Wolters Kluwer Health announced today that it has expanded its partnership with BMJ to be the exclusive aggregated information provider of the BMJ Clinical Evidence resource on its OvidSP platform. Ovid will offer BMJ Clinical Evidence to medical and academic institutions globally to support clinicians, researchers, educators and students make decisions on quality care and improve patient outcomes through effective evidence-based clinical practice.

BMJ Clinical Evidence is a unique decision-support resource that summarizes the current state of knowledge about medical interventions used in prevention and treatment of clinical conditions. Developed by selecting and appraising primary research literature to create rigorous systematic reviews of evidence on the benefits and harms of clinical interventions, the database consists of three parts: evidence-based medicine methodology, a database of more than 250 systematic treatment reviews for over 3,200 interventions and a suite of resources and tools—including critical appraisal checklists —designed to help put the evidence into practice.

“The addition of BMJ Clinical Evidence to the EBM resources available on OvidSP is a tremendous advantage for healthcare practitioners, researchers and students in helping them make clinical decisions with confidence,” said Andrew Richardson, Vice President of Business Development at Wolters Kluwer Health, Medical Research. “We’re delighted to expand our partnership with BMJ Clinical Evidence, reinforcing Ovid’s position as the only aggregated, multi-publisher solution offering a comprehensive portfolio of up to date, premier evidence-based practice resources.”

Dr Tracy Eastman, Director of Evidence Centre, a division of BMJ says, “BMJ Clinical Evidence is the pre-eminent resource combining ‘gold standard’ systematic reviews with detailed teaching tools. Together with Ovid’s global institutional user base, this partnership will bring BMJ Clinical Evidence to more practitioners and clinical researchers – helping them to understand and apply evidence effectively to improve practice and patient outcomes.”

OvidSP is a single online destination for conducting efficient and effective medical research, whether users are managing large-scale, document-intensive projects or making time-sensitive, evidence-based decisions. They can search BMJ Clinical Evidence and other EBM resources simultaneously with full-text ejournals and ebooks with just a single search query. In addition, they can manage their search results and research documents—all within the OvidSP platform. OvidSP combines leading search technology with powerful productivity tools to help users save time in the research process, so they can focus on the output of their work to answer important patient questions, uncover new theories, and make groundbreaking contributions to their field.

Nine in ten of today’s elementary, middle and high school students believe that mobile devices will change the way students learn in the future (92 percent) and make learning more fun (90 percent), according to a new study conducted by Harris Interactive and released today by Pearson. The majority (69 percent) of elementary, middle and high school students would like to use mobile devices more in the classroom.

The survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of Pearson between January 28 and February 24, 2013 among 2,350 U.S. students, including 500 elementary school (4^th-5^th grade) students, 750 middle school (6^th-8^th grade) students, and 1,100 high school (9^th – 12^th grade) students. The survey also included a national sample of 1,206 college students. The survey of elementary, middle and high school students finds that more than one-third of 4^th and 5^th graders (36 percent), and a third of middle school students (34 percent), currently owns a tablet. Hispanic students are more likely to own a tablet than non-Hispanics (36 percent Hispanic vs. 30 percent white and 28 percent black).  Black (51 percent) and Hispanic (49 percent) students are more likely to own a smartphone than white students (40 percent). Twenty-five percent of all students intend to purchase a tablet within the next six months. Forty-three percent of students own a smartphone, with older students more likely than younger students to own one (56 percent high school, 42 percent middle school, and 19 elementary).

One-third of elementary, middle and high school students said that they have used a tablet for school work this academic year (34 percent have used a full-size tablet and 32 percent have used a small tablet), and 44 percent said they have used a smartphone for school work. Among students who use a tablet for school work, more than half (52 percent) use a device that they own personally, rather than borrow from the school.

“This year’s study findings provide guidance to schools and districts around the country as they plan to integrate mobile technology into teaching and learning,” said Seth Reichlin, Ph.D., Pearson’s Senior Vice President of Market Research. “”Since the majority of students want to use mobile devices in the classroom, and because so many now own mobile devices, BYOD (bring your own device) programs and the challenge of universal access will remain a compelling topic of discussion for education leaders.”

The Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey was conducted to better understand how students use mobile technology for learning. The survey focused on how students use the mobile devices they currently own for learning, and how they would like to use those devices in the future. The survey asked students from grade 4 through college about the mobile devices that they own and intend to buy; how they currently use mobile devices for school work and how they expect to use them in the future; and their attitudes towards tablets for learning.

The study showed that how students want to use tablets in school varies by grade level. Two-thirds of elementary (76 percent) and middle school (75 percent) students say that they would like to use mobile devices more often in class, compared to 61 percent of high school students and only 43 percent of college students. Students also said that they want to do more schoolwork activities with full-size tablets rather than with small tablets. For example, 70 percent of elementary, middle and high school students want to use a full-size tablet to do homework, compared to 53 percent who want to use a small tablet for the same activity. Elementary and middle school students are more likely than high school students to want to use full-size tablets for doing homework (77 percent elementary, 72 percent middle school, 65 percent high school), while older students are more likely to want to use tablets to check class schedules (45 percent high school, 38 percent middle school, and 28 percent elementary) and take notes in class (52 percent high school, 47 percent middle school, 40 percent elementary).

“It is particularly interesting to note that as students rise to higher levels in their education the way that they rely on mobile devices to support learning changes as well,” said Shawn Mahoney, Vice President, Product Design Research and Evaluation, Assessment & Instruction, at Pearson. “While smartphones and tablets are still important tools for high school students, it appears that they are looking for more full featured productivity devices, such as student laptops, to support their learning activities.”

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Pearson between January 28 and February 24, 2013 among 2,350 students, with 500 elementary school (4^th-5^thgrade) students, 750 middle school (6^th-8^th grade) students, and 1,100 high school (9^th – 12^th grade) students. Qualified students were 8-18 year old U.S. residents who were enrolled in 4^th through 12^thgrades. This survey was part of a larger study on 4^th through 12^th graders, including oversamples in Florida, Texas, California, and New York. The survey also included a national sample of 1,206 college students.  Data were weighted to be representative of the 4^th grade through college population in the U.S. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, household income (for college students), and highest level of parental education (used as a proxy for household income for 4^th through 12^th graders) were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with non-response, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100 percent response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal. Pearson will make the full methodology, including weighing variables available upon request.