Cogniges Articles

A Glance in the information rearview mirror

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

A Retrospective on Information Surveillance: 20 Years of Monitoring and Information Retrieval

Information monitoring and information research are constantly evolving: tools are changing, artificial intelligence is becoming widespread, and the volume of information is skyrocketing. However, certain fundamental truths remain: organizations’ needs are still very much present, as are the constraints that hold them back. Céline Bélanger, president of Cogniges, has two decades of experience in information monitoring and literature research. In nine questions, she takes stock: the challenges that persist, the decisions that make a difference, and the added value of human expertise.

1. Over the last two decades, what are the information needs or issues that have arisen most frequently among your client base?

Two distinct client profiles emerge.

The first category consists of organizations that face information needs, but that are not always equipped to address them. They need support to clearly define their needs and help in finding solutions. They also lack human resources, time, access to information resources, and expertise to fully leverage them. This is hardly surprising: information science is not widely taught in general academic programs, and the myth of exhaustive and free information persists.

The second client profile consists of information science specialists who possess the expertise but lack the time to meet all the needs of their own clients. In such cases, Cogniges steps in to provide short- or medium-term support.

2. What common errors in the areas of information monitoring and literature research do you still see today?

When it comes to information monitoring, FOMO syndrome (Fear of missing out) dominates, the corollary of information overload. This leads to the desire to monitor too many sources, to want to collect everything, and to keep everything. The result: an administrative and processing burden that ultimately hinders the very process it aims to enhance.

When it comes to literature searches, we see the opposite phenomenon: clients want a limited number of records, which sometimes doesn’t align with the scope of the research undertaken.
In both cases, early training or awareness-building helps better identify needs and ensures they are aligned with expectations.

3. How have your clients’ constraints or needs changed over the last 20 years?

The scarcity of time remains a persistent problem, just like the belief that information should be freely accessible. Furthermore, there is a widespread belief that one can freely access all information available on the open web. This would overlook two inescapable realities: 1) copyright, which must be always respected, and 2) the risk of encountering fake news or predatory news outlets.

Furthermore, despite technological advances, access to professional tools is becoming more complex. In many organizations, access to paid databases is decreasing, even though these databases—just like free resources—remain essential for comprehensive information coverage.

4. What indicators could signal that an organization has a monitoring problem… without necessarily being aware of it?

The absence of monitoring within one’s industry is already a warning flag. But many organizations engage in intelligence gathering without necessarily calling it that. This often leads them to overlook chances to enhance their operations and resources or misidentify the necessary tools.

Two pitfalls often arise: first, information monitoring that is siloed can deprive the organization of a panoramic view of its environment. Secondly, a project that is too cumbersome or too ambitious from the start increases the risk of stumbling blocks.

A key to success? A solid project launch and an agile monitoring approach that can adapt to organizational changes are essential.

5. In retrospect, which decisions have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of monitoring or literature research?

In both cases, it all starts with clearly defining the need. This sets the stage for the appropriate allocation of resources and aligns expectations. A comprehensive initial conversation, supplemented with tangible examples, serves as a strong foundation for a successful start.

Additionally, remaining receptive to training and gaining an in-depth understanding of the entire process will enable you to accurately assess the level of dedication required. This is a worthwhile investment that will pay off in the long run.

When it comes to monitoring, best practices have proven to be a factor for success.

6. What have you discovered about the balance between automation, tools, and human judgment?

These components must function harmoniously, but human discernment remains essential. Softwares, including those that employ artificial intelligence, must be calibrated and refined: we cannot trust their default capabilities. For example, the mere presence of searched-for words in a document does not necessarily reflect their frequency of use or their actual weight and therefore does not guarantee the relevance of a result.

The challenge? Finding the right balance: fully leveraging the tools’ capabilities while tapping into human expertise and critical thinking. Only then can any project be subject to continuous improvement.

7. When would you recommend hiring an external consultant instead of handling everything in-house?

Do you lack internal information science specialists? A consultant can provide you with a wide range of services, from tailored training to complete project management.

Do your current specialists have too much on their plates? Outsourcing all or part of a new project ensures that it is executed effectively and with top quality.

8. To ensure that information monitoring remains useful and enduring, what concessions must organizations be prepared to make?

In essence, the key is to remain focused on priorities and maintain the long-term appropriateness of the intelligence process. In practical terms, this involves acknowledging that you can’t monitor everything, adjusting the frequency of data collection and dissemination, streamlining the intelligence output, and frequently reviewing the process with a mindset of ongoing enhancement.

Furthermore, it is just as important to ensure that the monitoring team participates in the organization’s strategic decision-making bodies and that there is transparent and ongoing communication with them.

9. Having spent 20 years as a solopreneur, how do you perceive the role of information professionals today and in the future?

Information specialists possess unique expertise, information literacy they readily share, and a talent for maximizing the potential of every emerging tool.

Due to their low profile, librarians may not receive as much attention as other high-profile professions (such as engineering or medicine. However, their crucial roles in analyzing and mediating information, whether through research or monitoring, have never been more relevant.

In 2006, Céline Bélanger chose the then-uncommon path of solopreneurship to combine her passion for information sciences with a direct connection to a diverse clientele. Twenty years later, the ways in which monitoring and research projects are carried out have evolved continuously, as have the tools. Her passion and that connection, however, remain unchanged.

5 Strategies for Spotting Predatory Journals

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 EST

When conducting literature reviews or monitoring projects, the search for relevant information can run into a sneaky obstacle: identifying articles from predatory journals. To identify and address the challenge posed by these journals and their content, we propose five complementary strategies.

1. Understanding What a Predatory Journal Is

Le Fonds de recherche du Québec définit ainsi une revue prédatrice : « En échange de frais de publication, les revues prédatrices publient en libre accès immédiat, mais en se souciant peu de la qualité scientifique ou de l’intégrité scientifique. Elles publient souvent dans des délais très courts, sans suivre les pratiques exemplaires de l’édition scientifique de qualité. Les revues prédatrices exploitent ainsi la demande mondiale croissante pour la publication en libre accès immédiat. » [1]
On retiendra donc les caractéristiques suivantes :

Des frais de publication exigés en amont
Une publication dans des délais très courts
L’absence des bonnes pratiques de l’édition scientifique

De son côté, une revue légitime fera preuve de transparence éditoriale, comprendra un processus crédible d’évaluation par les pairs en y associant un délai, et sera indexée dans des bases de données de qualité, telles que PubMed/Medline, Web of Science ou Scopus. De plus, si elle exige des frais pour une publication en libre accès, elle l’annonce clairement et le fera après évaluation.

2. Guetter les indices

Une fois que l’on comprend de quoi il s’agit, comment déceler une revue prédatrice? Quelques indices peuvent nous mettre sur la voie :

En amont, les autrices et auteurs peuvent être sollicités directement pour soumettre un article.
Les personnes sollicitées devront verser des frais de publication lors de la soumission, ce qui est contraire aux bonnes pratiques.
On garantit une publication rapide, donc sans révision par des pairs.
Le site Web de la revue s’avère peu professionnel : fautes nombreuses, liens brisés, informations éditoriales incomplètes et difficiles à trouver, adresse courriel non professionnelle, absence d’archives des numéros précédents, formulations vagues, métriques douteuses ou inventées, comme de faux facteurs d’impact.
La revue peut publier sur des sujets autres que son nom ou sa description le laissent croire.

Plusieurs instances crédibles ont établi des grilles de critères fort utiles pour nous aider dans une démarche de vérification structurée : Polytechnique Montréal [2], Fonds de recherche du Québec [3], les bibliothèques du Réseau de l’Université du Québec [4] ou encore Think. Check. Submit. [5].

3. Consulter des outils de référence

Plusieurs outils complémentaires et indépendants ont été mis sur pied par des instances soucieuses de la qualité de l’édition scientifique :

COPE. Members. https://members.publicationethics.org/members. La liste des membres COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) permet de vérifier si un éditeur ou une revue adhère à des principes d’éthique de publication.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). https://doaj.org/. « La mission de DOAJ est d’accroître la visibilité, l’accessibilité, la réputation, l’utilisation et l’impact des revues de recherche universitaire de qualité, évaluées par les pairs et en libre accès, à l’échelle mondiale, indépendamment de la discipline, de la zone géographique ou de la langue ». Pour la traduction en français des publications du DOAJ, on peut consulter la page Documentation DOAJ d’Érudit : https://apropos.erudit.org/documentation-doaj/
Predatory Journals. The Predatory Journals List. https://www.predatoryjournals.org/the-list/journals

4. Trianguler les sources

Comme en journalisme, il convient ici de croiser des sources complémentaires pour s’assurer de l’intégrité de la revue. La détection des revues prédatrices repose en effet sur une triangulation entre la consultation de répertoires ouverts, l’examen critique des pratiques éditoriales de la revue et l’utilisation de grilles.
En effectuant cette démarche, on vise l’excellence plutôt que la perfection. En effet, « À l’impossible, nul n’est tenu. » Dans un paysage sans cesse changeant, en contexte d’infobésité, en présence d’hallucinations générées par des outils d’intelligence artificielle générative, il convient de déployer les moyens mis à notre disposition pour débusquer la fraude. Cependant, il faut garder à l’esprit qu’il peut rester une marge d’erreur, car il arrive que même les bases de données les plus renommées référencent des articles douteux.

5. Comprendre l’impact de l’édition prédatrice

Selon la position qu’une personne occupe sur l’échelle du cycle de vie de l’information, l’empreinte de l’édition prédatrice variera :

En tant qu’auteur ou autrice d’un article original, on note que le phénomène touche des auteurs de tous les pays, mais que les chercheurs en contexte de ressources limitées ou de début de carrière sont a priori plus vulnérables.
En tant que personne réalisant une revue systématique ou une méta-analyse, l’édition prédatrice compromet la synthèse des connaissances. On recommande d’anticiper ce risque dans le protocole, de repérer les articles suspects en amont, puis de prévoir des analyses de sensibilité lorsque des études douteuses sont incluses [6].
En tant que professionnel(le) de l’information, la situation exige une grande vigilance et du temps consacré à la vérification qui va au-delà des critères habituels de sélection de l’information.
En tant que consommateur d’information, la lecture de sources que l’on croit fiables peut induire en erreur et, à terme, miner la confiance dans les écrits scientifiques en général.

Conclusion

Au contraire d’une revue légitime, transparente, vérifiable et cohérente, une revue prédatrice s’avère vague, pressante et difficile à corroborer. La triangulation de sources fiables, telles que des répertoires et des grilles de critères, permet de soutenir la démarche de vérification. N’hésitez pas à faire appel à des spécialistes de l’information pour vous y aider.

Références

[1] Fonds de recherche du Québec. (2025). Identifier les revues prédatrices.

[2] Polytechnique Montréal. (2026). « Évaluer la fiabilité des éditeurs ou des revues » dans Rédiger et publier un article scientifique.

[3] Fonds de recherche du Québec. (2023). Liste de vérification pour reconnaître les revues trompeuses.

[4] Université du Québec. (2026). Éditeurs prédateurs : les reconnaître et s’en prémunir. https://uquebec.libguides.com/editeurs-predateurs/accueil

[5] Think. Check. Submit.

[6] Martinino, A., Smeenk, F. W. J. M., Basile, V., Soto, A., et Pouwels, S. (2025). Understanding the Influence of Predatory Journals Articles Included within Systematic Reviews: A Scoping Review. The Serials Librarian, 86(3-4), 213-222.

High-quality AI queries thanks to information sciences

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 EST

Writing high-quality queries in generative AI: 7 principles from information science

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) seems to have turned every user into a search expert. However, simply typing a question into an interface is not a search strategy, nor does it guarantee a conclusive result. Prompt engineering is the gateway to relevant and targeted responses in generative artificial intelligence. In other words, a good answer depends on the quality of the question and the context in which it is asked, a concept often referred to as context engineering. Information science provides keys to support us in this interactive exercise and aligns perfectly with the emergent field of generative AI. Here are seven fundamental tenets of information science that can be used to formulate effective queries and yield more relevant results.

1. The principle of the reference interview: contextualizing the need

In the field of information science, librarians explore the real needs of requesters through a reference interview. Behind the initial question lie all the components that need to be exploited during the search.

Application to writing a query — Rather than submitting a raw query, provide rich context: your role or the role you assign to the tool, the target audience you are aiming for, the objective you are pursuing, the level of depth you are looking for.

Example — Rather than "Explain information monitoring to me," write: "I am (or you are) an analyst in the pharmaceutical sector. I need to prepare a summary note for my executive committee on emerging trends in information monitoring applied to research and development. What recent methodological approaches should I cover?"

2. The principle of controlled vocabulary: choose your terms carefully

Thesauri, keyword lists, and controlled vocabularies exist for a reason: synonymy and polysemy are the enemies of documentary research. The same word can refer to very different realities depending on the field, while the same reality can be translated into several words in free vocabulary.

Application to writing a query — Favor specialized vocabulary from your field to provide both a semantic and ontological framework. For example, if you work in monitoring, clearly distinguish between "information monitoring", "economic intelligence" and "competitive intelligence". Each term directs the tool toward a different response register. Also specify the terminology and language level to be used in the response if you have preferences (French, English, technical jargon, or popularized language).

3. The principle of facets: structuring the query into dimensions

Mathematician and librarian Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan, father of faceted classification, taught us to break down a subject according to its fundamental dimensions: Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, Time (PMEST). This multidimensional approach remains a powerful intellectual tool for structuring any information request. Much like constructing a bibliographic reference, it involves specifying metadata.

Application to writing a query — Break down your query into explicit facets. Specify the what (subject), the who (target audience), the how (format, tone, structure), the where (geographical or sectoral context), and the when (time period). A faceted query leaves little room for ambiguity and reduces irrelevant responses. This is also the principle of the 5 Ws in journalism.

Example — "SUBJECT: automated monitoring tools. AUDIENCE: university library managers in Quebec. FORMAT: comparative table. CRITERIA TO BE COVERED: cost, features, integration with library management systems, learning curve. PERIOD: tools available in 2026."

4. The principle of search strategy: iterate and refine

An effective search strategy is rarely linear. You broaden, narrow, combine concepts with Boolean operators, and rephrase. Searching is an iterative process that builds on the results obtained.

Application to writing a query — Take a conversational and iterative approach with the AI tool. Start with an exploratory query, analyze the response, then refine. Ask the tool to clarify, expand on a point, rephrase from a different angle, or exclude certain aspects.

Interacting with a generative AI tool is a dialogue, not a one-time query. The best results are obtained after three, four, or even five successive exchanges, just as you would refine a search string in a database.

5. The principle of relevance: defining your evaluation criteria

In information science, recall and precision are the two classic measures of a tracking system's performance. It is not usually possible to maximize both simultaneously: a choice must be made.

Applying this to writing a query — Explicitly tell the generative AI tool whether you are looking for comprehensiveness (a complete overview of a topic, even if it includes marginal elements) or accuracy (only the most relevant and reliable elements). This distinction, which comes naturally to information professionals, is very useful for calibrating the response. You can also specify filtering conditions: "Only include academic sources" or "Focus on the three most cited approaches in the literature".

6. The principle of source evaluation: requiring traceability

Information literacy teaches us to evaluate sources according to established criteria: authority, timeliness, objectivity, coverage, and accuracy. This critical reflex is essential when dealing with generative AI tools, as they can produce plausible but inaccurate content, known as "hallucinations".

Application to writing a query—Incorporate traceability requirements directly into your query. Ask the tool to cite its sources, distinguish between established facts and assumptions, and point out areas of debate in the literature. Generative AI is a starting point for research, not a primary source. Your expertise in evaluating sources is your asset and also allows you to put algorithmic literacy into practice, i.e., "being aware of the use of algorithms [...], understanding how they work, being able to critically evaluate algorithmic decision-making, and possessing the skills required to manage and even influence algorithmic operations". [2]

7. The principle of information mediation: specifying the output format

The role of the information professional is not limited to finding information: they format it, repackage it, and adapt it to the needs of its recipient. The same content can take the form of an annotated bibliography, a monitoring bulletin, an executive summary, or a concept map, depending on the target audience and intended use.

Application to writing a query — Always specify the expected output format. Do you want a five-point summary? A comparative table? A classification plan? A narrative summary with recommendations? Generative AI is flexible in its ability to structure information, provided you tell it how. Also indicate the desired length, tone (formal, popular, analytical), and structure (with or without subheadings, with or without recommendations).

Conclusion

Long before the emergence of generative AI, information science gave us the intellectual tools we need to understand context, formulate effective queries, and evaluate the responses we receive. Large language models are changing our interlocutor, but not the nature of information work. And this interlocutor, as powerful as it may be, remains entirely dependent on the quality of the inputs we provide, the questions we ask, and the intellectual work we do downstream, using its outputs.

At Cogniges, we are convinced that the fundamental principles of information science are the key to transforming these tools into levers and preventing certain pitfalls. The art of querying is a natural extension of our practices, which support you in an ethical approach to research and monitoring.

See also

Seven principles for clearly stating your information needs
Information sources: selection criteria for documentary research or evidence-based monitoring
Artificial intelligence in the service of information science: points of convergence and limitations

References

[1] Blanquet, Marie-France. (2012). Un visionnaire venu des Indes : Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan. Bulletin des bibliothèques de France (BBF), 1, 12-17.

[2] Gaudet. Marie-Claude, Parent-Rocheleau, Xavier et Pasquier, Vincent. (2023, mai). La littératie permettrait-elle une meilleure gestion algorithmique? Revue Gestion.

Seven misconceptions about monitoring

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 8 Jan 2026 00:00:00 EST

Monitoring: do you consider it essential or superfluous? Supporters of both sides will put forward compelling arguments to answer this question. Between these two opposing viewpoints lie legitimate questions, doubts, and a few misconceptions. Here are seven widely held misconceptions, their basis, and our modest contribution to the debate.

1. “Monitoring is time-consuming.”

Admittedly, setting up a monitoring system requires an investment of time [1]. However, time management is a challenge for you, as it is for all professionals, managers, and entrepreneurs. Yet the time required to find essential information for the company in an emergency and without a pre-established strategy will prove to be significant, even if it remains difficult to quantify. In addition, the adrenaline and the stopwatch will have to be reactivated every time a new information need arises, which will be a pure expense.

On the other hand, planning and carrying out information monitoring on a specific subject allow you to stay up to date in your field of activity and even anticipate trends. In doing so, monitoring will support your informed decision-making, allowing you to manage your time for value-added tasks. It is therefore an investment.

If you don't know how to set up this monitoring within your team or don't have the time, information professionals can assist you in this process. This is a service we offer at Cogniges. You will save time by accessing relevant and directly usable information, whether operational, tactical, or strategic in nature.

2. “Monitoring is expensive.”

The potential cost of monitoring can be daunting, but the cost of not having strategic information can be truly damaging to an organization. In these circumstances, two elements are inseparable: properly managing the monitoring project to better understand its costs.

What does “managing the monitoring project” mean? It means familiarizing yourself with the five-step process and starting by allowing the necessary time for planning. Knowing your information needs precisely, stating them clearly, defining the areas of monitoring, and aligning the process with the organizational strategy are winning conditions for avoiding dispersion and aiming for efficiency throughout the project.

Under these conditions, monitoring will contribute to your organization's agility and provide a good return on investment. Indeed, an agile organization observes its environment, recognizes, processes, and analyzes relevant information for decision-making that translates into action [2]. This is precisely what monitoring offers.

3. “Monitoring or business intelligence is good for large organizations.”

In a survey published in 2019, Statistics Canada reported that business intelligence technologies were more likely to be adopted by large companies (37%) than by medium-sized companies (29%) or small companies (21%) [3]. However, in a master's thesis in management science presented in 2020, the author argued, with numerous studies to support his case, that “business intelligence improves a company's productivity and knowledge in the short and long term, whether it operates in urban or rural areas, regardless of the industry” [4].

It is important to remember that there are different types of monitoring: strategic, informational, scientific, competitive, sectoral, regulatory, social media, and digital reputation. One of these types is sure to meet your informational needs and organizational expectations.

4. " Monitoring is complicated!"

Like any new way of doing things in an organization, monitoring can seem complex. It can indeed be complex if you leave things to chance, if you are overwhelmed by irrelevant information (noise), if you don't know how to filter it, and if you find yourself unable to disseminate relevant information.

While there is no universal recipe, there are best practices for successfully completing each step: here is an overview. For example, the remedy for improvisation is planning, the solution to avoiding noise is choosing the right sources of information and channeling their output, establishing rigorous criteria is one way to filter information, and paying attention to the content and form of monitoring deliverables will allow them to be used to their full potential [5].

Another potential complexity lies in thinking that monitoring is a linear process. In reality, it must be iterative or it will quickly become ineffective: it is a cycle that guarantees continuous improvement.

5. “Monitoring is easy, everything can be found on the web.”

This belief, although contrary to the previous one, is widely shared. Some people may think that using a tool such as Google Alerts is sufficient for monitoring. However, this tool only covers a tiny part of the web and excludes, for example, paid databases, social networks, and less indexed sources, such as organizations that produce gray literature.

Monitoring relies on a variety of rigorously selected, tested, and evaluated sources: it is often a balanced combination of free and paid sources [6]. Let's not forget that, while some information is freely available, a whole section is only accessible through a search in paid sources. Settling for free sources is a bit like staying in the museum lobby; combining free and paid sources gives you the chance to discover an artist's work and learn how to interpret it.

6. “Anyway, we won't have time to read everything!”

Of course! In fact, no one could, even in a specialized field. Information overload is a widespread scourge that can wreak havoc.

But monitoring does not claim to be exhaustive. It aims to provide you with information that is not only relevant, but also reliable, valid, accurate, up-to-date, and hand-picked. In addition, it will rarely be raw information: the deliverable will highlight a continuous stream of quality content, synthesized or analyzed, well structured and readable, geared toward decision-making to facilitate action [5].

7. “Monitoring is espionage.”

That's what one might think when talking about “economic intelligence.” There are three types of information: 1) white, which is easily and legally accessible information, such as a scientific article; 2) gray, which is legally accessible information, but sometimes difficult to find or locate, such as research reports or conference proceedings; 3) black, which is information with restricted distribution and whose access or use is explicitly protected, such as internal and confidential reports.

Even if it is competitive, monitoring remains a legal process that allows white or gray information to be identified, but not black information. In addition, this type of monitoring will also cover regulatory and technological aspects, as well as weak signals. A “weak signal” is defined as “an imprecise clue, very vague information about high-impact events likely to occur in the future, which develops and improves gradually over time” [7].

Conclusion

In a world like yours, which is constantly evolving, monitoring is a powerful strategic tool that is accessible to all organizations, provided it is organized properly. Whether you want to train yourself in this area or entrust the task to information professionals, don't hesitate to call on Cogniges' services: your decisions deserve to be based on reliable, selective, and timely information.

References

[1] Institut des hautes études de l’éducation et de la formation (France). (2024). Comprendre la veille informationnelle.

[2] Goria, S. (2020). L’entreprise sous le prisme des combinaisons des méthodes d’agilité, de créativité et de veille. Marché et organisations, n° 39(3), 17-38.

[3] Statistique Canada. (2019). Enquête sur l’innovation et les stratégies d’entreprise. Le Quotidien.

[4] St-Sauveur, P. (2020). Évaluation des pratiques d’intelligence et de veille stratégiques dans les PME québécoises [Mémoire de maîtrise en sciences de la gestion]. Université du Québec à Montréal.

[5] Mesguich, V. (2022). Réussir l’édition de ses livrables de veille. Techniques de l’ingénieur (1041).

[6] Deschamps, C. (2018). Outils gratuits et payants : le mix gagnant d’un système de veille. Archimag, Guide pratique « Veille : les nouveaux fondamentaux » (63), 55-57.

[7] Lesca, N., Caron-Fasan, M.-L., et Falcy, S. (2009). Comment les managers interprètent les informations à caractère anticipatif. CERAG.

Optimizing your monitoring with an aggregator

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 11 Nov 2025 00:00:00 EST

While monitoring is primarily a matter of human intervention that adds value and provides useful content for decision-making, the process revolves around tools designed to support the various stages. Among these tools, aggregators play a key role in collecting and processing information. Here are a few things you should know to better understand what they are, what criteria to use when choosing your tool, and how to optimize its use.

What is an aggregator?

According to the OQLF, an aggregator is a "software or a web application that allows Internet users to subscribe to syndication feeds, to automatically receive new content from the listed feeds, from multiple sources, grouped together in a single window, and to read it as soon as it becomes available. In the context of monitoring, the Internet user is the person who performs this activity, the syndication feeds are RSS feeds, and the sources are organizations, databases, or periodicals relevant to your field of activity and duly selected.

In other words, it is a tool that brings together your information sources, alerts you to new content, and saves you from having to check them one by one. But it also goes beyond this collection function. An aggregator is an essential aid in the context of information overload or infobesity, a good prelude to a certain degree of automation in information gathering, and a facilitator in terms of responsiveness. All of this serves your field of activity.

How to choose your aggregator?

There are countless tools available, and the landscape is constantly changing, so you may be tempted to equip yourself beyond your needs. To avoid mental overload, the necessary and sometimes laborious mastery of multiple learning curves, and the potential duplication of information while optimizing the management of risks of loss, it is best to choose the tool that is right for you. What criteria should you consider?

User-friendliness and ergonomics: It is well known that we often only use a small portion of the potential of the tools at our disposal. The user-friendliness and ergonomics of a new tool will help users get started, reduce the learning curve, and encourage long-term use. This includes the layout of the dashboard, the interface language, the design of the features, ease of navigation, etc. User comments provide relevant information in this regard.
The types of sources covered: since not all sources offer an RSS feed, you need to be able to monitor a web page from within your aggregator. In addition, some aggregators offer the ability to follow social networks, while others do not.
Features – Dashboard customization, feed management, categorization (keywords and folders), filtering, search engine, collaboration, connectivity: these are all elements to consider based on your current and medium-term needs.
Cost: some tools offer free versions or trial periods. Given that these offers cover limited features, compare them with the list of functions required for your monitoring activities. If necessary, consider the cost of the professional version within your overall monitoring budget.
Compatibility with your other monitoring tools: Beyond collection, the monitoring process includes processing and analyzing information and distributing deliverables. If you already have a digital monitoring ecosystem, evaluate possible connections with the aggregators in question.
Possible outputs: Does the aggregator allow you to generate RSS feeds or newsletters? What are your needs and plans in this regard?
Artificial intelligence support offered—Recommendation of new sources, automatic extraction, information synthesis, automation: tools are constantly evolving in this area, but by distinguishing from the outset between necessary and incidental support, you will make a more informed choice.
Export options for all managed feeds: to prevent an aggregator from becoming obsolete or to deal with its discontinuation by its developer, check that your RSS feed library can be exported using the OPML format.

5 aggregators to consider*

As with RSS feed readers, the technological landscape is constantly changing. Here we discuss five tools that are widely used at the time of publication, excluding monitoring platforms that are often intended for large organizations with significant financial resources.

For each of these tools, we outline a few distinctive features.

Feedbro: free, launched in 2013, Feedbro is an extension for Chrome, Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, and Firefox browsers. It allows users to monitor multiple social networks, but does not allow them to archive the information collected.

Feedly: launched in 2008, compatible with all browsers, with an intuitive AI-powered interface, it is one of the most widely used aggregators. It is suitable for all monitoring activities and can manage a large volume of sources.

FreshRSS: free software translated into 15 languages, a free self-hosted solution, FreshRSS is primarily suited to tech-savvy individuals working solo.

Inoreader: launched in 2013, this aggregator is widely known and used in the world of monitoring professionals. Thanks to its intuitive interface and sorting features, it is suitable for all types of profiles.

New Sloth: a fairly expensive tool, New Sloth offers a streamlined interface. It features a function that groups all articles on the same topic and automatically extracts entities.

It should be noted that Netvibes, widely used since its creation in 2005, was discontinued in June 2025 by its owner, Dassault Systèmes, which had acquired it in 2012.

Would you like to stay up to date on tools in the field of monitoring? Peruse the Répertoire d’outils numériques de veille.

Harnessing the full potential of your aggregator

Once you have chosen and tested your tool, you will want to exploit its full potential. Here are four ways to do so:

Subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog for the tool that caught your attention. This will allow you to stay up to date on its development. For example: the blog offered by the designers of Feedly.
Consult guides produced by monitoring professionals: based on experimentation by curious and passionate individuals, they will save you valuable time. For example: the Inoreader tutorial [in French] produced by the INESSS monitoring team.
Watch tutorials offered by serious Internet users determined to popularize the features of the tools. Choose the most recent ones to reflect the current situation.
Call on the expertise of information professionals, either for training purposes or to entrust them with the task. At Cogniges, we support you in your monitoring project, whether it's implementing it or giving it new momentum.

* The tools mentioned in this list are provided as examples. They are not necessarily endorsed by Cogniges. At the time of publication, all tools are available online; however, we cannot guarantee their continued availability.

Also worth reading

RSS Feeds: Still a must for optimal monitoring
Veiller dans presque toutes les sources grâce à des flux RSS [insérer ici le lien vers le billet publié en même temps]
A freely accessible directory of digital monitoring tools
Criteria for choosing information sources wisely

References

Berthelette, J. et Bélanger, C. (2024 - ). Répertoire d’outils numériques de veille. Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec.

UQAM. Service des bibliothèques. (2022). La pratique de la veille : automatiser la veille et créer une valeur ajoutée.

Monitor almost any source using RSS feeds

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 EST

With information constantly changing, it is essential to be able to centralize your sources and automatically receive updates that interest you. RSS feeds are the perfect solution. They are a win-win tool for both information producers and consumers, and even more so for information specialists responsible for monitoring or recurrent scans. When the websites you follow have them, you benefit directly from their added value. But what can you do when designers have not included this protocol? Let's take a look at some alternative solutions in the world of monitoring and see how they work.

Why create an RSS feed for a page that doesn't have one?

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is a format that allows you to automatically receive new content published on a website without having to check it manually. For effective monitoring, this is a considerable advantage: it saves time, reduces the risk of forgetting, and paves the way for centralizing information.

However, many websites do not offer this service. This means that you have to regularly check the page to see if new content has been added, which is an inefficient and, above all, time-consuming method.

How does creating a custom RSS feed work?

Tools that create RSS feeds for pages that do not have them generally use two approaches:

1. Page code analysis

The tool reads the HTML content of the web page and detects elements that change, such as new publications or recent announcements.

2. Monitoring specific elements

You define the areas of the page to be monitored: titles, links, specific sections. As soon as a change is detected, the tool updates the RSS feed.

In both cases, the result is a “handcrafted” RSS feed that can be read by any RSS reader or integrated into a monitoring platform.

9 tools for creating custom RSS feeds*

1. Feedbro

Feedbro is a browser extension that allows you to follow a variety of sources and filter results.

• Advantages: free, allows you to follow and filter not only web pages, but also content on social networks.
• Disadvantage: no archive beyond the last 20 items published in the source in question.

2. Feedfry

Feedfry detects repetitive elements in static HTML pages and offers feed versions.

• Advantages: quick to implement and easy to use.
• Disadvantages: for a page to be analyzed, it must be of reasonable size; the free version is limited; the subscription price increases in increments of 50 feeds.

3. Feedly

Feedly acts as both an aggregator and an RSS feed generator.

• Advantages: quick to learn; the free version allows you to follow up to 100 sources.
• Disadvantages: to benefit from advanced features, you must choose one of three paid subscription tiers. acts as both an aggregator and an RSS feed generator.

.4. FetchRSS

FetchRSS allows you to visually select the items you want to track on a web page (article titles, images, links), and the tool generates a corresponding RSS feed.

• Advantages: intuitive interface, quick setup.
• Disadvantages: the free version is limited; a paid subscription is required to monitor multiple pages or update feeds frequently.

5. FiveFilters

FiveFilters offers a minimalist but powerful tool: you define rules (keywords, HTML tags) to extract relevant information.

• Advantages: high precision and customization.
• Disadvantage: not very user-friendly for less tech-savvy users.

6. Fluxguard

Fluxguard uses artificial intelligence to track changes on web pages.

• Advantages: sends notifications accompanied by AI-generated summaries.
• Disadvantages: the free version only allows you to track three sites; subscription prices range from $99 to $499 per month.

7. Inoreader

In addition to being a feed aggregator, the pro version of Inoreader allows you to generate feeds for sites that do not offer them.

• Advantages: Inoreader will suggest feeds for a given web page. If you are not satisfied with these suggestions, you can configure the settings manually.
• Disadvantages: The basic pro account allows you to generate 20 feeds. You must upgrade your account to have 50 or 100 configurable feeds. Some social networks are covered; others, such as LinkedIn, are not.

8. New Sloth

New Sloth is both a feed generator and an aggregator.

• Advantages: streamlined interface; offers intelligent thematic groupings.
• Disadvantages: no free version available, only a trial period is offered.

9. RSS.app

With RSS.app, you enter the page URL, select what you want to track, and get a ready-to-use RSS feed.

• Advantage: compatible with complex web pages and social networks such as Instagram and Facebook.
• Disadvantage: some advanced integrations are only available in the paid version.

Best practices for effective monitoring with custom RSS feeds

Limit the number of feeds you create
The more feeds you have, the more complex they can become to manage. Start by focusing on your priority sources.
Regularly check the relevance and functionality of the feed
Your needs evolve. Some sources become less relevant in response to these needs. In addition, some sites change their structure, requiring you to adjust your settings. Schedule a periodic check in your calendar.
Combine with other monitoring methods
RSS feeds are effective, but they can be supplemented with email alerts, newsletters, or programmed search strategies in document databases.
Comply with site terms of use
Some sites may restrict or prohibit the collection of information. Make sure you comply.

Our role: simplifying your access to relevant information, just in time

Cogniges' information professionals assist you in:

• Identifying strategic sources to follow in your field of activity.
• Implementing the right tools according to your needs and constraints.
• Customized management of your information monitoring project.

In other words, we support you in your monitoring project by personalizing our assistance.

Conclusion

Creating an RSS feed for a page that does not offer one is now possible thanks to a variety of tools and technologies that save you time, centralize your sources, and reduce the risk of missing important information. In addition, you can get help with this process to optimize it and get the most out of it.

Learn more

RSS Feeds: Still a must for optimal monitoring

Berthelette, J. et Bélanger, C. (2024— ). Répertoire des outils numériques de veille. Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (CdPveille3S).

A Freely Accessible Directory of Digital Monitoring Tools

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 9 Sep 2025 00:00:00 EST

Information and strategic monitoring are primarily a matter of human analysis of information. But it is also an iterative process that involves the use of appropriate tools at each stage. The Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (CdPVeille3S) compiled a dynamic directory of these tools. Overview of this project and interview with the two designers, Josée Berthelette, information monitoring professional, and Céline Bélanger, information professional and president of Cogniges.

A directory: why?

The CdPVeille3S, established in 2009, consists of approximately 20 monitoring professionals and various committees, such as the Communications and Best Practices Group. In 2025, this committee revised a poster highlighting effective monitoring techniques. The original edition featured a static inventory of resources.

The goal was to revitalize this list, which meant more than just naming the tools: they had to categorize them, provide brief descriptions of their uses, update the information, and make it widely available. Notably, when they embarked on this project, there was no existing directory, so they addressed a previously unmet need. With enthusiasm, Josée and Céline undertook this challenging task.

Are you part of the intended audience?

This resource is designed for you if:

You are involved in monitoring and want to stay up to date on the tools you can use in your work, either to complement or replace your current tools.
You are a current or aspiring information professional and are considering getting involved in monitoring activities.
You are curious about monitoring but find it overwhelming to research all the tools that support it.

Organization and management of information: how does it work?

The Répertoire des outils numériques de veille contains nine folders. Five of the folders correspond to the stages of the monitoring process: monitoring planning, information gathering, information analysis and processing, dissemination, evaluation and continuous improvement. The Integrated and Collaborative Platform (Plateforme intégrée et collaborative) category lists versatile tools, while the Costs (Coûts) category distinguishes between free and paid tools. Finally, the Favorites and New Releases (Coups de cœur et nouveautés ) category allows regular users to be notified of new content.

If you’re interested in the behind-the-scenes work, here is some information on how the directory was compiled. The designers began with the initial list from the first edition of the “Best Practices” poster. To expand this list, they conducted a survey among CdPVeille3S members to find out which tools they were using. Josée then developed a concept map to organize this raw data into the different stages of the monitoring cycle. Once structured, the information was entered into a master document, a dashboard in Excel format. The directory is continually updated by the Veille sur la veille Working Group, the Communications and Best Practices Working Group, the members of the CdPVeille3S, and their readings.

Outlook

The directory currently includes about 60 tools. In addition to continuously expanding it, the designers envision the following for its future:

The directory is well known, used, and shared: a communication plan is underway to this end, aligned with the best practices for monitoring.
Internet users contribute suggestions and provide feedback.
The directory is included in the monitoring training kit for future librarians and documentation technicians.
Artificial intelligence-based monitoring tools are integrated into the directory.
The section on free and paid tools is developed.
The CdPVeille3S regularly updates the directory.

⇒ You too can contribute to the dynamic nature of the directory.

⇒ Stay informed about new tools added to the directory.

Write to us at one of the following addresses: joseeveille@gmail.com or info@cogniges.com.

References

Berthelette, J. et Bélanger, C. (2024- ). Répertoire d’outils numériques de veille. Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (CdPVeille3S).

Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec. (2024). Fiche de présentation du répertoire d’outils numériques de veille.

Berthelette, J. et Bélanger, C. (2025). Répertoire d’outils numériques de veille : présentation à la FMD3S du 30 mai 2025. Journée de formation FMD3S 2025.

Jamet, V., Pitre, M-C., Bélanger, C., Berthelette, J. et Houtekier, C. (2025). La veille en santé et services sociaux : nos bonnes pratiques. 2e éd. Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (CdPVeille3S).

Issues and Strategies Related to Infobesity

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 25 Aug 2025 00:00:00 EST

Infobesity: Challenges and Strategies for Managing Information Overload

In today's world of information overload, the abundance of content can make it difficult to stay abreast the latest knowledge published in fields of interests. This challenge impacts both individuals and organizations in various ways. Cogniges, a company specializing in information sciences and management, offers insights into the risks associated with infobesity and provides solutions based on leading practices.

Infobesity: What Exactly Are We Talking About?

Infobesity is a catch-all term that combines the words information and obesity. The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) defines it as follows: "Overabundance of information characteristic of the digital age, essentially attributable to information and communication technologies and the hyperconnectivity that results from them."

The lexical field associated with infobesity includes terms such as: information overload, information deluge, infopollution, tyranny of information, etc.

When it comes to personal risks linked to infobesity, the terminology currently used includes the following terms: mental overload, sense of urgency, feeling of incompetence, stress, loss of time, cognitive saturation syndrome, hyperconnection, cyberdependence, FOMO syndrome (fear of missing out, which the OQLF also calls anxiety of missing out), guilt, decrease in the quality of the decision-making process, risk of action paralysis, misinformation, difficulty in distinguishing quality information, risk of intertwining between professional and personal aspects of information, etc. [1, 2, 3].

On the organizational level, while high-quality and timely information should be the basis for informed-based decision-making and innovation, information overload causes frequent work interruptions, slows down decisions, and causes a decline in productivity and innovation.

From an environmental perspective, the impact of the digital information tsunami is now considered one of the issues that some liken to a digital Diogenes syndrome, characterized by the compulsive production and preservation of data.

What are the proposed solutions to mitigate the risks of information overload and to stay informed?

Lean & Leading Information Management Strategies

Here are some strategies for improved information management that can be implemented at both individual and organizational levels:

Training and establishing an information culture: Developing or consolidating information skills concerns the individual and the organization. This requires training, the use of the right tools and the support needed to make good use of them, collaborative work, the choice of the optimal communication channels, recognizing that we can't know everything and learning digital sobriety [1, 4]. Here are three practical actions that can be implemented: limiting the use of cc (carbon copy) when sending emails, practicing file sharing rather than sending attachments, using collaborative platforms for brief exchanges. Cogniges offers training in all these areas.
Granting yourself the right to disconnect: To combat information fatigue and alleviate the digital burden of hyperconnection, several countries have enacted legislation. France, for instance, has incorporated this right into its Labor Code. However, simply passing a law is not sufficient to change practices. According to the Observatory of Infobesity and Digital Collaboration (Observatoire de l'infobésité et de la collaboration numérique), a manager who leads by example can provide a positive impetus [5].
Selecting key information based on knowledge requirements: This involves knowing the target audience's objectives and information needs. This dynamic process requires continuous critical analysis of credible sources and the essential information they contain, ensuring the selection is aligned with the specified requirements. The overabundance of information published, especially during periods such as a pandemic, complicates the process of distinguishing valuable information from irrelevant content, leading to the concept of infodemiology [6]. It is impossible to read everything relevant that is published, even within a niche field [3].
Organizing information aligned to needs, using architecture, taxonomy, or mapping: High-quality, targeted and timely information and has been vetted, interpreted, structured, and captured can become strategic and actionable knowledge. Key content informs decision-making, action and new research, involving both producers and users of information. Upstream, producers can design interfaces to facilitate access and for an optimal user experience. At the organizational level, this content structuring is part of information governance and management best practices. Establishing a digital information retention schedule to rationalize content storage is also part of the process.
Performing Content Curation: As content managers, information specialists excel in selecting, analyzing, organizing and sharing relevant information with their clients by providing information monitoring services. Managers and users then review and consume the information they need, thereby enhancing their productivity.
Leveraging Semantic Web and Artificial Intelligence (AI): Artificial intelligence holds potential, to support professionals and address infobesity by: streamlining information collection, enabling large-scale content processing and named entity extraction, and enhancing information targeting based on user profiles.

In conclusion, implementing effective information management solutions in your organization can help reduce information overload.

Contact the Cogniges team to find out more about our information research & monitoring services and how we provide you with the strategic business intelligence you need!

References

[1] Sauvajol-Rialland, C. (2014). Infobésité, gros risques et vrais remèdes. L’Expansion Management Review, (1), 110-118.
[2] Texier, B. (2023-2024). Prévenir et guérir l’infobésité. Archimag, (370), 15-16. ($)
[3] Bawden, D. et Robinson, L. (2020). Information overload: an overview. Dans Oxford Encyclopedia of Political Decision Making. Oxford University Press.
[4] Casimir, S. (2023-2024). Méthodes et outils : éviter l’infobésité à tous les niveaux. Archimag, (370), 18-20. ($)
[5] Observatoire de l’infobésité et de la collaboration numérique (France). (2023). Référentiel annuel 2023.
[6] The Lancet. (2020). The truth is out there, somewhere [Editorial]. The Lancet, 396(10247), 291. ($)

RSS feeds: still a must for optimal monitoring

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 EST

Some declared the technology outdated. RSS feeds, also known as RSS channels, remain more relevant than ever to those who monitor and produce content: organizations, database providers and publishers. Here's a closer look at a small acronym with great potential.

What is an RSS feed?

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It's a protocol that allows you to subscribe to new content from websites, newsletters or blogs that interest you, for automatic delivery via an aggregator. It's also the protocol behind podcasts [1]. In other words, rather than going to sites one by one to see if they offer new information, you centralize the reporting of all new content for all sites that offer it, in real time. A bit like journalists used to receive dispatches from news agencies, allowing them to be fed news in real time to write their articles.

The feed often takes the form of a content preview - headline, first paragraph and illustration - that can be clicked on to find out more [2]. The technology isn't new, having been around since the late 1990s and peaking in popularity in the 2000s. How do we know if it's present on a site? The pictogram illustrating this post is there, but it's not always in the same place. Sometimes it's even hidden. Here are three examples:

The INSPQ website offers several on a page dedicated to subscriptions.
The Assemblée nationale du Québec website has a page devoted to both the Assembly's proceedings and bills.
On the Radio-Canada site, many feeds are available, but are not visible either on the home page or on the site map. In such cases, to find out whether a feed is available, try the following Google search: "RSS feed insite:https://ici.radio-canada.ca/".

Added value for all

You are a consumer of selected information and lack the time to cover all the sources useful to your field of activity:

By locating and subscribing to RSS feeds from your favorite sources, you can take advantage of the push approach, which, in the words of the Université de Montréal Libraries metaphor, is like "knocking on an apple tree to knock off the ripe apples and make puree".
The information comes to you: you don't miss a thing when it comes to these sources, even if you'll have to do a bit of sorting in each delivery.
You free yourself from the algorithms of social networks.
You'll save time and increase efficiency, as you'll be able to feed directly from the source, and centralize the management of all the RSS feeds you follow.

If you are an information-producing organization, such as a publisher, database provider or grey literature author, and would like to optimize the identification and dissemination of your new publications:

You use RSS feed technology, which is secure and easy to set up.
You lead subscribers directly to the source and increase visits to your web pages, while reducing the risk of misinformation.
You'll delight not only watch professionals, but also Internet users who are concerned about the reliability of information sources.

A request to make

The Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (#CdPVeille3S) is firmly in favor of the use of RSS feeds. Because its members deplore the disappearance of this protocol on sites that are important for the monitoring carried out in their respective organizations, they have prepared standard letters to be sent to suppliers, in both French and English. We've reproduced an example here, aimed at an organization that doesn't have an RSS feed. You can, of course, use it and adapt it to your own needs.

"As part of our research and monitoring activities, we have a real interest in keeping track of new items published on your website, more specifically this [page|section]

[Pages URLs]

Would it be possible to offer an RSS feed to make it easier to keep track of your publications?

Did you know that RSS feeds are essential tools for scientific and health information monitoring? This proven, easy-to-integrate technology is an essential mechanism for maintaining quality scientific knowledge.

The presence of RSS feeds encourages the loyal use of your publications and enables information professionals to promote them.

Thank you in advance for your consideration. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions."

Usual signature "

Conclusion

RSS feeds are relevant, inexpensive, make information traceable, and are effective at disseminating information. They are also easy to set up and use. They are winning tools for both producers and consumers of information. At Cogniges, we use them every day as part of the monitoring and intelligence mandates we carry out for our clients. Now that you're a little more familiar with this technology, don't hesitate to try it out by tracking RSS feeds in your favorite sources.

References

[1] Centre collégial de développement de matériel didactique. (2012). 7 points essentiels à propos des… fils RSS.
[2] Johnson, Maxime. (2023). Comment et pourquoi utiliser les flux RSS en 2023. L’Actualité.

Effective Search Strategies to Find Relevant Information using Boolean Operators

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 15 May 2025 00:00:00 EST

Boolean Operators: Algebra at the Service of Information Sciences and Experts

We use them in everyday language without necessarily knowing their algebraic transposition or their effectiveness in research and information monitoring: these are Boolean operators. Here's a look at how they can be used to combine search terms to find information in a variety of online sources, databases and search engines.

The Operators in Question: AND, OR, NOT

The Office québécois de la langue française (in French) defines Boolean operators as: "Operators whose operands and result each take one of two distinct values." [Free transalation] So, what does this mean? The accompanying note clarifies this definition: "List of Boolean operators: union (OR), intersection (AND), and exclusive OR (XOR)." This reminds us of set theory learned in school.

The name "Boolean" is a reference to George Boole, a British mathematician who, in the 19th century, developed Boolean algebra to translate logical statements into operations. They are also called logical operators. These set of commands are widely used to broaden (find more results) or refine search strategies for information research and information monitoring [1]. Logic diagrams, known as Venn diagrams, are often used to illustrate search strategies on specific concepts or subjects.

Information Research and Monitoring: Techniques and Commands Used in Search Strategies

By planning your search strategy and applying effective techniques, you will find the most relevant and accurate content, for your information needs, in search engines, databases and other online sources.

The search strategy combines key concepts, that best describe your topic of interest and the scope, in an organised structure. Once you have identified the keywords, you can use the following Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to organise and define the relationships between the terms and phrases to retrieve relevant records. Here are some examples:

By combining two concepts using the AND operator, the search will identify documents that mention both concepts, providing more targeted results. The overlapped section of the circles in the middle of the Venn diagram represents the result set of this specific search ex: therapeutic adherence in the elderly.

By combining two concepts using the OR operator, the search will retrieve documents that mention any of the search terms listed in the query providing access to more records (broaden your search). This is an ideal search strategy to use with synonyms or related concepts.

By combining the two concepts using the NOT operator, the search will exclude a search term or concept to narrow the search. For example, it will provide access to results on therapeutic adherence in all populations except children.

Improving Search Results: Complementary Logical Operators

To help improve the relevancy of your results, three other operators can be used in the search strategy to find key information:

"..." Quotation marks – Searching for exact phrases is achieved by surrounding the phrase with quotation marks. The search will only retrieve documents that have the exact phrase, with the terms in the same order, to narrow the results ex: "therapeutic adherence".
* Truncation – To find variations of the search terms (singular and plural forms and variant endings) use the asterisk * symbol to replace one or more characters. The search will focus on all words starting with the root located before the sign. For example, behavi* will identify documents containing behavior, behaviour, behavioral, behavioural, behaviorism, or behaviourism.
(...) Parentheses – Grouping search terms within parentheses indicates the ordering of Boolean operators in search strings. For example, ("therapeutic adherence" OR "medication adherence") AND "elderly" will provide results in the following order:

1) Identify documents dealing with either therapeutic adherence, treatment adherence, or both.
2) Identify documents dealing with both set 1) and the elderly.

Boolean Operators: In What Sources to Use Them?

To find key information in a variety of relevant sources and databases, information specialists, such as the experts at Cogniges, use Boolean operators in search strategies.
To improve the relevancy of search results, high-quality databases have advanced search functions that allow the use of these operators (with some variations in the syntax). For example:

Databases in the pharmaceutical or health field: CINAHL, PubMed, Medline, Embase, etc.
Databases in the business field: ABI Inform or Business Source Complete, etc.

To effectively identify gray literature, Boolean operators can also be used in search engines, such as Google or Google Scholar [2]. Their advanced search functions, make operators implicit, and allow users to simply enter keywords in the appropriate boxes. These modules though are rarely used by non information experts; yet they are very powerful to increase the relevancy of search results.

Do you need complex online searches performed or information monitoring processes implemented? Cogniges experts can train your staff, perform targeted searches and information monitoring mandates for you.

REFERENCES

[1] Université de Montréal. Bibliothèques. (2023, 15 décembre). Opérateurs booléens : pour une utilisation efficace [vidéo]. Youtube.

[2] Mesguich, V. (2024, 11 octobre). Booster ses recherches sur Google en soignant la formulation de sa requête. Techniques de l’ingénieur, fiche pratique no 1052.

Adapting Information Monitoring Systems to Source Changes

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 3 Apr 2025 00:00:00 EST

Updating Your Information Monitoring System When Sources Change Continuously

Information monitoring primarily aims to help stakeholders stay informed of recent and relevant knowledge to support decision-making. To achieve this goal, key content must be collected from quality sources that are up-to-date and well managed. How can one be proactive and keep collecting online content from the best channels (ex: websites, databases, journals, social media, etc.)?

Document Databases that Constantly Evolve

Information monitoring relies on different strategies to curate specific content, including complex search strategies formulated within online databases.

In the health sector, notable databases include PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, and Embase. However, the producers change these databases continuously, for example: changing search engine functionality, adding or removing keywords in the thesaurus, etc. This implies that the information specialist will need to adapt the search strategy and syntax but also have a good process to document the changes.

In a methodological article published in 2018, the authors propose a systematic approach to perform optimal searches in databases. They recommend designing search strategies in a saved document rather than directly in the database, to always have the latest version of the strategy that can simply be copied and pasted [1].

Documents and Web Pages That Disappear …

The long-term preservation of digital information represents a significant challenge. In 2024, Martin-Paul Eve from University College London conducted an experiment creating a database of over 7 million scholarly articles with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), the equivalent of an ISBN for books. From this randomly sampled set, he found that 27% of these documents were not preserved in permanent archives, which is both surprising and alarming [2].

Also in 2024, the Pew Research Center found that 25% of web pages published online in 2013 had disappeared ten years later. Additionally, 23% of new web pages contained at least one broken hyperlink, which was the case for 21% of government web pages [3].

The notions of content dating and updating are both part of the criteria for evaluating the quality of online information [4]. This is very important when analysing content that should be included in the final information monitoring deliverable. Thus, when examining the content on a web page, one should consider the following questions:

“Is the creation date indicated on the page?
Is the date of the last update and frequency of updates indicated?
Is the date specified on different sections of the site?
Are the proposed hyperlinks still active?”

Periodicals That Die (or Are Born)

In 2021, a study found that 176 open-access periodicals, in the fields of science or human and social sciences, vanished between 2000 and 2019 [5]. ScienceInsider indicated that an additional 900 periodicals were at risk of disappearing. This raises two fundamental questions: the preservation of digital archives and access to the results of publicly funded scientific research.

At the same time, in the fields of science, as new disciplines or specialties emerge, new periodical publications are published.

From an information monitoring perspective, this requires implementing a continuous improvement process to review the sources that should be watched.

Source Dashboard: A Key Management Tool

Information specialists design tools and strategies to overcome the various challenges related to the process of information monitoring, including source management.

For instance, Cogniges offers a business intelligence service. The objective is to support clients that want to implement an information monitoring project based on their specific needs or to update their existing system to improve results.

Among these customized management tools is the source dashboard. According to Xavier Delengaigne, an information monitoring expert, this type of dashboard offers the following advantages: “sharing and transmitting sources; obtaining a snapshot of sources at a given moment; updating your information watch; preserving the origin of your sources and improve and update your sources”[6].

Updating the list of sources, from which relevant content is collected, is part of the continuous improvement of an information monitoring process. The elements related to this dynamic process range from listening proactively to client needs to optimizing sources and

utilizing advanced search engine functions to find relevant information;
integrating different types of high-quality sources;
ongoing training on best practices;
sharing experiences and leading practices with peers; and
regularly evaluating the relevancy and quality of sources [7].

The fields of publishing, source and knowledge management are in constant evolution. The expertise and agility of information specialists combined with the implementation of well-designed and customized information monitoring systems, by Cogniges, will help you stay informed based on your needs and aligned with the latest trends!

References

[1] Bramer, W. M., de Jonge, G. B., Rethlefsen, M. L., Mast, F., and Kleijnen, J. (2018). A systematic approach to searching: an efficient and complete method to develop literature searches. Journal of Medical Libraries Association, 106(4), 531-541. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2018.283

[2] Eve, M. P. (2024). Digital scholarly journals are poorly preserved: a study of 7 million articles. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.16288

[3] Pew Research Center, Chapekis, A., Bestvater, S., Remy, E., and Rivero, G. (2024). When online content disappears. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/

[4] Université de Montréal. Service des bibliothèques. (2019). Fiabilité de l’information: évaluer le contenu en ligne. https://bib.umontreal.ca/evaluer-analyser-rediger/fiabilite-information

[5] Laakso, M., Matthias, L., and Jahn, N. (2021). Open is not forever: A study of vanished open access journals. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 72(9), 1099-1112. https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/asi.24460

[6] Delengaigne, X. (2019). 100 fiches pour organiser sa veille sur Internet (3rd ed.). Eyrolles.

[7] Dupin, C. (2022). Comment dynamiser son dispositif de veille? Archimag Guide pratique « Réussir ses projets de veille », 8-10.

How to Start an Information Monitoring Project Successfully

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 2 Mar 2025 00:00:00 EST

Undertaking an Information Monitoring Project: The Path to Success

Your field of activity is constantly evolving. You want and need to: Identify emerging trends, know what the best practices are, anticipate innovations and align with them, and make well-informed decisions based on key information. Starting an information monitoring or watch project can help you meet all these needs and to be proactive. According to our expertise, here’s how to undertake such a project based on a solid foundation.

Knowing the Process

Information monitoring is "a dynamic and rigorous process that consists of monitoring, managing, and disseminating recent and relevant information to anticipate issues and facilitate stakeholder decision-making." [1].

Dynamic? The information monitoring process includes five stages:

Planning
Collecting information
Information analysis and processing
Dissemination and use of information monitoring results
Evaluation and continuous improvement [2].

This process is iterative.

Rigorous? Each stage has its own rigor, whether it is the choice of quality sources, the exclusion of predatory journals, the selection of effective and secure IT tools, the collection of relevant information, an ethical approach and respect of copyright.

Recent? Unlike information research, which is a method used to find information to answer a specific question or solve a problem, information monitoring is a continuous and systematic process that helps you stay abreast of the latest developments related to your interests or high-quality content published on a specific subject.

Relevant? Whether it is the sources monitored, the information collected, the monitoring process, or the deliverable disseminated, all these elements are adapted to your objectives as the target audience.

Reviewing Best Practices

Best practices apply to all stages of an information monitoring project. Here is an overview of five key practices:

Ensure that the content monitored has the potential to meet your organization's strategic information needs and become actionable knowledge [3]. In concrete terms this means being aligned with the organization's strategic plan and objectives.
Assess project resource requirements and availability: human and financial resources but also informational resources. By informational resources, we mean both the technological tools (IT) already in use in your organization and those compatible with your security requirements and constraints. These resources also include relevant and credible information sources related to your specific field of interest.
Record all procedures using two tools: An information framework and a dashboard (https://extranet.santecom.qc.ca/wiki/!biblio3s/_media/bo-veille.xlsx), such as the one proposed by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ).
Prepare a communication plan and update it at regular intervals. This ensures that nothing is overlooked in terms of promotion!
Because the continuous improvement process depends on the quality and timeliness of evaluations, it is advisable to do the evaluation planning during the implementation phase. We recommend identifying: Key performance indicators (KPI), methods used to gather relevant information and data and how to use the indicators for the intended purpose.

Planning, Planning, Planning

We often spend little time on the project planning phase and jump right into execution. From a continuous improvement perspective, as in other fields, an iterative planning process allows information monitoring projects to leverage the results of evaluations.

Given you work in a field of activity that operates in a rapidly changing environment, an information monitoring project also needs to be agile. How? By adjusting the project’s plan, regularly updating the subjects and the various sources monitored and continuously aligning the format and the content of the deliverable with the target audience's objectives and information needs.

Training and Implementation: Our Services and Expertise

To help you demystify the process and begin successfully, Cogniges offers online training "Starting a Monitoring", or customized training based on your needs. Additionally, Cogniges can support you throughout the implementation of your project in the following fields: Health, health technologies, pharmaceuticals, technologies and services.

For More Information

REFERENCES

[1] Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (2022, rev.). Collaboration Charter. [37] (https://praxis.encommun.io/n/rgVPerJAoKX7Le-0Tr5G4YjgieI/)

[2] Jamet, V, Pitre, M. C. et Bélanger, C. (2024). The Stages of a Monitoring Process in Health and Social Services: Version 2.0. Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (CdPveille3S). [38] (https://praxis.encommun.io/n/X3SLZR32qZ0a__wthq7a7ZC39L0/)

[3] Drevon, E. (2023). The Utilities of Strategic Monitoring: A Grounded Theory Study. Communication Studies, 60(1), 37-54. [39] (https://www.cairn.info/revue-etudes-de-communication-2023-1-page-37.htm)

Bibliographical references: what, what for, how?

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 3 Jul 2024 00:00:00 EST

Monitoring webinar

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 EST

COMMUNIQUÉ : Formation à venir

This event is offered in French only.

Montréal, le 5 mars 2024 - Céline Bélanger, présidente et consultante principale en veille et recherche d’informations chez Cogniges inc., donnera une formation en ligne portant sur « Comment démarrer une veille informationnelle : méthode et meilleures pratiques » en collaboration avec la Fédération des milieux documentaires le mardi 4 juin 2024 de 12 h à 14 h.

Cette formation s’adresse aux professionnel·le·s de l’information qui ont pour objectifs de :

connaître le processus de veille efficace adapté aux besoins de leur organisation
découvrir des outils de mise en place d’une veille informationnelle
acquérir les meilleures pratiques liées au démarrage d’une veille informationnelle

Lors de ce webinaire, vous découvrirez un processus et une méthode efficace vous permettant de mettre en place une veille informationnelle pour votre organisation. Nous répondrons à vos questions concernant l’adéquation du processus de veille avec la mission et les objectifs de votre organisation et de vos utilisateurs.

Que vous envisagiez une veille informationnelle en solo ou en équipe, vous découvrirez les meilleures pratiques qui contribuent au succès d’une veille informationnelle.

POUR Y PARTICIPER

Inscription : dirigez-vous vers le formulaire en ligne.
Plateforme de formation : connexion à distance sur la plateforme Zoom. Le lien de connexion vous sera transmis par courriel une journée avant la formation.

Disponibilité : présentation enregistrée et disponible pour écoute en différé.

Dépense de formation admissible – L'inscription à cette formation est admissible aux dépenses de formation selon l’article 6.6 du Guide sur les dépenses de formation d’Emploi-Québec.

Vous désirez obtenir plus d’information sur le service de formations sur mesure de Cogniges, écrivez à info@cogniges.com

[Sans titre/No title]

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 12 Mar 2024 00:00:00 EST

The English version is coming soon.

Include grey literature in your information watch

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 EST

Grey literature: characteristics, sources and identification features

To carry out an information search or an information watch requires knowledge of the panorama specific to the field under study. The sources and types of documents to locate are part of this picture. At Cogniges, we offer you the opportunity to tap into the wealth of grey literature. Find out here what it is, what its strengths and challenges are, and what types of sources and collection methods are used by information specialists to deliver optimal results.

White, grey and dark literature

In terms of documentary typology, there are three colors of literature. White literature, the best known, represents information that is easily and legally accessible. It comes from traditional publishing, which is easy to find and easy to consult, even if it sometimes must be paid for. Examples include scientific articles and reference works.

In contrast, grey literature "corresponds to any type of document produced by government, administration, teaching and research, commerce and industry, in paper or digital format, protected by intellectual property rights, of sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by a library or institutional archive, and which is not controlled by commercial publishing" [1]. Theses, research protocols and reports, as well as papers presented at conferences and symposia, are all part of this underground literature.

Last but not least, dark literature - in addition to the well-known concept of dark detective novel - is secret by nature, and therefore not open to public distribution, even on a restricted basis. These are strictly internal reports, often bearing a seal of confidentiality.

Great features, challenges to consider

Grey literature is an integral part of scientific documentation. It offers undeniable advantages:

Speed: by escaping the commercial process, grey literature will appear more quickly, giving early access to research results [2, 3].
Recency: thanks to its speed of publication, grey literature offers access not only to topical scientific information, but also to emerging content, making it of great interest for monitoring purposes [2, 3].
Free of charge: it is a characteristic attributable to the fact that it is located outside the commercial channel.
Balance: while white literature most often reflects positive results, grey literature opens the door to neutral or negative results, thus reducing publication bias and providing a better representation of research [3, 4].

However, those wishing to search for grey literature should bear in mind the following challenges:

Diversity in terms of media and formats.
Variable quality, since there is not necessarily a peer review process.
Retrieval is sometimes difficult, as documents are not centralized in a single source and are often linked to each producing organization and its respective referencing method.
The perenniality of access varies, since unlike, for example, a scientific article associated with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), a document from grey literature depends on the stability of the arborescence and archiving of the host site.
Bibliographical references can be difficult to build.
Time required to locate and filter relevant information, based on the above.

Monitoring sources and methods

Sources of grey literature can be categorized. For illustrative purposes, the following examples concern the fields of health and social services, without any claim to exhaustiveness.

Governmental or scientific organizations: ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS), Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux INESSS), World health organization (WHO).
Search engines: Google Scholar, Custom Search Engine for Canadian Public Health Associations.
Databases, institutional repositories or directories: Santécom, Papyrus, Boussole grise (INSPQ), Greymatters or Matière grise (CADTH), Health Evidence (McMaster University).

Of course, once a document from grey literature has been identified, it must be examined according to the same quality criteria as any other source of information. In addition, the AACODS (Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objective, Date, Significance) checklist is used to assess certain dimensions specific to grey literature.

Monitoring methods, on the other hand, depend on the arrangement of sources. The information specialist may use a combination of the following methods:

RSS feeds(Real Simple Syndication) : A news feed linked to a given Web site and used to track new content published on that site using an aggregator such as Inoreader.
Alerts: in a general-purpose search engine like Google, you can set up an alert for a keyword or expression: any new results will be delivered by e-mail.
Search syntax: proactively, you can associate a keyword or expression with a source website. For example, "grey literature" inurl:cogniges searches the Cogniges website for the expression grey literature.

For an overview of grey literature in various fields, consult the thematic pages of the Université Laval or Université de Sherbrooke libraries.

Grey literature: a profitable investment

Cogniges can use its expertise to include grey literature in the mandates it carries out for you. Government and agency reports, as well as lesser-known databases and websites, will be among the sources targeted for research and monitoring in your field, providing you with an optimal set of relevant results. Indeed, despite the challenges and efforts involved in identifying and exploiting it, grey literature is a must.

References

[1] Schöpfel, J. (2010, décembre). Towards a Prague definition of grey literature. Paper presented at: Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature: Transparency in Grey Literature. Grey Tech Approaches to High Tech Issues, Prague, Czech Republic. http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00581570/document

[2] Halima, S. (2007). La littérature grise : face méconnue de la documentation scientifique (1^re partie). Documentation et bibliothèques, 53(4), 205–210. https://doi.org/10.7202/1030779ar

[3] Tessier, V. (maj 2023, déc.). Littérature grise. INSPQ. https://extranet.santecom.qc.ca/wiki/!biblio3s/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=fs-litt-grise.pdf

Strategic monitoring: five best practices

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 23 Jan 2024 00:00:00 EST

Five good monitoring practices

As the key to information and business intelligence, monitoring or watch "is an information tool that enables you to stay continuously connected to your environment, whatever it may be. It's a process of information analysis that enables you to know in order to predict and act with aplomb". Cogniges not only offers monitoring services, but also personalized training. Whether you're interested in one or other of these services, or are simply curious, here are five best practices in monitoring.

A 5-step monitoring cycle

Cogniges has been part of the Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux (CdPveille3S) since 2018. The information professionals who are members of the Community have adopted a watch cycle model that includes five stages :

Planning
Research, monitoring and collection
Analysis and processing
Distribution
Evaluation

During an annual conference, the Community published a poster on best practices in monitoring, divided into the five stages of the monitoring cycle [1]. While these practices are all relevant and important, for the purposes of this article we have selected one essential one for each stage.

1. Planning: supporting your organization's mission

To qualify as strategic, monitoring must meet your organization's strategic information needs, while at the same time harboring the potential to become actionable knowledge for you, the clients of this watch [2]. This dual linkage enables you to achieve the expected objectives, i.e.: anticipate developments, better understand your environment, adapt to change, draw inspiration from best practices, fuel your thinking, stimulate innovation, reduce uncertainty, legitimize or support your decision-making and control your organization's reputation.

2. Research, monitoring and collection: using objective criteria to evaluate sources and information

Once the monitoring project has been aligned with your organization's strategic objectives, the sources of information that will feed this project must be rigorously selected, as must the information drawn from these sources [3]. Here are the essential criteria that will weave the sieve: relevance, target audience, authority and credibility, reliability, validity, accuracy and timeliness. Information professionals are duly trained to perform this critical analysis and deliver quality results.

3. Analysis and processing: adding value

Once it has been fed with judiciously selected information, the watch selected records are polished to optimize their added value and become actionable knowledge. This polishing involves "drafting deliverables adapted to the profile and information practices of the recipients and to the type of watch concerned: benchmarking, situation reports, summary notes, etc.". [4].

4. Distribution: supporting the monitoring product

When the monitoring product is ready for distribution, it will of course be distributed to all the product's direct customers. While this distribution is essential, it is only one part of the winning strategy for achieving the overall objectives. Here are just a few of the complementary components that need to be deployed:

Regularly present and represent the project and the product in person internally, to maintain a continuous link and interest with the target audience. To do this, don't hesitate to team up with intermediaries or contributors [5].
Use all internal channels to announce and preview each deliverable: intranet, collaborative tools, cloud computing, newsletters, etc.
Use the organization's website and social networks for external promotion when the watch product is available to the general public.
Use and enrich the communication plan associated with the project.

5. Evaluation: elicit customer feedback

Your monitoring project is on track, and the product is regularly delivered to the target audience. To ensure that monitoring remains strategic, it must be evaluated. In concrete terms, this means that the team must not only collect key performance indicators, but also solicit feedback from customers, through questionnaires or meetings, to ensure the relevance and sustainability of the project, which is then continuously aligned with needs [1, 5].

In addition, while respecting ethical rules and the confidentiality of mandates, watchers benefit from participating in peer networks - such as the CdPveille3S - which constitute "inspiration pools" for best practices in the service of their respective clientele [5].

References

[1] Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec. (2017). La veille à valeur ajoutée : nos meilleures pratiques [affiche]. Congrès des professionnels et professionnelles de l’information, Montreal, October 11-13, 2017. https://praxis.encommun.io/media/notes/note_865/affiche_cdp_congrescpi_2017-10-10_final.pdf

[2] Drevon, E. (2023). Les utilités de la veille stratégique : une étude par théorie ancrée. Études de communication, 60(1), 37-54. https://www.cairn.info/revue-etudes-de-communication-2023-1-page-37.htm

[3] Cogniges. (2023). Criteria for choosing information sources wisely. https://cogniges.com/en/article-disp.asp?i=15

[4] Association des professionnels de l’information et de la documentation. (2023). Veilleur.euse analyste. ADBS.

[5] Dupin, C. (2022). Comment dynamiser son dispositif de veille. Archimag, Guide pratique « Réussir ses projets de veille », 8-10. https://www.archimag.com/le-kiosque/guides-pratiques/gp-72/reussir-projets-veille/PDF

Seven key elements to clearly state your information needs

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 26 Oct 2023 00:00:00 EST

Clearly stating your information needs: seven key elements

For those who play a team sport, the boundaries of the field and the rules of the game are indispensable markers, enabling all players to share the same understanding of the mission. When it comes to document research and monitoring, it's the same thing. The only difference is that it's the team - customer and information specialist - who jointly define the boundaries of the playing field. Are you a customer? Here are seven key elements that will enable you to play a fully active role in expressing your information needs, and so prepare for the game with your partner, the information specialist.

1. Your needs in a single sentence

There's nothing better than a single sentence or question to state the purpose of your project, containing the essential elements of the topic and already guiding your choice of angle, keywords and sources.

Some examples:

The first two were mentioned in the article on what’s the difference between information search and information watch :
o What are the best practices for promoting vaccination?

o What are the new approaches and practices in treatment and rehabilitation for long-standing cases of COVID?
A third was presented by the Université du Québec à Montréal in its Infosphère portal [1]: « Comment se caractérisent les enjeux liés à la sécurité du transport des matières dangereuses sur le territoire québécois? »
A fourth and final one presented by the INSPQ at an annual Public Health Day: « Discrimination des adolescents et des enfants atteints d’obésité » [2].

2. What is your purpose in requesting this research or watch?

Do you simply want to explore a topic? Do you need to know "everything" that has been published in the last ten years on a particular topic? Do you want to know who the leading experts in a field are, because you're about to attend an international conference? Is it necessary for your company to keep an eye on everything new that's published on an upcoming aspect of your business?

By sharing your objective with the information specialist who will carry out your research or watch mandate, you enable him or her to confirm the best angle of research, the most appropriate sources and the criteria for choosing information wisely.

3. What you already know about your topic

When you entrust your research or watch to Cogniges, you may already have read documents on the topic. The ones that seem most relevant to you can be an excellent starting point for gathering information: the authors are certainly experts in the field, the keywords they have chosen are as many paths to follow, the journal in which they appear may publish regularly on the topic.

Pointing out these references also enables a "snowball" effect: what works do these articles cite? In which works have these articles been reprinted?

4. The time frame you want to cover

When it comes to monitoring, the question of time is clear: you need to track only the most recent information, and you need to do so continuously for the duration of the mandate.

In terms of literature research, the question is more delicate. It depends on the nature of your topic and the objective you are pursuing: relevance must come first. And therefore, the period covered determines the volume of results you are likely to obtain.

5. The geographic and language coverage you consider essential

If your topic is health or law, you may want your research or monitoring to focus on countries whose health or legal systems are comparable to yours, so that the results are applicable and transferable.

What's more, even if English predominates in scientific publications, there are other languages present that you may not read: by specifying your markers, you run less risk of ending up with "noise" - superfluous, irrelevant documents - in the results delivered to you.

6. Vocabulary related to your topic

When you're interested in a topic, concepts come to mind: exploring this lexical field with your information specialist helps you delimit the contours of your topic, first in natural language.

The information specialist then takes over to transpose this natural language into keywords or descriptors, a controlled language used like syntax by databases to characterize documents and enable them to be located more efficiently.

7. Other elements depending on your topic

Other elements may be useful in defining your needs. Don't hesitate to indicate them. In some circles, customers are even invited to fill in, at least in part, what can sometimes be a very elaborate “bordereau de recherche” [3].

In short, the more details you can provide to pinpoint your needs, the better the information specialists will be able to tailor your deliverable. Upstream consultation is a winning investment, in information science as in team sports! And don't worry about confidentiality: at Cogniges, ethics are at the heart of everything we do.

References

[1] Université du Québec à Montréal. (2022). « Établir sa stratégie de recherche ». In Infosphère. https://infosphere.uqam.ca/rechercher-linformation/etablir-sa-strategie-recherche/

[2] Robert, O. et Drevon, E. (2011, November 30). Maîtriser l’information en santé à l’heure de l’infobésité [Presentation] Journées annuelles de santé publique (JASP), Montréal.

[3] Institut national de santé publique du Québec. (2023). Bordereau de recherche documentaire.

Criteria for choosing information sources wisely

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 29 Aug 2023 00:00:00 EST

Information sources: selection criteria for literature research or evidence-based monitoring

For every research topic, information sources abound, whether free or paid. When an information specialist carries out a literature search or plans an information watch, he or she sifts through potential sources using additional criteria to guarantee quality results. We offer a brief overview of these filters, drawing a parallel with the questions that every journalist asks in his or her quest for information.

1. Relevance

In journalistic terms, this is where the What and Why questions meet. Even if this is the first criterion that comes to mind, it remains essential, and invites us to ask ourselves several questions:

Does the source cover the field being researched?
Does it offer us a categorization of information and a controlled vocabulary, enabling optimal access to information?
If several sources answer the above two questions positively, what is their cross-referencing rate?

2. Target audience

This is the age of For Whom. Unless we're querying a general-purpose search engine, each source has its own specificity, which leads us to ask ourselves the following questions:

Does the source correspond to the type and level of information sought (academic, popular)?
Does it offer linguistic and geographical coverage that meets the needs of the requester?

3. Authority and its corollary, credibility

Questioning the creator of the information propels us into the sphere of Who and Where. When we're dealing with a recognized information database, the question doesn't arise so much, as the publisher has already selected a bouquet of primary sources and is making them available to us. However, when the search takes us into the world of grey literature, we must ask ourselves about the source organization:

Is this organization well identified and does it have a good reputation in the field, recognized by specialists?
Are the authors' names, qualifications and affiliations included?
Are funding sources and potential conflicts of interest declared?

4. Document level: reliability, validity, accuracy, timeliness

Once Cogniges, as an information specialist, has questioned the quality of federating sources of documents, it may be called upon to examine the quality of each individual document. In this case, it's the How and When that prevail, and the exercise is akin to critical analysis:

Reliability: is the methodology rigorous? Are the levels of evidence identified and described? Are biases absent? Are we sure this is not a predatory journal?
Validity and accuracy: is the information objective and supported by diversified bibliographical references?
Timeliness: is the document properly dated? Whether recent or older, is the information still relevant?

Find out More: some quality sources

University libraries traditionally promote the issue of evaluating information sources among their student clientele. Now they're sharing their expertise with the public, providing us with a number of highly educational web pages. Here is a selection:

Diapason : des résultats au bout des doigts. (2020). Évaluer ses sources avec 6 critères simples : niveau universitaire. https://mondiapason.ca/ressource/evaluer-ses-sources-avec-6-criteres-simples-niveau-universitaire/

McGill Library. (2023). Evaluate information and sources. https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/c.php?g=707913&p=5040311

Université de Montréal. Service des bibliothèques. (2019). Fiabilité de l’information : évaluer le contenu en ligne. https://bib.umontreal.ca/evaluer-analyser-rediger/fiabilite-information

The libraries of the Université de Montréal offer a user-friendly, quantified analysis grid with a curious name, but a serious content: le foutaisomètre.

Université du Québec à Montréal. Bibliothèques. (2022). Infosphère : analyser l’information. https://infosphere.uqam.ca/analyser-linformation/

Artificial intelligence in the information sciences

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 28 Jun 2023 00:00:00 EST

Artificial intelligence in the information sciences: meeting points and limits

Not a single field of activity escapes the influence of artificial intelligence (AI), but distinguishing its contribution and its limits is sometimes a challenge. In the field of information science, AI touches every stage of the information cycle, with varying degrees of impact. Cogniges offers a brief overview of the issue. To do so, we define the concepts, discuss the promising functions and challenges of artificial intelligence at each stage, and conclude with the elements that experts believe will require the intervention of information specialists for a long time to come.

The concepts involved

Definitions already show the potential areas of convergence.

Information sciences "study the properties of information, the forces that govern its flow, and the means of managing it to optimize access and use. They are concerned with the creation, collection, analysis, organization, evaluation, dissemination, transformation and use of recorded information and knowledge in all its forms." [1]

Artificial intelligence refers to "any tool used by a machine to reproduce human-related behaviors, such as reasoning, planning and creativity. More specifically, the European Commission considers AI to include: 1) machine learning approaches; 2) logic and knowledge-based approaches; and 3) statistical approaches, Bayesian estimation, and search and optimization methods." [2]

Information gathering made easy

Considering that the volume of information is growing daily, that sources are diversifying and that the media are more heterogeneous than ever [3] :

Artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, WebChatGPT or Perplexity can help to identify the semantic field relating to a literature research or information monitoring project [4].
In the same way, they can help identify the most frequently used keywords, as well as the names of the main players or sources to follow in a field.

Large-scale processing, analysis and organization

One of the strengths of artificial intelligence lies in its ability to perform large-scale processing on corpora that would be difficult to master using a human approach alone [5]. For example, it can automatically classify sources according to their lexical field, their referencing and the recency of their content.
In a context of information overload, artificial intelligence can be put to good use to extract named entities (people or organizations), concepts and themes, since everything that is written becomes exploitable in natural language, and therefore a potential object of query [6].

Two examples are reported in an issue of I2D: information, données & documents devoted to artificial intelligence [7, 8]:

Every year, 1 million new articles are indexed in Medline, whose thesaurus includes 27,000 descriptors (MeSH). The introduction of the Medical Text Indexer, which incorporates deep learning approaches, makes it possible to meet the need for rapid access to information by performing automated indexing controlled by human curation [7].
Estimating the value and impact of a scientific publication is a challenge. Researchers have developed the MyScienceWork application to analyze bibliographic citations in large corpora according to three models: 1) Does the citation confirm or invalidate the author's thesis? 2) Does the author express a positive, negative or neutral opinion of the citation? 3) Does the bibliographic reference appear in the status, methodology or results? [8]

More targeted information dissemination on the horizon

Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy in this field, but it looks promising [4] :

We can anticipate the targeting of intelligence information according to the profile of the recipient.
We can also foresee the possibility of structuring and presenting information according not only to the recipient's profile, but also his or her level of specialization, language register and reading habits.

Roles still devolved to information specialists

A thorough understanding of the customer's context and needs remains the prerogative of well-trained human beings. At Cogniges, we see this every day.
For the time being, only specialists in the relevant fields or in information are in a position to assess the quality of sources [6], carry out quality control on results and guarantee the appropriate use of artificial intelligence in line with ethical standards, laws and regulations [3].
If artificial intelligence can take over repetitive tasks, the information specialist can concentrate his or her efforts on higher value-added tasks, such as handling difficult cases and making complex decisions.
Writing a synthesis - not a summary - is a combination of a specialist's understanding not only of the content, but also of the specific needs of his or her customers [4, 6].

While the contributions of artificial intelligence have the potential to free up information specialists' time for project management and complex, value-added tasks, they nevertheless require the development of new skills and the mastery of new tools, such as those dedicated to exploiting metadata, or feeding and perfecting algorithms [3].

What's more, over and above the need for government authorities to regulate the use of artificial intelligence, information specialists will always be using their ability to adapt, their critical thinking, their emotional intelligence and their ethics in the service of their customers' information retrieval and monitoring activities: components that will not be integrated into an algorithm any time soon, no matter how sophisticated it may be.

References

[1] Université de Montréal. École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information. (s.d.). Les sciences de l’information.

[2] Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL, France). Glossaire de l’intelligence artificielle.

[3] Jacob S., Souissi, S. et Martineau, C. (2022). Intelligence artificielle et transformation des métiers de la gestion documentaire. Québec : Université Laval, Chaire de recherche sur l’administration publique à l’ère numérique, 17 p.

[4] Deschamps, C. (2023, janvier). Ce que ChatGPT fait à la veille [4 billets]. Outils froids.

[5] Chartron, G. et Raulin, A. (2022). L’intelligence artificielle dans le secteur de l’information et de la documentation : défis, impacts et perspectives – Présentation du dossier. I2D : information, données & documents, 1(1), 8-12.

What’s the difference between information research and information watch?

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 22 May 2023 00:00:00 EST

Research and watch: what’s the difference?

You would like to know, or rather you would like to get the best information possible on a specific subject. So you ask information specialist. Will you ask for research or watch? To understand the difference, here are some definitions, a comparative table and an illustrated example.

Definitions

Information research and information watch or strategic intelligence both falls within the information sciences. Here are how the experts outline the concepts:

Documentary research or information research :

An activity which consists of identifying, localizing and processing one or many secondary information (bibliographic references) within one documentary environment (search engine, database), in order to answer a question or to solve a problem. [Adapted from 1]
“All the methods, procedures and techniques used to find references to relevant documents (responding to a request for information) and the documents themselves.” [2]
“All the methods, procedures and techniques used to select information from one or more document collections [databases], more or less structured, based on the user's [customer's] own search criteria.” [3]

Information watch and strategic intelligence :

“Ongoing activity, frequently repeated, aimed at active monitoring to stay up to date in a specific field”. [4]
“Dynamic and rigorous process of monitoring, managing and disseminating of relevant, up-to-date information, to anticipate issues and to help the decision-making process by the involved parties.” [5]
• “Information watch is a continuous and systematic process of collecting, analysing and disseminating information, carried out by information professionals, for targeted clienteles, in order to update knowledge, anticipate evolution et make decisions.” [6]

Comparative table

	Information research	Informationnelle watch
Objective	Answer a specific question to support decision-making.	Respond to a demand for continuous information to stay up to date with the latest developments in a field or anticipate trends to support decision-making and innovation.
Recurrence	None, except if the research needs an update, in case of a systematic review, for example.	Continuous, as long as the mandate is on going.
Steps	Detailing the subject of the research Identification of sources Execution of research strategies Critical analysis of the results Delivery of results	Needs analysis and planning Research, monitoring of sources and gathering of information Analysis and processing Distribution of results Process evaluation
Sources	Documentary databases Grey literature	Documentary databases RSS feeds Web pages Alerts Social networks
Tools	• Reference management software (ex: EndNote, Zotero)	Aggregator (ex: Inoreader) Webpage monitoring agent (ex: WebSite-Watcher) Reference management software (ex: EndNote, Zotero) Distribution tools (ex: MailChimp, Cyberimpact)

Difference explained by example

At Cogniges, we offer information research services as well as infowatch and monitoring services. The following examples are fictitious because we believe in ethics and confidentiality.

Example of an information research mandate: what are the best practices for promoting vaccination?

These practices can cover a long period of time, until the present day.
This is a subject that is firmly rooted in the public health culture of many countries: there are numerous publications, including systematic reviews.
This topic has also been put into practice guides issued by government authorities.

Example of an information watch mandate: what are the new approaches and practices in treatment and rehabilitation for long-standing COVID?

It is an emerging topic.
The sources of information must be both rigorous and diversified, as the scientific studies are still scarce.
A continuous following of the new developments in this field would be necessary by the interested agent.

References

[1] Dinet, J. et Passerault, J.-M. (2004). La recherche documentaire informatisée à l’école. Hermès, la revue, 2(39), 126-132.

[2] Association des professionnels de l’information et de la documentation (ADBS). (2012). Vocabulaire de la documentation.

[3] Dinet, J. (2014). La recherche d’information dans les environnements numériques. Londres : ISTE Editions.

[4] Université de Montréal. Bibliothèques. Faire de la veille informationnelle : notions de base.

[5] Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et en services sociaux du Québec. (2022). Charte de collaboration.

[6] Université de Montréal. École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information. (2018). Terminologie de base en sciences de l’information.

Monitoring by combining free and paid resources

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 10 Apr 2023 00:00:00 EST

Documentary databases: structured information for fruitful monitoring

Searching the Web has never been so easy. Paradoxically, the abundance of results does not guarantee the nature, relevance, quality or organization of the information. When it comes to documentary or literature research and monitoring, nothing can replace a documentary database. In the field of biomedical sciences, there are several of them, some free, others with subscription fees. Let's have a look at this puzzle where each piece finds its place, and let's have a look at what Cogniges implements to give you a complete picture within the framework of your research or monitoring mandates.

An entry point: free information

The search for information on the free Web goes through two ways: search engines and databases. In the field of health, the offer is as follows:

Search engine: Google Scholar, a specialized engine indexing the content of periodicals, theses, bibliographic citations or scientific books.
Databases: the best known, in English, PubMed (National Library of Medicine, United States), but also, in French, LiSSa (Littérature scientifique en santé), to which can be added resources in social sciences.

Advantages:

Universal and free access to these sources.
Access to grey literature.
Interesting pool of information retrieval at no cost other than time spent exploring these sources.

Disadvantages:

In the case of Google Scholar, the time period covered and the exact contents are unknown; indexing is done by robots, which may yield irrelevant results [1].
The search functionalities are limited.
It is necessary to make a critical analysis of the diversity of the documents listed.
Access to the full text is restricted to the documents listed that are in open access.

For a complete visit: paying databases

Here, the landscape becomes more complicated, because access to the databases goes through platforms, such as Ovid or Ebsco, to which one must subscribe to use the resources. For example, Ovid provides access to Medline, an enhanced version of PubMed, EBMR (Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews), and Embase (Excerpta Medica, in health sciences and pharmacy), as well as to electronic journals and books. Ebsco provides access to Medline Complete (full text) and CINAHL (nursing).

No source is exhaustive or self-sufficient. Several papers have concluded that it is necessary to use several databases together to obtain all relevant results [2], or at least the Medline and Embase databases to obtain more complete results [3].

Moreover, a database requires a rigorous structure, with fields - title, abstract, keywords - that can be searched according to a controlled vocabulary of keywords, called thesaurus, and according to a syntax that allows the design of fruitful search strategies.

Advantages:

These sources provide access to evidence.
The architecture of the databases allows a methodical exploitation of the search criteria, provided that one masters these tools.
These databases more often include the full text of articles.

Disadvantages:

The costs of subscribing to the platforms are significant.
The frequency of updates and the controlled vocabulary vary from one database to another, making the search strategies non-transposable.
There is a rate of redundancy in the results obtained, requiring sorting to eliminate duplicates.

The winning combination that Cogniges proposes to you

The acuity of a literature research or an information watch depends in particular on the optimal exploitation of the best information sources. "The mastery of the research tools, coupled with a minimal mastery of the discipline, necessary to form questions with the right terms [...] is the job of the librarians [4]." At Cogniges, information professionals:

Know the best sources by subject area.
Master the syntax and vocabulary used by these sources.Use the best search strategies to find relevant information.
Optimize the use of resources, whether free or paid.
Deliver relevant and non-redundant results.
Document the process used, allowing you to benefit from both knowledge transfer and continuous updating of results.

References

[1] Bibliothèque de l’Université Laval. [n. d.] Tableau comparatif des principaux outils. https://www5.bibl.ulaval.ca/services/soutien-a-ledition-savante-et-a-la-recherche/bibliometrie-et-impact-de-la-recherche/indicateurs-et-sources/tableau-comparatif-des-principaux-outils

[2] Rathbone, J., Carter, M., Hoffmann, T., et Glasziou, P. (2016). A comparison of the performance of seven key bibliographic databases in identifying all relevant systematic reviews of interventions for hypertension. Systematic reviews, 5, 27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-016-0197-5

[3] Frandsen, T. F., Eriksen, M. B., Hammer, D. M. G., Christensen, J. B., et Wallin, J. A. (2021). Using Embase as a supplement to PubMed in Cochrane reviews differed across fields. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 133, 24–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.12.022

[4] Hery, L., Weill, C., Macé, B., Benoist, D., Boutet, A., Defaux, H., ... et Legendre, O. (2015). Médecins, mettez un bibliothécaire dans votre moteur (de recherche)! Pédagogie médicale, 16(4), 251-260. DOI : https://doi.org/10.1051/pmed/2016010

Ethics: the cornerstone of our information monitoring and research services

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 9 Mar 2023 00:00:00 EST

The selection of a business partner for information and literature research and intelligence is a sensitive and determining choice for your organization. Why? Because your information research firm must demonstrate a strong ethic capable of guaranteeing the confidentiality and integrity of its research while protecting your information and your business processes.

This aspect of our service is what we are known for. Indeed, our ethical approach ensures that each assignment's deliverable meets the level of quality prescribed and that their execution is made under conditions offering a full confidentiality while securing the privileged information Cogniges receives.

Durable relationships and trust

At Cogniges, we do not speak about an ethical proposal, but about ethical acts. We protect the confidentiality of each mandate that you entrust to us whether a confidentiality agreement is signed or not. To do this we:

We compartmentalize the execution of mandates to ensure that the information collected is not disclosed to unauthorized third parties.
The data or information used, the articles bought, the licenses or copyrights related to each mandate's deliverables are exclusive to each of them.
The acquisition, processing, conservation or dissemination of information is done according to rigorous parameters, in line with your criteria and needs. We determine your criteria and needs with you, within a recognized, secure and proven framework.

Thus, we make sure that the laws and regulations including confidentiality policies, the data protection and the copyrights are respected. Cogniges also makes sure that the results of research are presented in an objective and impartial way.

Tools

Each project comes with specific requirements. It can happen that the use of an encrypted computer, provided by the customer, is necessary. As a matter of course, the main sources of specialized information are used under license. In addition, research or monitoring tools such as Inoreader, Proquest or Wachete, to name a few, are also used under license.

Why does research ethics guide our professional actions?

We work in a world where the amount of information available is exponential. Indeed, all sectors of economic activity and professionals are under pressure to publish to assert their vitality, establish their credibility and demonstrate their expertise, thus provoking a tsunami of information.

The sources of information multiply, complicating the research and the location of the relevant information. Cogniges is an asset in the management of the risk to which the organizations are exposed by an obsolete, incomplete or false information. We help you to validate the authenticity of the data and the reputation of the sources to avoid the traps associated with the use of false information.

The ethics and the collateral effect of doing business with Cogniges

In addition to the informational and operational benefits that Cogniges brings to you, its ethical approach contributes in a tacit way to the professional success of the stakeholders with whom it deals in your organization, establishing over the mandates a solid relationship of trust.

CdPveille3S: a community of practice that incubates monitoring knowledge

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 18 Jan 2023 00:00:00 EST

Information monitoring and strategic intelligence is a matter of technology, of course, but above all it involves humans: the client, you, and the information/intelligence provider, us. Because "there is strength in numbers", information professionals involved in monitoring projects have joined together to form the Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec, or CdPveille3S. We introduce you to this community and describe the role that Cogniges, a member since 2018, plays in it for the benefit of its own clientele as well as its peers.

An Active Community Since 2009

Created by about twenty passionate information watchers from public organizations of the public health network or working in partnership with them, the CdPveille3S exists since 2009. Its mission is to "contribute to the improvement of information monitoring practices in health and social services in Quebec". For these information professionals, "information monitoring is a dynamic and rigorous process of surveillance, management and dissemination of recent and relevant information to anticipate issues and facilitate decision-making by the actors involved."

Why did they create a community of practice? Not only to share their knowledge, practices and experiences, but also to co-construct a collective intelligence, all for the benefit of the clientele of each member organization. Indeed, a community of practice is a grouping of voluntary peers driven by a common interest in the exchange and advancement of knowledge, all on a non-profit basis.

Over the years, the CdPveille3S has built and displayed its best practices, has become known not only in Quebec, but also across the Atlantic [1], and, in a perspective of continuous improvement, has undergone four evaluations [2]. This collective intelligence shines through on the Passerelles platform [3], which is accessible free of charge to all Internet users.

Cogniges Within the CdPveille3S

At the invitation of one of its clients, Cogniges knocked on the door of the Community in 2018. We were admitted without difficulty, even though there are few consulting firms in the community. Our business card reminds us that our very first monitoring mandate - scientific and media in the pharmaceutical field - dates back to 2005 and lasted over seven years.

Above all, rest assured that the confidentiality of the mandates you entrust to us is fully respected: within the Community, we talk about practices, models, frameworks of reference and tools, but not about the specific requests of our respective clients.

Take advantage today of what we have learned since 2018 from our peers and deployed for you with each assignment:

Ongoing information and strategic intelligence training, as members stay abreast of the latest developments in the field and generously share them.
Consolidation and continuous improvement of our monitoring processes.
A solid framework of reference, including a harmonized monitoring cycle, but in which each professional implements a unique combination of methods, tools and deliverables, depending on the needs of his or her clients.
Diversification and enrichment of our toolbox.
A focus on trends in the field, including the increasing customization of topics and monitoring services.
Successful networking with committed peers.

Perennial communities of practice are rare: the CdPveille3S continues its life cycle with the same passion and determination, engines which animate and will continue to animate Cogniges.

References

[1] Attia, A., Bélanger, C., Drevon, E., Amoura, H., Houtekier, C. et Sauvé, C. (2020). Dix ans de communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux au Québec : réussites et défis. I2D, informations, données, documents, 1, 80-87. DOI : https://doi.org/10.3917/i2d.201.0080

[2] Houtekier, C., Bélanger, C., Ziegler, D., Amoura, H. (2022). Évaluer une communauté de pratique pour favoriser sa pérennité : synthèse des quatre expériences de la Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec (CdPveille3S). Revue francophone de recherche sur le transfert et l’utilisation des connaissances, 6(2). DOI : https://doi.org/10.18166/tuc.2022.6.2.23

[3] Communauté de pratique de veille en santé et services sociaux du Québec dans Passerelles.

Start an information monitoring

info@cogniges.com (Cogniges Inc.) — 5 Oct 2020 00:00:00 EST

For an information monitoring system to compete effectively, adequately meet user needs and be successful, the monitoring process must be in line with the organization for which it is created. In the standard entitled Monitoring service and services for setting up a monitoring system, the French standardization agency (AFNOR) indicates the following:

"The proper functioning of such a system in the organization requires that it be in perfect harmony with its culture. Also, the service provider responsible for setting up a monitoring system in the organization must adapt to its specificities and particularities, particularly human ones. " [my own translation]

In March 2020, I had the pleasure of presenting a webinar to the Fédération des milieux documentaires (FMD) about how to start an information watch. Part of the presentation dealt with best practices to follow when setting up a monitoring process. Here are a few:

Obtain the approval and support of your organization and your manager.
Align with the strategic plan or another fundamental document of the organization / service (and monitor updates each year)
Identify influential allies and partners (inside and outside the organization)
Plan a process to retrieve informal information (e.g. periodic email sent to your colleagues asking them if they have unearthed interesting information while attending a conference)
Define your communication strategies (analysis of information dissemination mechanisms in your organization)
Keep a logbook (note the decisions taken and the reasons for the whole duration of the monitoring project)
Plan a feedback mechanism, a way of communicating with users to stay focused on their needs which will certainly change and develop the monitoring process accordingly.

These good practices align you with the strategic plan of the organization and with the changing needs of users, they are a good guide for the design of a monitoring process leading to success. As one of my clients often says, success breeds success. A monitoring that adequately meets a need for information will attract other requests for information monitoring projects.

References :

Prestation de veille et prestations de mise en place d’un système de veille. AFNOR. 1998.
Démarrer une veille informationnelle [Extrait]. [French only] Cogniges inc. 2020