Three Questions: Christina G., Special Project Librarian

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For our next Three Questions interview, we spoke with Christina G., Special Project Librarian.

What areas can you help MSK users with?

Image of Christina in a shop in NYC.

Christina enjoying an NYC souvenir shop.

I work directly with Synapse, the Library’s authoritative database of MSK authors and their publications.  Synapse houses publications produced by MSK’s researchers, clinicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals and arranges them by author profiles. I can provide assistance to users who are interested in learning how to use and navigate Synapse, as well as help MSK authors update their profiles.

What projects have you been working on recently?

The Synapse team tracks and adds new publications by MSK authors into the database on a monthly basis, importing bibliographic records from Scopus, Web of Science, BIOSIS Citation Index, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. However, this requires the Synapse team to cross-reference these records with original PDFs to ensure the data were adequately imported and missing data, such as PMIDs and PMCIDs, are included. We also use information from MSK’s Human Resources to ensure we associate each publication with the correct MSK author’s profile. The process is vigorous, therefore I spend most of my time working on this!

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

I unfortunately haven’t traveled as much as I would like to so I would be happy to go literally anywhere in the world. The only requirement I ask is that it is somewhere with a beach since I love swimming and the ocean.

Cochrane RCT Classifier

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As anyone who has worked on a systematic review (SR) project can attest – the record screening process can be a frustratingly tedious and time-consuming one. If available, most reviewers would likely welcome some kind of automation that streamlines and potentially reduces the manual record screening portion of their SR workload.

What is an RCT classifier algorithm?

An RCT classifier algorithm is “a tool to help you sort out the non-RCTs so that you can focus your effort on studies more likely to be included in your review”. In other words, researchers working on SRs that specify in their protocol that only studies reporting on RCTs will be included can now take advantage of tools that help them predict – using an automated algorithm derived from machine learning – whether a study is using a possible RCT or a not an RCT study design. 

The research team behind the leading RCT classifier algorithm tool (which includes members of the EPPI-Centre and Cochrane) published a paper in May 2022 describing the development and evaluation of their tool:

Thomas J, McDonald S, Noel-Storr A, Shemilt I, Elliott J, Mavergames C, Marshall IJ. Machine learning reduced workload with minimal risk of missing studies: development and evaluation of a randomized controlled trial classifier for Cochrane Reviews. J Clin Epidemiol. 2021 May;133:140-151. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.11.003. Epub 2020 Nov 7. PMID: 33171275; PMCID: PMC8168828. 

The good news for our MSK community is that this RCT classifier functionality has already been incorporated into Covidence, the systematic review project management system that the MSK Library subscribes to and provides access to. To turn this function on in a review that they are working on, a team member will need to have first selected the “Medical and health sciences” option under the “Area of Research” drop-down menu. After choosing to create this kind of review, the option to “Automatically tag studies reporting on RCTs using the Cochrane RCT Classifier” will become visible for a user to decide to enable of not. If enabled (only works with titles that have >15 characters and abstracts that have >400 characters), their SR records will be tagged as “Possible RCT” or “Not RCT” and can be filtered accordingly.

Learn more about “How to tag studies not reporting on RCTs” by checking out this article from the Covidence knowledgebase.

Questions? Ask Us at the MSK Library.

New MSK Library Help Page, Question Form, & FAQs

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At MSK Library, we are always looking for ways to improve the user experience. With this in mind, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new Library help page!

On this page, you can view the Library’s contact information, chat with us (Monday – Friday, 10:00AM – 4:00PM), search our FAQ knowledge base or submit a question, browse our LibGuides, databases, and classes, and get in touch via our new and improved question form.

To access our question form, select “Submit a Question” on the right-hand menu. Once you fill in your name, email, role, and department, you will be asked what you’d like to do. You can ask a general question, submit a literature or PICO(T) search request, or request a resource for purchase. 

Please complete this brief feedback survey to share what you think about our new Library help page. 

Questions? Please contact us at asklibrarian@mskcc.org