Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
The barriers to patient and consumer participation in the production of systematic reviews are substantial. 'Citizen science' opens up new opportunities for co-creation of trustworthy, up to date evidence. In parallel, text mining and machine learning are now able to make meaningful contributions to systematic review production.
Objectives:
The Next Generation Evidence Project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, aimed to assess the feasibility of producing living systematic reviews with the participation of patients and consumers, and contribution from text mining and machine learning.
Methods:
New features were developed on Cochrane Crowd, Cochrane’s citizen science platform, to improve accessibility for a broad spectrum of individuals. Cochrane Crowd was promoted to patients and consumers in the USA in partnership with consumer and professional health organisations, and consumers from these organisations evaluated the Cochrane Crowd platform. Cochrane Crowd citizen scientists, together with machine learning systems, assisted systematic review teams to develop and maintain two living systematic reviews in the field of child health.
Results:
The Cochrane Crowd platform was developed and promoted widely to USA health consumer organisations. Specific features included:
- a Learning Zone where contributors can undertake brief training to increase understanding of key research concepts;
- topic filters so contributors can find content relevant to their specific interests, e.g. dementia, diabetes or cancer;
- micro-tasks more suitable for beginners, such as the identification and classification of data tables in full-text articles. Text mining and machine learning systems were developed to automatically extract structured data from these tables.
Two living systematic reviews were developed and updated over time with support from Cochrane Crowd citizen scientists and the machine learning systems. Crowd members screened 1600 abstracts in 4.5 hours and identified 3674 tables in 24 hours.
Conclusions:
Patients and consumers can play crucial roles in evidence synthesis, and enable rigorous systematic reviews to frequently and rapidly incorporate the latest evidence.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
Patients and healthcare consumers contributed to this project and its evaluation.
The barriers to patient and consumer participation in the production of systematic reviews are substantial. 'Citizen science' opens up new opportunities for co-creation of trustworthy, up to date evidence. In parallel, text mining and machine learning are now able to make meaningful contributions to systematic review production.
Objectives:
The Next Generation Evidence Project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, aimed to assess the feasibility of producing living systematic reviews with the participation of patients and consumers, and contribution from text mining and machine learning.
Methods:
New features were developed on Cochrane Crowd, Cochrane’s citizen science platform, to improve accessibility for a broad spectrum of individuals. Cochrane Crowd was promoted to patients and consumers in the USA in partnership with consumer and professional health organisations, and consumers from these organisations evaluated the Cochrane Crowd platform. Cochrane Crowd citizen scientists, together with machine learning systems, assisted systematic review teams to develop and maintain two living systematic reviews in the field of child health.
Results:
The Cochrane Crowd platform was developed and promoted widely to USA health consumer organisations. Specific features included:
- a Learning Zone where contributors can undertake brief training to increase understanding of key research concepts;
- topic filters so contributors can find content relevant to their specific interests, e.g. dementia, diabetes or cancer;
- micro-tasks more suitable for beginners, such as the identification and classification of data tables in full-text articles. Text mining and machine learning systems were developed to automatically extract structured data from these tables.
Two living systematic reviews were developed and updated over time with support from Cochrane Crowd citizen scientists and the machine learning systems. Crowd members screened 1600 abstracts in 4.5 hours and identified 3674 tables in 24 hours.
Conclusions:
Patients and consumers can play crucial roles in evidence synthesis, and enable rigorous systematic reviews to frequently and rapidly incorporate the latest evidence.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
Patients and healthcare consumers contributed to this project and its evaluation.