The MAGICapp platform supports the structured creation and publication of guidelines and evidence summaries. It is a web-based collaborative tool that is optimised for GRADE methodology and incorporates the latest technology and frameworks.  

MAGICapp has been created by the MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation, a not-for-profit led by a team of clinicians and EBM experts with a shared ambition to improve patient care globally by enabling the creation, dissemination and implementation of trustworthy guidance.  

1. Multi-layered guideline format.  

MAGICapp features an intuitive, multi-layered user interface, simplifying the guideline development process for authors and enhancing the experience for readers. The user is presented with the recommendation up front, but can dig down into layers of information, all the way down to the primary studies that provide the effect estimates for each outcome. 

2. Robust data structure.  

Data structures are critical in guidelines and MAGICapp has an interconnected data framework that includes links between various components like sections, chapters, recommendations and evidence profiles. Each element has a unique ID, enabling flexible connections between elements, external linking, and comprehensive audit trails. All content in the MAGICapp adheres to these principles, which allows you to link to, use, or extract every piece of information as its own entity.  

3. Dynamic updating of content.  

MAGICapp has been pivotal in revolutionizing the way living clinical practice guidelines are authored and published. Thanks to the structured data and comprehensive features available through MAGICapp, authors can easily update and publish individual elements of their guideline. Whether you have a change in the evidence, recommendations, or other content, MAGICapp allows for fast and easy updating with reliable version control. These features make it easier for you to keep your guidelines aligned with the latest evidence whether you are maintaining a living guideline or undertaking periodic updates of standard guidelines. 

4. Flexible, facilitated authoring experience.  

We believe a well-designed interface not only saves time but also facilitates high-quality content production. This has been one of our main focuses from day one – whether it’s the way you enter references, code PICO questions, do GRADE assessments, or write recommendations - each step in the authoring experience is carefully designed to make is as intuitive as possible and to help you produce a high quality end result. In addition, based on our experience of collaboration with hundreds of guideline teams across the world, we recognize that one size does not fit all, and so MAGICapp can adapt to different ways that teams want to structure their guidelines, offering flexibility in content creation and presentation, whilst remaining structured and intuitive.  

5. Collaborative authoring.  

Writing a guideline is a collaborative endeavour, so from the very beginning we built MAGICapp as a web-based collaborative platform. This allows admins, authors, technical teams, and systematic reviewers to work together on the content based on permission levels. Real-time visibility of changes made by team members, coupled with an activity log to track contributions, streamlines the process. The versioning problem you used to have with sending documents around by email is gone, and a bonus of this web-based approach is that you don’t need to install any software.  

6. Workflows that help you create trustworthy guidelines.  

MAGICapp provides support for authoring guidelines using trustworthy guideline development standards, such as GRADE, the Institute of Medicine and Guidelines International Network (GIN) standards, and the Australian Living Evidence Collaboration handbook. We offer a systematic and transparent framework to facilitate the whole guideline process, from the creation of evidence summaries (Summary of Findings tables), devising recommendations (including using the Evidence to Decision framework), reporting and managing conflicts of interest, updating your content, and other steps of guideline development.   

7. Comprehensive features for working with evidence summaries.  

MAGICapp allows for creation of evidence summaries (Summary of Findings tables) in a streamlined way, with features allowing for transparency and flexibility. Features include accommodating different types of outcomes (dichotomous, continuous, narrative/non-poolable), panel rating of outcomes, guidance for evidence certainty assessment using GRADE, options to add further information (e.g. outcome descriptions, forest plots, individual study references), as well as evidence summaries with or without individual outcome data. You can start creating your evidence summaries by adding your evidence synthesis data either manually (e.g. from R, SAS, STATA, etc.) or using our import tool (e.g. from RevMan 5 or GRADEPro GDT). Authors can then link evidence to recommendations, and can link many evidence summaries to a single recommendation or a single summary to many recommendations. 

8. Automatically produced decision aids.  

MAGICapp can produce automated decision aids based on the data you enter into your evidence profiles. These decision aids have been developed through MAGIC research programs to facilitate conversations between clinicians and patients about benefits, harms, and values. They have been designed with a user-friendly graphical interface that depicts the underlying effect estimates supporting a given recommendation, fostering an environment that empowers and facilitates shared decision-making. MAGICapp allows users to disseminate decision aids online in MAGICapp, as a PDF, or in your own platform using our widgets feature. 

9. Combined authoring, publication and dissemination.  

MAGICapp integrates the process of authoring and publication within a single platform. This enables straightforward dissemination of guidelines using our advanced publishing technology, which includes open access online access on MAGICapp, content widgets you can embed in other websites and access through our API. The platform is also mobile-optimized, ensuring full functionality on mobile browsers. This can be the sole point of publication, complementary to publication in a journal, or on your own content management system (via PDF or our API).  

10. Full ownership and control of your content.  

The content you create on MAGICapp is entirely your own; our role is to offer the platform for your authoring and publishing needs. While we would be delighted if you choose to share your content for broader use, such as in adaptations or enhancing global knowledge repositories, the decision to do so is completely in your hands. You can always export your guidelines from the platform through a range of export options, including Word, PDF, and our API. 

In addition to this list of highlights, MAGICapp has hundreds of valuable features for guideline development, including the following: 

For more MAGICapp feature information, please see our regularly updated feature list. 

For all enquiries about MAGICapp please contact: Support@magicevidence.org 

Last Updated: 12 January 2024