Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library/Cochrane

Alternatives

It's indeed a very generous action but, I have some remarks:

1. I think that citing non free sources (where key pieces of information is actually hidden behind a paywall) reamins probmelatic even if some of the community members have access to it for at least two reasons - limited transparency and indirect advertising (Always provide original citation information, in addition to linking a Cochrane article). That might even be in a direct conflicct with Wikimedia policies. I do understand that what Cochrane does are merely summaries, but then citing should be limited to the information in the summary only. Which wouldn't change anything.
2. Why not just go for open access? It has proven to be a better option even for researchers and universities (let alone completely non-profit Wikipedia). I do not see how increasing publishers' profits can contribute to science.

Best regards, --Smihael (talk) 13:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Other people may have other answers, but here are mine:

1. Most cited sources on Wikipedia are already behind paywalls. The citation practice you mention is by Wikipedia practice, not Cochrane suggestion. When citing from a summary it is best to cite both the simple-to-read summary and the deeper more complex paper which it cites for a given fact.
2. Open access is best when available but the Cochrane papers are irreplaceable. Governments look to the Cochrane papers to guide their own policies, as does any other health organization like the WHO. If there were any open access equivalent of Cochrane then I would recommend citing it but the alternatives are lacking.

Thoughts? Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:14, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

If so, than this is a welcome move, let's hope that gradually they (or someone else) will provide open access. --Smihael (talk) 07:33, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

While free online sources are wonderful, our Featured Articles on many topics rely on books, often expensive academic-quality books. So they aren't really that different in the sense that few readers will have access to the source. I think the business model for online journals makes no sense ($30 for four sheets of A4, no thanks). There are alternatives to Cochrane such as NICE and SIGN reports, which are free and take the same evidence-based approach. Colin°^Talk 09:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The Collaboration is working towards open access. This publishing period, however, they werent able to go the whole way..Read more. Hopefully they will reach a feasible open access system in the future.

NICE provides evidence informed guidelines contextualized to the UK scenario, using evidence from Systematic Reviews. So if a review was available, it would probably better to cite that rather than an interpretation of it.

It is possible that there are other systematic reviews Say in BMJ clinical evidence or some other medical journal. You can search for these from The Cochrane Library through DARE. Sometimes Systematic Reviews may not agree with each other... resolving this would indeed become complicated.

Of-course there are advertising angles to this, hence it is important for the editors to be familiar with interpretation of Systematic review results. So that the editor adds knowledge and not just a paraphrased version of a Cochrane Review.Manu Mathew (talk) 17:50, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

NICE does not rely on systematic reviews, though may use them if available. Its research of the literature is more complex than a typical systematic review as it is looking for complete clinical guidance rather than, say, just RCTs of efficacy. The idea of citing closer to the original research rather than the interpretation of experts reflects an academic approach to writing but in fact is the opposite of what Wikipedia desires. We much prefer if literature (including systematic reviews) has been expert-"interpreted" rather than for Wikipedians to try this themselves, and is one way to solve your problem of when systematic reviews disagree. Ultimately systematic reviews can only be used for a fraction of the material in a medical article as their focus is narrow and quality cut-off is often high. A clinical guideline ultimately has to offer clinical guidance on the area of focus, even if the research is lacking. In contrast, a systematic review can end up having no conclusion at all. NICE, of course, is not the only source of clinical guidelines. Although Cochrane is a valuable resource to medicine and Wikipedia, it is not infallible. The latest Cochrane review of the ketogenic diet was dreadful in so many ways... Colin°^Talk 19:48, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Change of heading

Hi, May I suggest a change of heading to "Limited free access awards to The Cochrane library" ? Or something along those lines. Manu Mathew (talk) 16:52, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Manu, can you explain why you think the current title is misleading and your suggestion would be better... I'm not sure I understand the difference. Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

The project page implies it: "Recipients should...   Try out and use their Cochrane account during their free access period"   Please clarify what the "free access period" is. And I agree with Manum56 (aka Manu Mathew) that if the Cochrane accounts are limited in any way, this should be expressed in the page title or at least in the page's lead section. What kind of accounts are these exactly? Standard? One year subscriptions? Something else? Where can we look up more information on this program? The Transhumanist 00:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

The accounts will give complete access to The Cochrane Library to 100 people(who already don't have access to it in some other way). I am not sure about the time duration, but most probably it will be for 1 year.Manu Mathew (talk)

@Ocaasi - Sorry for the delay in responding. The Cochrane Library is quite a different entity in comparison to Cochrane/ The Cochrane Collaboration; kind of like the Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. The Cochrane Library is a kind of journal, but it has much more stuff in it than any average journal; may be like 52 journals(one for each review group),with access to databases like CENTRAL and DARE. The CDSR is the database that contains all the Cochrane Systematic Reviews and their updates etc. The Library is published by Wiley & Sons and is not 'not for profit'. Hence the subscriptions etc. They are working towards an open access policy but we cannot predict when exactly it would work out. Open access would mean authors have to bear the cost of publication, but that is not really feasible as its extremely laborious and time consuming to write a review in the first place. The above is how I understand it, there may be slight differences in the actual facts. It would have been nice to actually get someone on the Wiley team/Cochrane Editorial board on to Wikipedia to respond to this. Manu Mathew (talk)

Citing

Okaaay - so my Cochrane account was activated this morning. I'm really pleased :) However, I'm a little confused about citing, given that we need to mention the Cochrane Library and somehow shoehorn it into the citations. Can someone check this edit to androgen replacement therapy just to ensure that I actually did it right? It seems that adding Cochrane to the journal section is a bit unwieldy. Comment? - Alison ^❤ 16:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alison. I just got the citation examples up today, but you can see how we've been doing it similar to other donations here: WP:Cochrane/Citations. It might take a day or two to get the examples up to snuff, meanwhile hopefully someone can double-check your work. Awesome that you got started already! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:21, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Ocassi - those examples go a long way towards clarifying what we need to do. I've modified my cite now to look like this. Thanks again!! :) - Alison ^❤ 23:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alison - Great that you have started on the project. There are a few things you need to understand before you go further in this project. This project requires you to cite Systematic reviews from The Cochrane Library. The research paper you cited is neither from The Cochrane Library nor is it a Systematic Review. Its an original article from the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology. Next time you are trying to cite, it would be easier for you to use the "journal template" (you will have to click edit source), because then you just need to enter the PMID and click the mag glass icon, and it will automatically fill in the rest of the details. I'm also not really sure whether your edit fits well into the "effects" section, as this section is supposed to talk about the benefits and harms of the treatment. I would be happy to help out if you need any further help. Check out our project page hereWikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Evidence_based_content_for_medical_articles_on_Wikipedia

Manu Mathew(talk) 06:59, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library seeks renewal (please comment)

The Wikipedia Library has grown from a collection of donations to paywalled sources into a broad open research portal for our community. New partnerships have been formed, new pilot programs started, new connections made with our library experts and likeminded institutions. We have tried to bring people together in a new sense of purpose and community about the importance of facilitating research in an open and collaborative way. Here's what we've done so far:

• Increased access to sources: 1500 editors signed up for 3700 free accounts, individually worth over $500,000, with usage increases of those references between 400-600%
• Deep networking: Built relationships with Credo, HighBeam, Questia, JSTOR, Cochrane, LexisNexis, EBSCO, New York Times, and OCLC
• New pilot projects: Started the Wikipedia Visiting Scholar project to empower university-affiliated Wikipedia researchers
• Developed community: Created portal connecting 250 newsletter recipients, 30 library members, 3 volunteer coordinators, and 2 part-time contractors
• Tech scoped: Spec'd out a reference tool for linking to full-text sources and established a basis for OAuth integration
• Broad outreach: Wrote a feature article for Library Journal's The Digital Shift; presenting at the American Library Association annual meeting

We've proposed a 6 month renewal request to continue and deepen this work and would appreciate your comments, concerns, thoughts, questions, or endorsements.

Cheers, Jake Ocaasi ^{t | c} 12:34, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia by default not rendering proper citations

The default choice for getting automated assistance in creating citations is Wikipedia's RefToolbar. However, this does not work for many Cochrane publications as the metadata system Cochrane uses is atypical. The end result is that many Cochrane citations will not seem to be associated with Cochrane.

Right now it seems that RefToolbar is not even working but just to make the note, 10.1002/14651858.CD002128.pub5 is one problematic doi in this system. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I dont know why they choose to have it like that. I use the reftoolbar by fetching the data from PubMed using PMIDs. Probably it is something that Cochrane should take up with Wiley.Manu Mathew (talk) 18:59, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

New reference tool

There is a new Visual Editor reference feature in development called Citoid. It is designed to "auto-fill" references using a URL or DOI. We would really appreciate you testing whether TWL partners' references work in Citoid. Sharing your results will help the developers fix bugs and improve the system. If you have a few minutes, please visit the testing page for simple instructions on how to try this new tool. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:49, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Cochran access

I was given an account to access the Cochran website, thank you for that, btw. But when I log in and try to access the article that I want, they still want payment. What am I doing wrong?

  Bfpage |leave a message  16:05, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi Bfpage, for clarity, is this happening with only one particular article or all articles you try to access? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

All of them. Perhaps I log in incorrectly.

  Bfpage |leave a message  20:00, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Renewals

Hi all. (Pinging users waiting for access @Pwlps, Rich Farmbrough, Anypodetos, and Dr. James Schultz:) From now on renewals will be processed in January each year; users with access will be contacted by Cochrane asking if they wish to continue having access through TWL. This means that we can redistribute new accesses as old ones expire. For those of you currently waiting for access, this means you will almost certainly get access in January as we're currently out of available accounts. Sorry for the wait, but after this lot of renewals I suspect new users won't need to wait in the foreseeable future (i.e. we'll gain more accounts in Januarys than we immediately need to distribute). Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Sam. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:02, 12 September 2016 (UTC).

@Danagg12, JenOttawa, MonWiki, Sylvia de Haan, Wikilens, and Bluerasberry: I thought you may be interested in this page Tracey Howe (talk) 16:06, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

@Danagg12, JenOttawa, MonWiki, Wikilens, Bluerasberry, and Tracey Howe: Please do let me know if you experience any problem with the request for access to the Cochrane Library! Sylvia de Haan (talk)

Thanks @Sylvia de Haan: I filled out an application on the page. JenOttawa (talk) 01:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

See what happens! For reviewers, this team is a group of Cochrane fans currently in an online wiki class I am giving at Wikipedia:Cochrane online classes October 2016. They do not meet the stated criteria because they are new accounts, but they have already been to 4 online classes and have been editing Wikipedia with Cochrane articles. It is not the same but it is some supporting evidence of enthusiasm for Wikipedia and Cochrane. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:47, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: Thanks for the explanation! We won't be able to distribute new accounts until January (per the above), but we'll take this into consideration :) Sam Walton (talk) 16:57, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

@Sylvia de Haan and Bluerasberry: Thank you very much.--MonWiki (talk) 12:36, 21 November 2016 (UTC)