IMS Bulletin (4 February 2005)
Index
- Managing contact details during the interim period
- Reminder: change of word 'reviewer' to 'author'
- Questions of the week
1. Managing contact details during the interim period
As you know, the primary source of data for contact details is now the IMS and not CRG modules. This means that you should be maintaining up-to-date contact details for all your authors (new as well as existing) in the IMS and duplicating this information in your 'published' RevMan. The most efficient way to do this is to enter all changes to contact details in the IMS first, export the updated record(s) from the IMS, and import them into your RevMan (for details, see section 5 of the Review Group FAQ, under Guidelines in the IMS Help Topics list). If you do this, then when an author sends you a review and you import it into RevMan, you will be alerted to any differences between the contact details the author has sent you and those in the IMS and can make the necessary changes in the IMS if appropriate. (As many of you will be aware, sometimes the contact details submitted by the author in the RevMan file are not correct.)
The IMS team appreciate the work that CRGs are doing to keep the IMS up-to-date and understand that during this interim period, this may involve more rather than less work. To help, Jacob Riis has been importing contact details from the Parent Database to the IMS every quarter and providing you with reports to alert you to the results so that you can take the appropriate actions. As you know, a problem arose during the most recent import, and this has created additional work for some CRGs at an already busy time; we apologize for this. We (the IMS team) are presently considering whether we should continue to import contact details from the Parent Database on a regular basis. We will write to request your views on this issue sometime after the current module deadline.
For information on what you need to do in response to the report you recently received from Jacob, see question (b) under Questions of the week , below.
2. Reminder: change of word 'reviewer' to 'author'
In the 10 December 2004 Bulletin we reported, as part of the feedback from the Information Management System Group, that the decision to replace the word 'reviewer' with 'author' would take effect from January 2005. We thought it might be helpful to remind you that this means that all new reviews and protocols for the February module submission should use the word author and not 'reviewer'. You may have noticed that in The Cochrane Library, Issue 1, 2005, Wiley have mentioned in their release note that all fixed headings have been edited to reflect this policy, but they also, reassuringly, mention that "This change in terminology has not, however, taken place automatically within the text of published protocols and reviews but will evolve as updates occur."
3. Questions of the week
(a) Question: Why does the entity role Co-author exist in the IMS if we are not required to use it?
Answer: The entity role Co-author is available because some groups may wish to use it, but its use is not required. To quote the FAQ:
"[Use of the Co-author role] is not required.
-When we imported the review author contact details, we decided not to differentiate between the two [authors and co-authors], as that would also require all groups to do the same. But the role 'Co-author' is available in the system and groups that wish to differentiate between the two may do so. In the new IMS, the general role 'Author' will be sufficient since there will also be specific document roles describing a person s involvement with each review, and these can then be used to distinguish contact authors from co-authors."
Document roles are part of Phase 2 of the IMS.
(b) Question: What should I do about the report I have just been sent by Jacob in relation to the February module?
Answer: For detailed instructions, see Jacob s Adminors email of 02 February. For those Groups whose records were affected by the problem with the contact details import (Acute Respiratory Infections through Infectious Diseases, alphabetically), some additional checking will be required to detect any records that may have been mistakenly skipped (see the above-mentioned email from Jacob). For most Groups, the main task will be resolving duplicates. Tidy up your duplicates in the IMS and then ensure that the correct contact details for these people are also in your module. To save time you can download the corrected records into your 'published' RevMan see section 5 of the Review Group FAQ, under Guidelines in the IMS Help Topics list but please remember not to click the Import button until you have scrolled through all the contacts in the import file. If you are unsure about what you should be doing, try doing the import into another RevMan first and not your 'published' version. Alternatively, when you are ready to try this, contact your IMS Support person to arrange a time for her to talk you through the process.
Please remember that the recent import from the Parent Database to the IMS contained contact details from the module you sent to the publishers in November 2004. Any records that you have updated in the IMS after the module submission date will not have been overwritten by the information in the import, as the import routine prefers the record with the most recent Modified date. If this isn't clear, please contact your IMS Support person.
(c) Question: What is being covered in the IMS workshops being run at the regional meetings in the UK and Europe that has not already been covered?
Answer: In the workshops last year, participants had limited access to a very early version of the second phase of the new IMS. There have been many refinements made to the IMS since then. The version that will be used at the IMS Workshops this year will be the version that is the most up-to-date and which will have been used by the pilot CRGs to submit modules in February 2005. There will be no demonstration of the IMS at the UK regional workshops to give maximum time to participants to work with their modules and reviews, and to concentrate on issues that are important to them in relation to their experience of the new system at that time. There will be a demonstration of the IMS at the UK RGC meeting, which precedes the workshops.
(d) Question: Is there a rule we can apply to identify which part of a Chinese name is the family name?
Answer: We have been informed that in the majority of cases the family name is the one which has only one syllable. However, we have also been told that this is not always the case so we would suggest that, if you are at all unsure, that you ask your Chinese contributors to let you know which is their family name.
