|
|
| Publicizing your Interest Group |
First and foremost, the Office of the Deputy Director for Intramural Research maintains the DDIR Bulletin Board, which has an Interest Group News Page.
Some possible sources of publicity include:
These are each discussed in turn, below.
The NIH Catalyst
http://catalyst.cit.nih.gov/catalyst/
The NIH Catalyst is a publication of NIH's Office of the Deputy Director for Intramural Research.
To have an announcement about an upcoming meeting posted in the NIH Catalyst, send a note to Fran Pollner, managing editor of The Catalyst. Please be sure to include information about what the meeting will be be about, speakers, time, place etc. Please also be sure to provide reasonable lead time.
The NIH Calendar of Events (Yellow Sheet)
The NIH Calendar of Events, lovingly referred to in NIH parlance as the "Yellow Sheet" is a weekly calendar that is circulated to most desks at NIH. The website above allows you to both review and search upcoming events, but also to submit them. You have to establish a password before you can submit, and all submissions are reviewed prior to posting.
Events need to be submitted to the calendar website X days in advance of the date of the event if they are going to appear in the printed copy of the yellow sheet.
Generally speaking, turnaround is pretty fast.
The Interest Group web space provided by CIT
If you are coming here because (like many of us) you forgot the URL to the IG website admin login page, click here to go there. :-)
As discussed on the "Starting a SIG" web page, we have contracted with CIT staff to get a standard web-page setup for the interest groups. When a new SIG wants to use the standard website, CIT staff perform the initial setup and then turn the website over to the IG.
Each interest group can then maintain their own pages. There is no programming or HTML knowledge required, the administration site (the login link is above) allows the group leaders to post files; list meeting dates, times, locations and abstracts; add links of note; and maintain an archive.
There is no requirement that groups use the CIT-provided sites. If they wish to design and create their own site, that is fine. However, all pages should be listed and accessible through the main IG web page.
One of the advantages of using the CIT-provided pages is that all meetings added to the calendar on your pages is automatically added to the calendar of all SIG meetings available off of the main SIG page (this calendar should not be confused with the NIH Calendar, or Yellow Sheet, discussed above).
Another advantage to using the CIT-provided sites is that if you choose to create a LISTSERV list for your group you can link the list to your website. When you do this, people who choose to use the "Join the SIG" function can also be added to the SIG website. Additionally, a link to the LISTSERV archives for your list will be automatically included on the group's archive page. More details on LISTSERV lists are below.
Please contact Sandy Desautels in CIT to list your existing web pages and/or to set up a CIT template page for your group.
LISTSERV Lists
LISTSERV is essentially a computerized mailing list manager for email. When an email message is sent to a LISTSERV list, it it automatically distributed to all members fo the list. The lists are useful for fostering communications among group members, announcing meetings or items of interest to the group, and for keeping everyone informed.
As mentioned in the "Starting a SIG" page, it is fairly easy to set up and maintain a list, and the group can choose whether it is a one-way list--with an editor sending out all the messages--or an interactive list with any member allowed to post to everyone on the list.
Members can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves; all list transactions are archived and available for members to retrieve from the CIT server whenever they want to go back and check something they may have deleted from their mailboxes; and the list owner can control who can sign up for the list (or can stipulate that only the list owner can sign people on to the list). Information about establishing a list is at http://list.nih.gov.
Your list members can also access the LISTSERV website and browse your group's list archives. If you choose to use the CIT-supplied websites, the list archives can be automatically linked to your website's archive page.
When starting a new SIG, there may be existing lists on the NIH LISTSERV that might share your area of interest. The new SIG leader may find it worthwhile to browse through the list of lists at the LISTSERV website, above. Once a few potential targets have been identified, you may contact their list owner and obtain permission to post an announcement about your group to their list.
Many groups have found it useful to circulate a LISTSERV sign-up sheet at their meetings to allow interested parties to provide their email addresses.