Health Information and Publications Network (HIPNET) March 5, 2003
ICT Conference
Introduction of Rachel Lucas and & USAID Knowledge Fair manual
Global Health Bureau website submissions
Advance Africa submissions
USAID Website Policy Update
Free HIV/AIDS Books
PACT Dissemination Help
Global Health Council submissions
Report on Knowledge Management Fair and USAID IT Community of Practice
Presentation on Population and Health InfoShare
HIPNET Database and DEC Toolbar
Issues from Last Meeting
Attendance
New Materials
1. ICT Conference June 17-18:
Steve Goldstein reviewed the draft agenda for the ICT conference and asked for feedback. If you have ideas for speakers, contact sgoldste@jhuccp.org.
Suggestions were made for sessions on Open Source technology, e-conferences, and “local appropriation of materials” or how people in the field use the information we disseminate to them.
Suggestion was made to include at tables information for newcomers on all HIPNET members–what they do and contact information. Also could use a list of all the collaborative mechanisms available, such as Development Gateway, DEC, etc. Peggy D’Adamo said she has a list to start from. If you also have lists, please send them to Peggy at mdadamo@jhuccp.org.
A suggestion was also made to have a breakout session at the conference that discusses the HIPNET community of practice and where we are going. There could also be a meeting of HIPNET webmasters and editors who would like to start a subgroup.
Laura Rainey suggested we try to share our mailing lists if possible. We could all bring them to the next HIPNET meeting and compare.
2. Introductio of Rachel Lucas and USAID Knowledge Fair Manual
Rachel Lucas from USAID will attend HIPNET meetings and keep us informed about USAID news. She can send you the Knowledge Management manual generated by the KM Fair. If you would like a copy, email her at rlucas@usaid.gov.
3. Global Health Bureau Website Submissions Erin Broekhuysen from PHNIP welcomes information on new publications and other announcements for the Global Health Bureau website. Contact her at ebrokehuysen@phnip.com.
4. Advance Africa Submissions
Advance Africa would like groups to register their best practices with them. See their website at www.advanceafrica.org
5. Update on USAID Web Policies
For the most accurate information on any USAID policies, please make sure that someone in your organization stays in touch with either Sandra Jordan (Population) sjordan@usaid.gov, Chris Thomas (Health) chthomas@usaid.gov, or Gabrielle Bushman (HIV/AIDS) gbushman@usaid.gov.
Links to outside websites were removed temporarily from the Global Health Bureau website but links to all official cooperating agencies will be put back up soon.
All population projects should work with Sandra Jordan to make sure they are within official regulations on publications, etc. HIV/AIDS projects should work with Gabrielle Bushman and Health projects with Chris Thomas.
6. Free HIV/AIDS Books
The Sara Project at AED has some free books to give away on AIDS in Africa: Continent in Crisis. Contact Renuka Bery at rbery@aed.org to get a copy.
7. PACT Dissemination Help
PACT’s DC office will send out materials to NGOs for you. Look at the publications section of their website at http://www.pactpublications.org/shipping.asp#ShippingPolicy
8. Global Health Council Submissions
Send articles, announcements, event, etc. to Tina Flores, tflores@globalhealth.org at Global Health Council for publication in Global Health Link or AIDS Link magazines. She particularly wants articles on Eastern Europe, on youth, and on leaders. You can post information about your events, publications, and job openings on the GHC website at www.globalhealth.org. They also will be posting a directory of all their members on line and can send to anyone who wants it a manual about how to hold an event for the upcoming AIDS Candlelight Vigil in May.
9. Report on Knowledge Management Fair and USAID IT Community of Practice
All the submission to the Fair about KM projects were kept and will be posted to the HIPNET website. Look for an e-mail about it. Maria Busquets reported that the global health contribution to the Fair was huge and the agency was pleased. The Steve Denning presentation was great (www.stevedenning.com ). The Fair was also cross-sectoral. You can also visit the Knowledge Management Fair website where under the link to “Knowledge Marketplace” you will find all of the GH submissions to the fair that were included.
Maria explained that the USAID has an IBM consultant working to improve their Knowledge Management/Knowledge Sharing processes. USAID has a website devoted to the effort at http://knowledge.usaid.gov. There are also 3 or 4 communities of practice—one is HIV/AIDS and one is for IT.
The USAID IT Community of Practice (CoP) is open to aall CAs and has a website at http://www.usaid.gov/regions/europe_eurasia/cop/index.html. Their monthly discussions have covered topics such as open source, portals, and distance education. To be included in this group, contact Gary Vaughn at gvaughn@usaid.gov
In addition, the Communication representatives from the HIV/AIDS cooperating agencies meet monthly to discuss a variety of issues – some of which are related to issues of interest to HIPNET – evaluation, use of technology, duplication of effort, collaboration, distribution. Peggy D’Adamo and Willow Gerber attended the last meeting and shared information on HIPNET with them. We also invited them to participate in the upcoming IT conference and agreed to keep each other informed about issues of interest to both groups. To find out more or attend monthly meetings of the HIV/AIDS CoP, contact Gabrielle Bushman at bushman@usaid.gov
10. Presentation on Population and Health InfoShare by Dara Carr of Population Reference Bureau
PRB has received a 3-year Gates grant to build this tool. It grew out of what overseas colleagues said they needed. Is an Internet-based resource that allows CAs to upload documents that will then be made available to all users by email or download. Each CA gets a description page that can include contact information for print copy orders. There are browse and search capabilities.
The publications uploaded must contain science-based information only. No fundraising, commercial materials, or press releases will be accepted. CAs can also view statistics about what has been downloaded or requested. Users can sign up to receive updated about what new docs have been added.
Dara would like us to send topic ideas for the search function. Send to dcarr@prb.org.
She also cautions that some email services like HotMail won’t transmit very large files, so users ordering docs by email may have trouble if their docs are larger than 1 megabyte. There are ways to make PDFs smaller, however. Try to strip out extraneous pages and images. DEC also has information about how to reduce file sizes.
PRB will let developing country media know this exists. It will provide one-stop shopping for them. Forum One helped PRB design this system.
11. HIPNET Database
Reproductive Health Gateway, PRB’s Population and Health InfoShare, the Development Gateway, and DEC can probably do an adequate job at the point in covering providing access to new publications that have come out. Because of this, it was suggested that this group focus more on forthcoming materials only – and how to avoid duplication of effort before it actually happens. All organizations will submit a list of forthcoming publications at each meeting which will be circulated and posted on the HIPNET website – with contact onformation. The existing HIPNET database does contain about 300 publications now – most of them are published works, not forthcoming or draft publications. You can still browse int on the HIPNET website at http://db.jhuccp.org/phmwg/query.htm. We will suggest to DEC, PRB and Development Gateway that they work with CAs to make sure that all these publications get included in each of the respective resources.
DEC Toolbar: DEC has offered to create customized toolbars for each cooperating agency that allows you to search for your publications in DEC with a single click. You can then add the toolbar to your own web site, like the Policy Project has already done. See http://www.policyproject.com/pubs.cfm – bottom of the screen. DEC has also designed a special HIV/AIDS toolbar, which you could also include on your web site. For more information, contact Justin McFadden of DEC at mcfadden@dec.cdie.org>.
12. Issues from Last Meeting
Jude has volunteered to create an HTML list of all members and their contact information.
**So, please send in a paragraph about your organization or project and contact . Send to griffin@msh.org
**Also bring to the next meeting your mailing list of other CAs and projects. We can compile and put on the RH gateway. Beth has a core of 140 contacts that she will submit.
At next meeting, we will also work on a new mission statement, an evaluation and talk about where the group is heading.
Next Meeting: October 8, 2003
