From 25 April 2023, Cochrane moved fully over to RevMan (RevMan 5 is no longer accessible). RevMan has the same familiar layout but is far more intuitive and requires no installation.

There are also key improvements for authors, including:-

• The impact of published reviews will increase: The way that information and data are inputted and stored means researchers, policymakers, practitioners and other users can access and use our reviews more easily and effectively.
• A simpler and clearer way to input information: RevMan supports predefining your review and syntheses PICOs so it is easier to make informed decisions about inclusion and exclusion. You can also import your extracted data from included studies from Excel and Covidence, and can create SoF tables in GRADEPro GDT, with the review automatically updating.
• A more robust process with less room for error: If you change the data associated with a study in one place, all your analyses that include the same data will automatically update. The data import functionality also does away with excessive cutting and pasting, meaning less room for errors.
• It will save you time: RevMan allows for collaborative working and multiple authors can work on a review at the same time. With a new standardized import and export format, you will easily be able to re-use data between Cochrane reviews.

In this webinar, Rebecka Hall (Product Owner of RevMan), Gert van Valkenhoef (Head of IT Infrastructure and Development) and Ella Flemyng (Interim Head of Policies and Research Integrity) discussed these improvements and the benefits for authors using RevMan to develop systematic reviews for Cochrane or other organisations.

The session was delivered in May 2023. Below you will find the videos from the webinar, together with accompanying slides to download [PDF] and useful links to further information and resources.

Part 1: How RevMan and study centric data management streamlines systematic review production
Part 2: Update on Cochrane review and data format changes in 2023
Part 3: Questions and answers

Presenter Bios

Rebecka Hall is Product Owner of RevMan in Cochrane. The last two years she has focused on supporting the RevMan team in implementing the new study centric workflow in RevMan to improve how authors manage data in Cochrane reviews. Rebecka studied medical engineering before joining Cochrane in 2017.  

Gert van Valkenhoef is Head of IT Infrastructure and Development in Cochrane. He completed a PhD and several years of post-doc research on the intersection of evidence based medicine and software prior to joining Cochrane in 2016. He leads software development and architecture for Cochrane and has a particular interest in streamlining data flows between tools.

Ella Flemyng is Interim Head of Policies and Research Integrity in Cochrane. She’s working on delivering change to the format of Cochrane reviews and data to make reviews more streamlined to produce and easier to use, of which moving to study centric data management in RevMan is a key area of. Ella worked in open access STEM publishing before joining Cochrane in 2019. Follow her at @EllaFlemyng