A Month in Neurodegenerative Disease Research (AMiNDR): The evolution of an open‐access podcast series for Alzheimer's researchers

Abstract

Background: With the increasing strain on researchers' time and the constant flow of new publications, staying up to date with the latest findings in the field of Alzheimer's disease research is more challenging than ever. To address this problem, we launched a podcast series in June 2020 which covers primary peer-reviewed articles. Each episode comes with a bibliography citing the abstracts covered, and a description by theme.Since then, we have focused on program evaluation and quality improvement with the following aims: 1) Implement a systematic and consistent approach within the team and across episodes, 2) Increase our global reach, and 3) Provide a valuable service to researchers.Methods: Areas for improvement were identified by the core founders of the podcast, 25 new team members, and listener feedback. 1) A systematic approach to sorting papers into defined themes was developed based on thematic coding of abstracts to identify major themes and sub-themes. We also implemented quality control measures and standardized hosting procedures. 2) To evaluate our reach, we used analytics from the Simplecast podcast platform to track the number of downloads over time and the geographical location of our listeners. 3) Formal and informal feedback was collected through a survey and social media platforms, respectively. We also plan to assess additional analytics to track the use of our bibliographies to evaluate their value and whether our podcast prompted listeners to consult the original article.Results: From our original four broad-strokes themes in early 2020, we have expanded to 25 themes to curate focused episodes on topics relevant to researchers. We also developed a semi-automated quality control regimen to ensure that we cover all papers that appear on PubMed each month, without duplicates. To standardize summarizing and hosting procedures, we created guidelines to train new members of our team. We have received significantly more positive feedback for our recent series that implemented the improvements, and observed a gradual increase in our weekly downloads from a global listener base. Conclusion:With the feedback received and data collected on listener trends, it seems that researchers worldwide are benefiting from our podcast platform and its improvements.