Launch of new EDGE Community Forum

New EDGE

Community Forum

To mark the completion of the EDGE 3 rollout globally we have brought a new tool for collaboration to the EDGE Community, a brand-new community forum, we have called Shareedge. The forum is a place for all Users to connect with other Users from the EDGE Community from across the globe and share best practice.

Purpose

The purpose of the EDGE Community Forum is to provide a platform for EDGE users to freely communicate with one another, sharing ideas and tips on using EDGE effectively. This is achieved through the space functionality that the forum offers, allowing individual groups to be set up where discussions can happen.

What groups can I be a part of?

Spaces, also known as groups, are available to join which will generate content for your Forum’s newsfeed. Note: Spaces are set up by the EDGE Team. Currently, we have two groups available for joining. The first is the EDGE Finance Tools working group, run by Mat Davis and Stevie Barre from the EDGE Community. The second is an EDGE Development group, where we are able to post ideas for discussion and feedback. You will also see an Articles group where you can read community features such as Super User Q&A’s, User Top 5 Tips, as well as a space for Events, so we can keep you informed of any upcoming conferences and webinars.  

How to access the Community Forum

A User can access the Community Forum through logging into EDGE and going to the ‘Support’ Tab, then clicking ‘Community Forum’. Note: If your email address is used across multiple EDGE accounts, you will only be able to use the Community Forum under one of these accounts, so please ensure you are logged into the correct EDGE account before accessing the Forum. Once logged in, we recommend you update your User Profile, including adding a photo of yourself. Then head to Spaces to join any relevant groups.

If you’re an EDGE User and you are reading this, we hope you join the community forum and enjoy this additional tool. It is something we are planning on expanding over time, bringing you more working groups to be part of and more resources to learn from.

EDGE Environments

The EDGE

Environments

As we are at the end of the EDGE 3 rollout with just one country to go, we thought we would give our Users a little update on the EDGE environments available/soon to be available.

If you’re a User and you’re reading this, you know EDGE is accessed via a web browser. Each country who has a subscription with EDGE accesses their instance of EDGE with a country-specific URL. But there isn’t just one EDGE environment available to Users, there are in fact 3: EDGE Production, EDGE UAT, and EDGE Demo. Each environment has a unique URL and can be identified and differentiated by the logo displayed on the Login page and at the top left-hand side of the system when logged in. We thought we would share some information explaining what the 3 different environments are and what they should be used for.

EDGE Production is for Users to access the live instance of EDGE. Within this instance there should be no testing, training, or demonstrations carried out. There is one live instance of EDGE per country.

EDGE UAT (User Acceptance Testing) is for the assessment of new functionality only. New functions and features are released to UAT for User evaluation before being released to the Production environment. No live data should be entered and stored in EDGE UAT. There is one EDGE UAT instance for all countries. This has UK-specific settings.

Finally, EDGE Demo. Users can utilise this environment as a training and demo instance of EDGE. No live data should be entered and stored in EDGE Demo. There will eventually be one demo instance of EDGE per country. We are working on this, but we can confirm the UK’s EDGE Demo is available now.

Since you know a bit more about the different environments, you may be wondering “How can I get access?” Well, that answer is easy. Just contact your organisation’s Lead Administrators (their details can be found under the Support tab) and they can set up an account for you on the environment you would like access to.  

EDGE Production, EDGE UAT and EDGE Demo Logos

New Year Update from Marcomms

New Year

Update from Marcomms

Its January 24th as I write this, 3 months until the EDGE 3 Conference which just seems crazy as I remember this time last year planning had begun, and we were all thinking “ohhh well there’s loads of time!” But, as we all know time flies! I suppose it would make sense before I go on further to do a quick introduction. I am Beth Mathis and I have worked at the Clinical Informatics Research Unit since 2015, first joining as a Knowledge Support Analyst where I worked closely with the Knowledge Officers, covering support and EDGE implementations. I picked up on some extra responsibility in EDGE communications which began with sending emails out to our users to let them know of releases, downtime and so on. This naturally led to me taking on a new role as EDGE Knowledge Marketing Specialist where I was responsible of a variety of different things such as branding for EDGE, promoting of EDGE, increasing our user communication channels through a Marketing Plan and of course organizing the EDGE Conference! Just last year I became CIRU Marketing Manager as I now have a more varied role and responsibility, not just focuses on EDGE but our entire unit.

Fergus Walsh, BBC Medical Editor

Anyway, that’s enough of that. Back to the conference. The 2024 event EVOLVE is our first event back since the pandemic and it follows the global rollout of EDGE version 3. Being over 97% fully booked, it is by far the most in-demand conference we have put on and we are delighted about that. We have chosen to return to the Vox Conference Centre in Birmingham this April 24-25th due to its flexible and modern space, and of course its location which seems to work well for our UK userbase and overseas attendees. We are extremely excited to announce that Fergus Walsh, BBC Medical Editor, will be returning for his third EDGE Conference as host. We have also been successful in obtaining CPD (Continue Professional Development) for the EVOLVE conference so delegates can expect to be awarded CPD points for their attendance. If you haven’t booked your spot or want to know more, just click here.

The conference is of course a really big and important Community based activity, but we do understand that not all of our users are able to attend due to various reasons such as budget restrictions and time away from work. We totally get that, so this year we are working on increasing what we offer our users in terms of more support material and collaboration/networking opportunities. One of the first new additions to our community offerings is an in-depth EDGE Finance training video by the one and only Stevie Barre (CIRU Programme Manager and ex-end User). Finance is certainly a hot topic at this year’s conference, and it seems to be what our users want to learn about, so it only made sense we would start with this area for our first EDGE 3 training video. We are also working on an online community forum which will be accessible to all Users to encourage the sharing of EDGE best practice and provide an environment to ‘work together’ online. More information on these new additions will be in our monthly Admin Newsletter Knowedge. If you wish to be added in to receive this communication, just drop us an email. Oh and do also use this email, if you want to get involved in featuring your organisations work with EDGE within a futures newsletter which is sent to our global userbase, we would love to hear from you. Well, I am sure I will be back here soon with another EDGE update! Thanks for reading.

End of Year Round-Up for EDGE

End of Year

Round-Up for EDGE

As we are well into December and approach the end of 2023 there is a huge amount to reflect upon after a year that saw the biggest leap forward in EDGE in its 23-year history. The launch of EDGE version 3 was a huge personal milestone for our team, and seeing the culmination of our collective investments go live was a real triumph.

Since the UK launch in May, our dedicated Knowledge Team has been hard at work building on the success with a continuous series of releases to optimise performance and bring further enhancements, ensuring that you have the tools you need to stay ahead in an ever-evolving research landscape.

The entire CIRU team extends their thanks to all of you in fostering and growing our community which has been a driving force behind our accomplishments. All of you who reviewed, tested, tweaked, documented, trained, and contributed to launching EDGE 3 played a big part in our year.

As we reflect, we are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. In 2024, we will continue to innovate and adapt to meet the evolving needs of our community. Some new API functions are already in testing and our Marcomms Team will be announcing an exciting tool in the new year to help us all collaborate. We also are really looking forward to the return of the EDGE Conference next year which will highlight many EDGE 3 user success stories and is on track to be our biggest event so far.

So, from everyone here at EDGE and from all of us at CIRU, we extend our warmest wishes to you and your team for the festive season, and we hope everyone gets time for a well-deserved break and we look forward to supporting your success in the coming year and beyond.

EDGE is certified in Cyber Essentials

EDGE

is certified in Cyber Essentials

The CIRU are pleased to announce we have been successful in attaining our Cyber Essentials Certification.

The Cyber Essentials Certification programme was launched by the UK government in 2014 as part of its National Cyber Security Strategy. The primary goal of Cyber Essentials is to improve the cybersecurity posture of small to medium sized enterprises (SME’s) to establish a baseline of cybersecurity hygiene. Cyber Essentials is a certification that is a requirement for organisations bidding on government contracts in the UK, especially those involving the handling of sensitive information.

Our certification demonstrates the CIRU’s commitment and responsibility in managing the security controls of how EDGE is designed, developed, delivered, and maintained. In implementing these security controls, we reduce the risk of vulnerability through common cyber threats and protect organisations’ data from being breached.

Cyber Essentials aligns with the CIRU process of continual improvement, as cyber-threats evolve Cyber Essentials enables us to continually assess and improve our cyber security posture. CIRU continually review the five control areas of Secure Configuration, Boundary Firewalls and Internet Gateways, Access Control and Administrative Privileges, Patch Management, and Malware Protection.

For more information on Cyber Essentials, click here.

EDGE 3 launched in Canada!

EDGE 3

launched in Canada!

We are very excited to share that EDGE 3 has been launched in Canada to Users at the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Network (3CTN), Alberta Innovates, and University of Saskatchewan. This follows successful rollouts which have taken place this year to South Africa, New Zealand, and the UK. We recently caught up with 3CTN’s Super User and Portfolio and Informatics Manager, Rebecca Xu, to see how things have gone for them since the launch of EDGE 3. We are delighted to share that Rebecca felt that the transition from EDGE version 2 to EDGE version 3 was overall a smooth process. She also noted that her Users adapted quickly to the change. Regarding 3CTN, Rebecca provided the following comments:

“The launch of EDGE 3 went smoothly. Leading up to the launch, our team communicated about the change, providing everyone with a heads-up and ensuring preparedness by updating our version 3 training documents. Lead Admin Users were given a preview of the changes. On launch day, September 20th, 2023, everyone transitioned to the new EDGE 3 successfully.”

During our interview, we also asked about any hurdles the sites had to overcome. The response was again very positive. Rebecca and her team confirmed that overall, it went well, but there were some minor issues that were sent to our development team to fix. However, these were addressed promptly by our team here and Rebecca informed us how both Nicky Morris, EDGE Product Manager, and Jen Peach, EDGE Knowledge Team Manager, were extremely accessible and responded very quickly to their queries.

“Some EDGE Users felt overwhelmed by the anticipated changes. To ease Users into the transition, 3CTN modified the V2 training manual to reflect the new changes with User Acceptance Test (UAT) platform screenshots, clearly indicating the key changes. The updated training manual was divided into 18 training modules for Users to engage in, either through self-learning or in virtual seminars hosted by the 3CTN team. These sessions focused on addressing key changes in navigation, reporting, and finance. Ten online training sessions were provided to approximately 90 Admin Users across 60 different Cancer Centres prior to the launch and continue post-launch. In addition, familiarization videos developed by the UK EDGE team were made available to all Users. As the time between version 3’s announcement and its launch were not long, we appreciate our Admin Users dedicating time to review upcoming changes over the summer and provide feedback.”

This naturally followed the question ‘How have your Users handled the change?’:

“Since the interface and layout of EDGE 3 are different from previous versions, Users took the time to familiarize themselves with the new layout. Most of our Users felt ready to try out the new features, and many are eager to explore the finance features further.”

To help other countries who are yet to receive EDGE 3, Rebecca also offered some valuable advice for other EDGE Regional Leads yet to experience the EDGE 3 rollout:

“I would suggest reviewing your existing EDGE V2 training materials and determining if you can follow along using the EDGE 3 User Acceptance Testing platform, then updating them with EDGE V3 screenshots. I would also suggest practicing all the tasks you normally do in EDGE, as this is the quickest way to notice changes right away and update training materials for Users.”