openMetaAnalysis: collaborative and continuous

 

Problem: The use of meta-analyses in health care is hindered by analyses being outdated(1) and overlapping(2).

 

Solution: Collaborative and continuous meta-analysis, supported by open-source, cloud development. While wikis also offer a solution, they are reaching limits in their ability to represent complex knowledge.(3) GitHub, originally developed for collaborative development of software, has been proposed as a method to publish legislative information with transparent tracking of development.(see Shirkey and Government opens up) Likewise, GitHub can host medical knowledge, support team science(4), and provide collaboration beyond what is possible with wikis. GitHub transparently tracks updates to meta-analyses and provides links to related, alternative, or competing, analyses. Collaboration with GitHub complements the functions of open data repositories such as the Systematic Review Data Repository, DRYAD and YODA. There is no reason an open meta-anlaysis should ever go out of date. Anyone can revise it or copy it to make alternative analyses. Similar to wikigenes, authors' contributions are tracked for academic credit. We invite authors interested in vitamin D to revise and update the meta-analysis below. We hope this example will make it easier to do so.

 

Try it: Use the editor to explore revisions to an example meta-analysis of vitamin D for the prevention of fractures and immediately see the results. Then, you may:

Details of these steps are at the Get involved page

 

This example meta-analysis (source) of trials of Vitamin D for the prevention of fractures suggests that Vitamin D can reduce the incidence of fractures when it is taken in effective doses that its serum raise the level by at least 20 nmol/L (8 ng/mL) and achieve a final level of at least 60 nmol/L (24 ng/mL).