Background: The publishing of Cochrane Reviews is sometimes slowed due to lengthy waiting times for peer-reviewer comments. A review author received a grant from the National Institute for Health Research to complete a suite of 30 Cochrane Reviews and chose to receive peer comments for the 18 placed with the Upper Gastrointestinal and Pancreatic Diseases Group through a series of interactive webinars.

Objective: To accelerate the review process by facilitating communication between the author and all peer reviewers at one time.
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Methods: Our Managing Editor arranged mutually agreeable times for herself, the author and peer, statistician and consumer reviewers via Doodle Polls. Drafts for a pre-arranged number of protocols/reviews on similar topics were distributed prior to the agreed date to allow for peer preparation. The author presented these via PowerPoint presentations during live-interactive webinars to facilitate discussion. Additional comments were submitted directly to the author within several days of the webinar.

Results:This presentation will illustrate review timelines (Table 1); author impressions of the project; and, discuss the results of a survey distributed to all peer reviewers involved to obtain their views regarding the potential advantages and disadvantages of this pilot project as well as suggestions to improve the process. Survey responses were anonymous.

Conclusions: Although the primary objective in utilising webinars was to reduce the time taken to receive peer comments and shorten the time taken to publish a review, benefits also included the involvement of all peer reviewers in the full conversation and immediate feedback regarding comments and questions raised during the webinars. All survey respondents said they would participate in similar webinars in future.