BMG Meeting in Singapore, 13 October 2009

The Bias Methods Group (BMG) hosted a joint meeting with the Cochrane Statistical Methods Group (SMG) at 17th Annual Cochrane Colloquium in Singapore (www.colloquium09.com). The meeting was held on Tuesday 13 October 2009 and was attended by over 65 BMG and SMG members.

The agenda included:

• An overview and update to the work of the BMG and SMG
• An update from Julian Higgins regarding plans to revise the infrastructure of Methods Groups within the Cochrane Collaboration
• Presentations by:

1. Kerry Dwan and Jamie Kirkham regarding the assessment and impact of outcome reporting bias on systematic reviews
2. Margaret Sampson regarding searching for methods studies within methodology reviews (PDF)
3. Sally Hopewell to update participants on the status of a decision tool for updating Cochrane reviews (PDF)

PowerPoint slides from some presentations have been made available by presenters as PDF files (please see above). Minutes from the meeting are also available for download (PDF).

Thank you to all who attended!

BMG presence at Canadian Cochrane Symposium

The Bias Methods Group (BMG) was pleased to offer two workshops at the 7th Annual Canadian Cochrane Symposium, held in Halifax, Nova Scotia between March 11-12, 2009. On the first day of the symposium, BMG Convenors Doug Altman and David Moher hosted a well attended workshop on reporting health research entitled Enabling systematic reviews: reporting reseach with clarity, accuracy and transparency. On the second day of the symposium, both Convenors were joined by BMG member Joel Gagnier to offer a workshop entitled Assessing risk of bias in primary reports of randomized trials: using the Cochrane Risk-of-Bias tool.

The slides from these workshops are available below. Please feel free to download these materials for personal use. If you would like access to workshop materials for training purposes, please contact us at lweeks@ohri.ca.

	Workshop 1: Enabling systematic reviews: reporting reseach with clarity, accuracy and transparency - D. Moher and D. Altman
	Presentation 1: Enabling systematic reviews: reporting reseach with clarity, accuracy and transparency (PDF)
	Presentation 2: Selective outcome reporting: risk of bias (PDF)
	Workshop 2: Assessing risk of bias in primary reports of randomized trials: using the Cochrane Risk-Of-Bias tool - D. Moher, D. Altman and J. Gagnier (PDF)

BMG meeting in Freiburg, Germany

The Bias Methods Group (BMG) hosted a successful meeting at the XVI Cochrane Colloquium in Freiburg, Germany in October 2008. The meeting included an introduction and update of the work of the BMG, presentations by some of our members and a debate between Drs. Alex Sutton and Christopher Schmid on the pros and cons of methods, in particular the funnel plot, to assess publication bias in systematic reviews. Thank you to all who attended!

Thank you again to our presenters who have also kindly provided us with their slides from the meeting. Please feel free to download these materials for personal use. If you would like access to workshop materials for training purposes, please contact us at lweeks@ohri.ca.

	Introduction: Introduction to the Bias Methods Group - J. Tetzlaff (PDF)
	Presentation 1: Discrepancies in sample size calculations and data analysis reported in randomized trials: comparison of publications with protocols - Dr. An-Wen Chan (PDF)
	Presentation 2: Findings of the International Subarachnoid Aneurysm Trial and the National Study of Subarachnoid Haemorrhage in context: a case study - Prof. Barney Reeves (PDF)
	Presentation 3: Observer variation when extracting data for the calculation of the standardized mean difference- Ms. Britta Tendal (PDF)
	Presentation 4: A multiple imputation approach to adjust for publication bias- Prof. James Carpenter (PDF)
	Debate: Dealing with publication bias: funnel plots & beyond - Dr. Alex Sutton (PDF) and Dr. Christopher Schmid (no slides available)