“Fishing” for Supercourse

Mazen S. Zenati, MD, Ph.DRonald LaPorte, Ph.D

What is Supercourse

Supercourse is a repository of lectures on global health and prevention designed to

improve the teaching of prevention. Supercourse has a network of over 65000

scientists in 174 countries who are sharing for free a library of 4135 lectures in 31

languages. The Supercourse has been produced at the

WHO Collaborating Center University of Pittsburgh

What is “fishing” is all about Looking for the contacts of key people and

representatives worldwide who are capable to exponentially encourage further use and expansion of Supercourse among end users

International collaboration Targeted and planed approach Joined efforts under central direction Timely task

Fishing=further connected worldwide

Why we need to get connected together worldwide Coming down to a common ground world wide Professional and academic networking Encourage open communication Sharing knowledge, resources and experiences Overcome barriers Propagate prevention and other health related

information Stand by others in catastrophic events Better understanding and clear up health related

challenges Research collaborations

Why looking for more end users Valuable resources need to be further

utilized Introduce more fresh blood into

supercourse Encourage the further scientific

contraptions to the supercourse Reach out for the less fortuned and less

served users worldwide Encourage field expansion to include multi-

disciplinary and specialty in the supercourse

Potential end user groups Ministers of health Deans of medical schools, nursing schools, and

public health schools Faculty members of public health and community

medicine Medical, nursing and public health students Training and education officers at health ministries Ministers of agriculture Community sector planners and activists Medical informatics specialists, Public librarians,

and media individuals Social workers and other relief agency workers

Data need to be collected

City

State

Zip code

Country

Telephone number

Fax number

Cell

Website, URL is important

First name

Middle initial

Last name

Email address

Position

Organization

Address

Where and what to look for Start with related organization

Medical school for deans Ministry of Health for ministers of health Department of community medicine (public

health faculty members) If you know the name use Google or other

searching engines for further links Take advantage of any previous events or

news Use encyclopedia or other references as

source of information, for example; Wikipedia encyclopedia

Helpful sights WHO directory of medical (nursing and

pharmacy) schools [very helpful as you may miss on country universities, but this directory is excellent, keeping you from missing on any university!

Universities web sites UNICEF Wikipedia encyclopedia Universities association Library websites Search engines: Google, AOL, Yahoo, etc Subjects directories

Where the data is usually hidden Look in the contact us section of the site Look in the chairman page, dean, … Look in about us page Look in the site map Look in enquires/questions Look in direction, how to reach us Look in the list of faculty member, officials Look in the CV/resume of related contact

What to do if the site presented in a different language Quite often the entire site is presented in a local

language of that country ( eg French, Portuguese or Spanish)

Frequently a small button is available to switch the entire site into English

Contacts can be copied and passed as is in that foreign language as far as your computer can handle that font.

You can copy and paste to Google translate: http or similar ://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT# sites for English translation of certain information.

Use search engines to further investigate that foreign text ( eg www.freetranslation.com)

Completing other missing data points Use links, searching engine and related

site for data completion Expand the search based on the available

data If data not found after another 15 minutes

of searching leave related cells blank.

Easy vs. challenging fishing

Large organization Famous

organization Large country When you know the

language, culture, and the field

With more fishing experience

With determination

Non standard Non English Un updated sites No email

addresses Not enough

Patience No consistency in

fishing

Easy Challenging

Standard and non standard layout of a website Usually proficiently built sites have a standard

layout Pages that frequently included:

Home page, contact us, site map, frequently asked questions, and directory

The access of the pages usually at the left site or at the bottom of the home page

Non proficiently built sites may have many different layouts

Regardless, keep digging, even if you end up with more generalized ‘contact us' or ‘webmail’ email address

Quality assurance Start first with the important data points Check for data accuracy at source Data accuracy through transfer and sorting Check for data update Double check for data completion Double check for data relevancy We need every piece of data even not

totally completed.. Do not erase the entire records in case could not get every single data point

Troubleshooting shooting No names for the key person

Use other related web sites Look for the secretary or vice chair

No personal e-mail Search in the CV Use search engines or “google” the name

Address in different language or alphabet Translate Take the address as is Use your best guess

No website or any search results Double check the spelling or the name Use other references to check the accuracy

What to avoid in data collection We are looking for a specific professional

contact of the targeted person therefore avoid taking the following contacts instead: Application submission or admission contacts Web master contacts Public questions contacts Emergency or policy related contacts Personal addresses or private contacts

How to speed up and budget your time The best strategy is to not spend more than 10-

15 minutes in the initial round fishing for a record Indicate the missing section by highlighting the

cell need to be completed in the second round After completing the first round for the entire

records, start visiting the same sight and have another look for the missing data.

Use links, searching engine and related site for data completion

If data not found after another 15 minutes of searching leave related cells blank.

Save your data Frequently save your data during fishing Always have a back up file in a flash drive

or in your e-mail account Avoid sorting your data before saving and

backup Safeguard your data and avoid shearing it

with other people Do not contact any one in your data base

with a Supercourse representation without discussing that first with a Supercourse developer

Avoid viruses Avoid open or save a file pop up to your

screen while fishing Do not open suspicious or unfamiliar sites Empty cookies and forms in between

fishing Do not include unnecessary links

Keep fishing, you are doing a noble work!! Be patient Work in increments Work all easy ones first Share your accomplishments with other

co-fishers Reward yourself Keep participating in further task, your

contribution is very much appreciated

Questions and Comments Please send questions and comments to:

Mazen S. Zenati, MD, Ph.D Ronald LaPorte, Ph.D