Courses and workshops

Key resources

Online Critical appraisal Skills Course

Finding and Appraising the Evidence is a freely-available online course from the Department of Health's Health Knowledge forum. It will help you to develop the critical appraisal skills you need to help you assess clinical evidence. The modules take you through the process of how to find the evidence and then how to assess the validity and reliability of the published research in order to provide effective and efficient healthcare. The course is made up of 6 modules:

Overall introduction to critical appraisal
Finding the evidence
Randomised controlled trials
Systematic reviews
Economic evaluations
Making sense of results

The course has been written for those who wish to improve their skills in critical appraisal. The course starts from the basics and does not assume prior knowledge or training in this area. It has been structured so that busy health care professionals, and others, can undertake learning in small chunks whenever they have a spare moment.
www.healthknowledge.org.uk/interactive-learning/finding-and-appraising-the-evidence

Critical Appraial Skills Programme

CASP have developed a number of tools to help with the process of critically appraising articles, such as systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials, etc. These are available and free to download for personal use

Association for Information Management (ASLIB)

Public courses in areas including library and information management skills, research skills, knowledge management, copyright law, and communication via the web and social media.

British Medical Association (BMA)

A range of information skills courses including communicating risk to patients, critical appraisal and evidence-based medicine.

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP)

CILIP run training workshops throughout the year. Relevant courses include: Designing a database using Microsoft Access; Evidence-based healthcare on the web; What you need to know about metadata; How to set up a library from scratch; Information auditing in practice; Making knowledge visible; Copyright.

CILIP also lists approved courses in library and information studies and offers a framework of qualifications for information professionals.

LondonLinks

This website connects librarians and information professionals working with the NHS in London.Listing of training events in London, but also national and international events of interest to health care librarians.

Plain English Campaign

The Plain English Campaign runs one day courses in using plain English and the fundamentals of grammar and language, and a one year Plain English diploma.

Pharmaceutical Information & Pharmacovigilance Association (PIPA) training programme

The programme is designed for new entrants to Medical Information or Pharmacovigilance from all types of pharmaceutical companies. Although predominantly aimed at Medical Information personnel, many parts are also relevant to Pharmacovigilance personnel.

The basic training days are ideal for people who have less than one year’s experience in Medical Information. More experienced staff will benefit from the advanced sections of the programme.

Evidence based healthcare concepts and skills - Online course from US Cochrane Center

This web course has been created by the United States Cochrane Center as part of a project undertaken by Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare (CUE), and is designed to help consumer advocates understand the fundamentals of evidence-based healthcare concepts and skills. Registration is open and free of charge. The course covers subject areas such as research design, bias and levels of evidence and searching for healthcare information and assessing harms and benefits.

Page last edited: 16 May 2011