed in table format: Right-click on CRG name and choose Reports > Statistics > Publication History Graph, tick the Table view option, and click Update View.
  • Author Document Roles and Entity Roles are now linked: For example, if you or an author checks a review into Archie which includes a new author who has a record in Archie but currently no Entity Role with your Group, the Entity Role ’Author’ will automatically be added to their Document Roles in Archie.

2. Reminders

We have had reports and experience of authors trying to check in drafts of reviews which they have not checked out of Archie. As you know, the checking out and checking in system in Archie is an essential part of Archie’s version control system. An author cannot check in a draft to Archie (to share with their review team or editorial base) if they have not first of all checked it out of Archie. You should therefore always instruct authors to check their RevMan file out of Archie before starting to work on the next stage of their review, including the preparation of the first draft of the protocol for a newly registered title. You should also advise authors not to create copies of the RevMan file they check out of Archie; instead, they should either check their edited version back into Archie daily (the ideal situation) or save one version only of their RevMan file locally.

We are preparing tips for authors (in response to your feedback) which will reinforce these recommendations. In the meantime, please remember to refer all authors to the 'Quick start guide for authors using Archie' at http://www.cc-ims.net/authors. We will inform you when the tips for authors has been uploaded to this page too.

3. Licence for Publication Forms in RevMan 5

There are now four Licence for Publication forms in RevMan 5 (currently labelled 'Author Declaration of Interest and Licence for Publication):

  1. One for protocols for Intervention and Methodology Reviews
  2. One for full reviews for Intervention and Methodology Reviews
  3. One for protocols for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews
  4. One for full reviews for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews

Separate forms must be signed for all new citation versions of intervention/methodology protocols and reviews, a copy of which must be sent to the Secretariat before the protocol or review is published.

Please note that the above forms are separate from the new Declaration of Interest questionnaire, which is not available in RevMan, and which is kept on file by the CRG and used by them to determine whether the information on potential conflicts of interest in the protocol/review is adequate.

There are currently no Licence for Publication forms for Overview of Reviews.

4. Tip: Use Validate as You Type in RevMan 5 to identify missing study data

The RevMan 5 Validation Report (File > Reports > Validation Report) will provide a warning if there are study data missing in the review but the report will not inform you of the study or the outcome from which the data are missing. A quick way to identify the missing study data is to turn on the Validate as You Type option (Tools > Validate as You Type) in RevMan 5.

5. Update on Workflow pilot

We met with the full IMS team in Copenhagen on 11 to 13 December, during which we discussed the results of Stage 1 of the Workflow pilot. As a result of our discussions, we are pleased to inform you that we are now moving forward to the second stage of the pilot. As detailed in Monica Kjeldstrom’s email of 11 December 2008, Stage 2 of the pilot will not start until after the February quarterly module submission deadline in order to give the developers time to implement the wishes submitted by the Stage 1 pilot CRGs, and to avoid starting Stage 2 close to the February quarterly submission deadline.

As mentioned in Monica’s email, if you are interested in joining the Stage 2 pilot, please contact her direct. We will then follow up your expressions of interest individually before confirming the CRGs that will join the Stage 2 pilot.

6. Question(s) of the week

Question A: How long are the Archie backups kept?

Answer: The IMS is backed up to a separate physical location every 24 hours. A backup file contains all the data in Archie. Each backup file is kept for a minimum of one week. After a week, only one file per week is kept, and for files older than a month, one file per month is kept. Backups would only be used in exceptional circumstances (for example, where a large amount of data within Archie have been damaged) and would not be used to retrieve a draft version of a review which has been mistakenly deleted.

Question B: Can an author check in a RevMan 5 file which was not first checked out from Archie?

Answer: No, but they can send it to the CRG, who can do it. As a CRG Super User, you can override the version number check. As long as either the ID or title matches exactly, the RevMan file is checked in as a new version of the existing review in Archie.

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