Dear Paul, colleagues, I suspect the deafening silence that has greeted our Moderator's plea for comments on organizational issues is a reflection of who is "attending" this conference. We are all interested in and experts on PPR or SRDs, or possibly veterinary epidemiology. What none of us know anything about is international "Research and Expertise Networks"; I don't think we have any experience on which to base an opinion, especially as the vision of OIE and FAO will matter a lot, since they are setting up the network. I will venture to make the following points, based on no great expertise, just seeing how things have gone in the last few weeks. There is a lot of interest in the area of PPR and SRDs, and no existing forum for sharing experience and ideas. The last few weeks have shown that there is a need for such a forum. Any such forum has to be easy to use (which is why the email/bulletin board system has encouraged a lot of contributions) and moderated (without some level of control of membership and/or postings, any public system quickly gets its resident Trolls or other unpleasant internet inhabitants). The GREN should therefore include some system (this, or other platform) for people to share experience and views, put out questions for others' comments, and let people know of projects they are starting, and which might benefit from more collaborators, or new papers that are published. This would improve communication between the many separate groups working in the area around the world. On the topic of publications, I would argue against the Moderator's suggestion of "publishing" in the network - the principle of peer-review is too important. Copyright will stop archiving actual papers, apart from those made available as OpenAccess. One could imagine people putting up news of their publications and asking for comments, though. The more organised the network's activities, the more time someone is going to have to put in doing the organising. If there is a newsletter, someone has to write it. I think there is a significant problem there, in that most people simply don't have the time to do that on top of their normal work. A decision will have to be made by the owners of the network as to whether they want a level of organisation, or just let the bulletin board run my itself, and use it to ask questions whenever they need input on a particular area. regards, Michael Michael D Baron PhD Group Leader, Paramyxo&Bunyaviruses t +44 (0) 1483 231024/1072/1145 email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> http://www.pirbright.ac.uk/research/Paramyxo/Default.aspx<http://www.iah.ac.uk/research/Paramyxo/Default.aspx> Preventing and controlling viral diseases The Pirbright Institute, Ash Road, Pirbright, Woking, Surrey GU24 0NF t +44 (0)1483 232441 f +44 (0)1483 232448 e [log in to unmask] A company limited by guarantee, registered in England no. 559784. The Institute is also a registered charity. Director: Professor John Fazakerley BSc, MBA, PhD, FSB, FRCPath. The Pirbright Institute receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. From: Establishment of a PPR Global Research and Expertise Network (PPR-GREN) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Rossiter Sent: 06 March 2014 14:18 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Contributions to session 5 Dear Colleagues, We are approaching the conclusion of the e-conference but I have received only one or two contributions for you to session 5. Perhaps the needs of PPR in the laboratory and field have taken over from working with the disease on the internet. Seriously though, we do need you inputs to tell us what kind of network you want to have and use. Please read though my introduction to session 5 and if possible comment on some of the ideas that I floated there, and in the more general introduction to the conference and session 1. There are other aspects of PPR research and innovation that we might approach through the network. Could it be a forum where we develop some frameworks and guidelines for the epidemiological information urgently required to really start progressive control? Could we spell out the types and amounts of epidemiological information that are needed? Might the network be the place to publish and discuss the results of this work? Could the network commission some studies? Might the network be a suitable place to publish "scientific" papers, peer-reviewed or not? Could the network become THE global database for PPR? Please send us your comments. I will not be (greatly) offended by what you may say about my ideas and we would prefer to hear more of your own thoughts and innovative thinking - and there has been some in the conference. Perhaps one day, our time spent working collectively on PPR on the "Net" might rank as highly as time spent in the lab, office or field. 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