Cochrane's Methods Support Unit (MSU) is pleased to announce the launch of a series of  articles that will appear in the new Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods journal. The series is called 'Methods and Statistics Tutorials' and will develop into a collection of resources for systematic reviewers.

The series will build upon MSU's experience of the methodological and statistical issues that Cochrane authors and editors find difficult and will provide an instantly accessible source of advice. Articles will also be linked to other sources of information such as videos and screen-casts. The first tutorials will cover some of the common effect measures used in reviews: the standardised mean difference (SMD), and risk and odds ratios.

Kerry Dwan (former MSU lead and now Senior Lecturer in Evidence Synthesis at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) and Rachel Richardson (current MSU lead in Cochrane) are the series editors. There is more information about our plans in this editorial in Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods.

Posted by Rachel Richardson