Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: translation of the Plain language summaries (PLS) of Cochrane Systematic Reviews into the Tamil language was initiated from 2017 by the Cochrane South Asia Centre based at TamilNadu, a Southern part of India that includes the Tamil speaking population of about 79,788 million people. We concentrated efforts to disseminate the Tamil translation through social networking media, especially via Facebook pages and groups. This has resulted in a steady increase in their use; and has possibly contributed to the ever-increasing number of Indian Cochrane contributors, thereby also impacting free access to Cochrane Reviews. We analyzed the reach and contributions of the dissemination work carried out by the Centre in the Tamil language for two years, 2017 and 2018.
Objectives: to evaluate the dissemination strategy used by the Centre. To plan newer methods of dissemination for greater audience reach, especially Tamil-speaking consumers, and also to look at ways to reach the entire Indian consumer platform.
Methods: we collected metrics through Facebook 'insights' for the usage and dissemination of the Cochrane South Asia Page and the Cochrane South Asia Group for two consecutive years, 2017 and 2018. We analyzed details of number of likes, number of shares, number of engagements, number of group enrolments, and number of views in respect to the translated PLS, and thereby leading to full-text views of the reviews.
Results: Cochrane Translation's yearly report from 2018 states that Tamil translations progressively increased from April to June and October to December (Image 1). The Centre has translated 26 PLS into Tamil languages and disseminated them via Facebook pages and groups to enhance the visibility of the evidence on general subjects pertaining to the region. We observed differences in the dissemination rates of the closed group and the open page of the Cochrane South Asia community. We reached nearly 2000 members (Image 2), of whom 45% of the members (Image 3) were only active within the group. Sharing the translation was found to be the most common form of dissemination (Image 4). All the dissemination for the two years were free of cost (Image 5).
Conclusions: dissemination done in the closed group seems to be very limited as to the number of members (Image 7), whereas the total views in the open page sections (Images 8 and 9) seem to be remarkably better than the group version. When Tamil language translations could contribute so much in two years, we have to work on our plans to disseminate Cochrane PLS in the National language, Hindi, as well as in English, which is the common language among consumers.
Objectives: to evaluate the dissemination strategy used by the Centre. To plan newer methods of dissemination for greater audience reach, especially Tamil-speaking consumers, and also to look at ways to reach the entire Indian consumer platform.
Methods: we collected metrics through Facebook 'insights' for the usage and dissemination of the Cochrane South Asia Page and the Cochrane South Asia Group for two consecutive years, 2017 and 2018. We analyzed details of number of likes, number of shares, number of engagements, number of group enrolments, and number of views in respect to the translated PLS, and thereby leading to full-text views of the reviews.
Results: Cochrane Translation's yearly report from 2018 states that Tamil translations progressively increased from April to June and October to December (Image 1). The Centre has translated 26 PLS into Tamil languages and disseminated them via Facebook pages and groups to enhance the visibility of the evidence on general subjects pertaining to the region. We observed differences in the dissemination rates of the closed group and the open page of the Cochrane South Asia community. We reached nearly 2000 members (Image 2), of whom 45% of the members (Image 3) were only active within the group. Sharing the translation was found to be the most common form of dissemination (Image 4). All the dissemination for the two years were free of cost (Image 5).
Conclusions: dissemination done in the closed group seems to be very limited as to the number of members (Image 7), whereas the total views in the open page sections (Images 8 and 9) seem to be remarkably better than the group version. When Tamil language translations could contribute so much in two years, we have to work on our plans to disseminate Cochrane PLS in the National language, Hindi, as well as in English, which is the common language among consumers.
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