Publication of reviews synthesizing child health evidence (PORSCHE): a survey of authors to identify factors associated with publication in Cochrane and non-Cochrane sources
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cochrane Child Health maintains a register of child-relevant Cochrane systematic reviews (SRs) to provide a comprehensive source of high-quality evidence. However, a large number of SRs are published outside of The Cochrane Collaboration (Cochrane), impacting the comprehensiveness of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR). We surveyed authors who published child-relevant SRs with Cochrane and elsewhere in the medical literature to (1) understand their experiences in preparing and publishing SRs and (2) identify factors influencing choice of publication venue. METHODS: We identified SRs published in the CDSR for the most recent complete year prior to our study (2013; n = 145). We searched the medical literature and randomly selected the same number of SRs published the same year. We developed an internet-based survey and contacted the corresponding author of each review via email. Data were analyzed descriptively. Qualitative analysis elicited common themes from open-ended questions. RESULTS: Seventy-six (26 %) responded: 41 % Cochrane, 42 % non-Cochrane, and 17 % published in both venues. Among respondents who published their SR in both venues (n = 13), 46 % found it easier to publish in a non-Cochrane journal, 15 % easier with Cochrane, and 31 % similar. Main reasons for conducting SRs with Cochrane (n = 44) were Cochrane's positive reputation (82 %) and good impact factor (66 %). Among respondents who published their SR in a non-Cochrane journal (n = 32), most frequent reasons for not conducting their SR with Cochrane were time required to follow Cochrane processes (25 %), lack of knowledge about how to conduct an SR with Cochrane (19 %), administrative processes (16 %), and perception that non-Cochrane journals yielded more interest (16 %). Among respondents who published their SR in a non-Cochrane journal (n = 32), 78 % did not register their review and 22 % did not prepare a protocol. CONCLUSIONS: Key reasons for publishing in Cochrane are its positive reputation and impact factor. Reasons for publishing in non-Cochrane sources include lack of familiarity or challenges with the Cochrane processes and desire to publish in a source more directly relevant to the topic of interest. End users looking for evidence in the form of SRs need to be aware that there is a vast number of SRs published across the medical literature. Efforts to optimize the identification of SRs in non-Cochrane sources (e.g., through effective labeling or protocol/review registration) and their content will help end users find the necessary synthesized evidence to support clinical practice.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.204 | 0.627 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.023 | 0.026 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.011 | 0.012 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.011 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; the direct Gemma label and the distilled Codex classifier agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".