Dear all -

Happy new year!

For the compilation of the factsheet of WG1 (www.susana.org/lang-en/library/rm-susana...mp;type=2&id=167) we have produced a list of examples of capacity developing activities, including trainings, e-learning and university courses based on the previous list from the old factsheet. This list might not be exhaustive, but contains contact information of the people behind the activities in order to allow readers in need for capacity development for sustainable sanitation to get an idea whom to address.
A remark was, that the factsheet might not be the right format for such a list and that the contact details could be rather included in the webpage of WG1 on SuSanA. I like this idea, but a webpage requires more frequent updating and the list would be expected to be more complete.
But I do agree that currently the information on UPCOMING TRAININGS and ONGOING COURSES (e.g. university level) on the SuSanA Webpage is difficult to access (either via: 'News, events, jobs and funding' > 'Events calendar' or 'Conference and training materials' > 'Training'.
One idea we had once (related to a more general idea of having a contact database not only of trainings, but also projects and activities in general related to SuSanA partners) was to add information on location and activities to the profiles of SuSanA members and make this database searchable for members (e.g. make it possible to search for 'India'+'Sustainable Sanitation Training Course'). This solution would have the advantage, that members would update their profiles themselves (similar to linkedin where people add their current professional status and links to their websites); because one problem with contact database is that they become old very fast and updating is a long and labor-intensive progress if it is not done regularly. The disadvantage is that the participation of the members in updating and entering their information might be limited and that information would only be available for people that are members and have logged in.
I would like to open the discussion on:
1) whether a more useable form of information on ongoing and upcoming capacity development activities is required and what form it should take?
2) if a there is an interest in having a more general contact database including also other information than capacity development?

And for 1): If we would invest in preparaing a new page in the category of WG1 (LINK) called for instance 'upcoming and ongoing training and courses':
What information should be made available there?
Would a list but in the form of a database (table, searchable by column) similar to the factsheet be useful?
Or a simple PDF file like the one from GIZ: www.gtz.de/en/themen/umwelt-infrastruktur/wasser/26289.htm?
Or is the link on the first page (www.susana.org/lang-en/working-groups/wg01) to the factsheet enough?

Looking forward to receiving your feedback,

Best Dorothee

Dear Dorothee,

thank you for sharing your ideas on improving the cooperation between the SuSanA members/partners and other players in the sanitation sector.

I agree with you that it is quite difficult to access the information as well as the updating of the information for the website team.

Regarding your questions: only a link to the factsheet is not sufficient but is needed and from my point of view there should be an interactive list of events, trainings, etc. But how to manage that?

Best solution would be an interactive website where registered members could insert or update the information from their organisation. This could end up in something like between google and yellow pages. But there are also some difficulties like the technical feasibility, the ability of users to do it on there own, the responsibility for the content, and many more questions.

A PDF and a list on the factsheet is from my point of view to static and has to be changed and uploaded manually.

Could be a new category in the forum be an option or something like an interactive calendar within in the forum that is accessible for all registered users?

What are others thinking about that issue? Where are you getting your information on upcoming events from?

Cheers,
Philipp

Dear Dorothee,
I also have the feeling that a well updated events calendar would be of interest to SuSanA members. As you rightly state the updating is the tricky part. Ideally it is up to the partners and members to make an update about their own events. You suggest to feed in the info in the partner section of susana webpage which is most logical but as Philipp points out it has some technical implications. In general feeding in info directly into website is not user friendly.

I would also support Philipp's suggestion that we can simply create a new category on the forum for event announcements where everybody can easily feed in their info. The secretariat would then update the calendar.

I agree the caledar is so far pretty much hidden. Not a good selling point. It can surely be made more prominent and visible which would also create the necessary incentive to the users to submit their event infos.

Cheers
Christian

Dear all

Just a quick idea: a calendar that allows users to input an events name, date, a URL link to more information and the ability to upload / attach a document.

To avoid spam, a release function that the Secretariat would have to administer.

With minimal input fields and crowd-sourcing all the input data, this could be a manageable approach.

The easiest entry point for the user could well be the forum. In addition if it were technically possible to synchronize an events calendar in the forum and the website, that would increase usability.

Regards
Trevor

Thank you all for your feedback.
I see the need for to separate things:
1) A more user friendly event calendar making available information on upcoming trainings
2) A contact database of training/capacity development institutions
For (1) I do like the idea of Trevor, but I am not sure about the technical feasibility.
For (2) there is the old problem of compiling and maintaining this database. I have many requests of people in the need for a specific training in a specific region in the world. With seecon we have the dream of SSWM yellow pages which would also contain these contact details for product suppliers, projects etc. We slowly try to advance this idea step by step where we do see an urgent need, but are afraid going to fast knowing that a worldwide database would imply a huge amount of work to keep it maintained and up to date. The compilation probably would be little bit easier and could be based on data from SuSanA and SuSanA partners (e.g. the famous table for GIZ). But I still don't have a solution for the maintenance.
Any suggestions for this are VERY welcome...
Cheers Dorothee

Could calendar be searchable by topic, chronology, and geographic region. The topic might be just what we want but we're probably not going to fly around the world to get there. Emptying our pockets and leaving a huge carbon foot print is counterproductive.

By the way, PHLUSH will be at the 2012 ETHOS Conference www.vrac.iastate.edu/ethos/conference.php to be held in Seattle Jan 27-29, 2012 thanks to our research lead, Jeff Holiman. "Restoration of air, water, and soil quality through integration of the Top-Lit, UpDraft Cooking Stove in a Terra Preta Sanitation System" Jeff Holiman, Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human (PHLUSH) and Agua Pura para el Pueblo, Tom Carter, Executive Director of Agua Pura para el Pueblo

Perhaps a registered Forum member editable Google Calendar can be created where people can add events etc (suggest that this version will remain hidden unless one logs in and wants to add an event); a visible version of this can then be updated say once or twice a week by the Secretariat. New event posts can appear in the main front page of the SuSanA site, with a link to the calendar.

Cheers,

Sunder

Dear all,

thanks for the interesting ideas and special thanks to Dorothee who started the discussion.

The SuSanA Secretariat is currently elaborating different options how an interactive solution could be realised.

Please keep on posting your ideas and thoughts!

Cheers,
Philipp

Dear all,

again thanks for the discussions and the good ideas that where floating around in this thread.

However, after detailed discussions about the costs and benefits of the introduction of an interactive event calender for SuSanA, we decided to use the infrastructure we have in its best possible way...

That means:
In this forum we do have the category "Events and announcements by SuSanA partners or by anyone" (forum.susana.org/forum/categories/21-eve...artners-or-by-anyone) and we would like to encourage you all to use this category to post events and make announcements.

Our job, as the SuSanA secretariat will be to check this category frequently (probably once a week), extract the necessary information and put it in our SuSanA events calender (www.susana.org/lang-en/news/events). Apart from that, the events will also appear on www.susana.org/ at the bottom of the frontpage.

I am looking forward to seeing your postings and hope this semi-manual "interactive" calender provides the service we all require.

Have a nice day and best regards,
Enno

Just maintain a shared Google calendar as Sunder suggested.

Calender: I like the solution suggested by Enno
Contact information of members: Any ideas for that as wll?
Best Dorothee