Contributing to Evidence Synthesis as a First-Year Medical Student: My Experience with Cochrane Crowd

Authors

Keywords:

Systematic review, Cochrane Review, Cochrane crowd, Crowdsourcing, Randomized Controlled Trial, Volunteer, Experience, Evidence-based medicine, Evidence synthesis, Citizen scientist

Abstract

The following article describes my experience as a volunteer with Cochrane Crowd, which uses public support to identify Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) from records of published medical studies/protocols, which are then added to CENTRAL, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Identification and correct categorization of RCTs are essential steps for synthesizing evidence in the form of high-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses of medical interventions. Thus, public volunteers play an important role here by directly aiding in the processes of evidence-based medicine. Medical students, in my opinion, are ideal volunteers for this task due to their greater background knowledge of medicine and research methodology. There are also various potential benefits, and greater awareness of this interesting opportunity may encourage more medical students to come forward and volunteer as ‘citizen scientists’.

References

1. Tenny S, Varacallo MA. Evidence-Based medicine [Internet]. StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf. 2024. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470182/

2. Cochrane. Our Story. Available from: https://www.cochrane.org/about-us/our-story. Last updated Jul 18, 2025. Cited Oct 03, 2025.

3. Noel-Storr A, Dooley G, Elliott J, Steele E, Shemilt I, Mavergames C, et al. An evaluation of Cochrane Crowd found that crowdsourcing produced accurate results in identifying randomized trials. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2021;133:130–9.

4. Cochrane.What is Cochrane Engage?. Available from: https://help.cochrane.org/kb/article/10-what-is-cochrane-engage/.Last Updated Apr 30, 2024. Cited Oct 03, 2025.

5. Cochrane. Become a Cochrane Citizen Scientist. Available from: https://www.cochrane.org/about-us/news/become-cochrane-citizen-scientist. Last updated Oct 30, 2017, Cited Oct 03, 2025.

6. González-Márquez R, Schmidt L, Schmidt BM, Berens P, Kobak D. The landscape of biomedical research. Patterns. 2024;5(6):100968.

7. Noel-Storr A, Gartlehner G, Dooley G, Persad E, Nussbaumer-Streit B. Crowdsourcing the identification of studies for COVID-19-related Cochrane Rapid Reviews. Res Synth Methods. 2022;13(5):585-594.

8. Cochrane. Cochrane membership. Available from: https://www.cochrane.org/get-involved/cochrane-membership. Last updated Jun 17, 2025. Cited Oct 03, 2025.

Downloads

Published

2026-03-17

How to Cite

Pande, S. (2026). Contributing to Evidence Synthesis as a First-Year Medical Student: My Experience with Cochrane Crowd. International Journal of Medical Students. Retrieved from https://ijms.info/IJMS/article/view/4113

Issue

Forthcoming

Section

Experience

Categories

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Shivansh Pande

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

  1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
  2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
  3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
    1. Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site; with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
    2. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
    3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
    4. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
    5. The Author represents and warrants that:
      1. the Work is the Author’s original work;
      2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
      3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
      4. the Work has not previously been published;
      5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
      6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
    6. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from the Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.

Enforcement of copyright

The IJMS takes the protection of copyright very seriously.

If the IJMS discovers that you have used its copyright materials in contravention of the license above, the IJMS may bring legal proceedings against you seeking reparation and an injunction to stop you using those materials. You could also be ordered to pay legal costs.

If you become aware of any use of the IJMS' copyright materials that contravenes or may contravene the license above, please report this by email to contact@ijms.org

 

Infringing material

If you become aware of any material on the website that you believe infringes your or any other person's copyright, please report this by email to contact@ijms.org