Cochrane can supply full datasets on request but access to these has been limited. Wider access to the semi-structured data affords opportunity for auto-curation-automatic tidying of the data-to either return to the source file in a clearer form, or for import into other reviews or programmes for reuse or novel analyses. Full replication of the review analyses is impossible and the use for novel purposes very limited. Exports are partial and limited to a format specific to RevMan. These valuable data, however, are ‘held’ within a single review.įurther and extraneous use of these semi-structured study data is not easy as exporting them from reviews once published is problematic.
RevMan data entry is laborious but Cochrane methods endeavour to maximise the reliability of the resulting semi-structured data. RevMan undertakes analyses whilst marking up all text for full publication on the online Cochrane Library. It is created by the efforts of thousands of people, still mostly volunteers, carefully extracting data from studies (largely randomised trials), entering these qualitative and quantitative data into an open-access software package (RevMan ). The Cochrane Library contains the largest repository of maintained systematic reviews.
