Table 4 Suggestions offered by respondents to increase involvement and production of systematic reviews with the Cochrane Collaboration

Streamline processes.

“…reducing the time involved in preparing and publishing with Cochrane”

“Need to simplify the process and stop imposing new guidelines which add further complexity and make reviews less accessible to readers.”

“Promoting rapid review methodology, exploring the use of crowd sourcing for supporting screening of citations, quicker turnaround time from submission of protocol/review manuscript to publication”

Continue to offer training and support.

“Continue to offer the workshops on a frequent basis.”

“The training you can attend is invaluable and I have used these skills in a lot of places.”

“We need more training and dissemination of the Cochrane work among clinicians and researchers.”

“Get medical students involved.”

Emphasize the high quality of systematic reviews offered through The Cochrane Collaboration.

“It is a big challenge. I no longer view Cochrane as the gold standard. I believe Cochrane has set the standard but it is definitely possible to conduct a review which is as good as a Cochrane review and publish it much more rapidly outside of Cochrane. Personally I would always choose to do a Cochrane review from a loyalty perspective, the impact factor and the fact that I believe Cochrane peer referees and editors always consistently ensure a quality product.”

Increase awareness about the high impact factor of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR).

“Impact factor is not well-known.”

“…change the impression that somehow a journal submission is ‘better’. My impression is that Cochrane reviews are often of higher quality on average than reviews published in journals. Yet, I would probably still choose a journal as a home for my reviews because journal publication often counts more toward tenure evaluation (or some other evaluation process). I’m not sure if Cochrane publication has the same weight.”

Identify topics for review.

“Review groups should develop priority lists for reviews if they already do not have such lists.”

Address concerns of Cochrane being overly restrictive and quantitatively focused.

“…greater emphasis on reviews other than effectiveness of interventions”

“I think that Cochrane is seen as the gold standard in SRs which is wonderful for the collaboration. However, this may make it seem less attainable and less relatable to many groups and individuals. Attempting to still stress the high quality of reviews, while somewhat changing the very strict and quantitative based reputation can increase authorship and readership.”