Introducing RAPTOR: RevMan Parsing Tool for Reviewers

Abstract

Background: Much effort is made to ensure Cochrane reviews are based on reliably extracted data. There is a commitment to wide access to these data - for novel processing and/or reuse - but delivering this access is problematic. Aim: To describe a proof-of-concept programme to extract, curate and structure data from Cochrane reviews. Methods: One student of Applied Sciences (16 weeks full time), access to pre-publication review files and use of 'Eclipse' to create an open-access tool (RAPTOR) using the programming language Java. Results: The final software batch processes hundreds of reviews in seconds, extracting all study data and automatically tidying and unifying presentation of data for return into the source review, reuse, or export for novel analyses. Conclusions: This software, despite being limited, illustrates how the efforts of reviewers meticulously extracting study data can be improved, disseminated and reused with little additional effort.