Looking at the branding of PTSC-Online, a catchy tag-line would be helpful to identify PTSC (for those who don't know the acronym).  Here are some thoughts:

"Bringing Canada's Community of Emergency Management Partners Together"

 "Collaborating to ensure safe communities in Canada"

 "A collaboration of Canada's community partners"

 "Canada's on-line community of Emergency Management Partners"

Cheers!

Christel

Thanks Christel. Branding and identity are important factors for a Canadian on line emergency management community as they they help the program sell itself to new members. Partnerships Toward Safer Communities has some history, but as we look towards developing a long term sustainable program we should certainly consider if a different name or if a slogan to support the current name can help. Thanks again for your suggestions, hopefully someone else will build upon them. 

As a new member, I find that this site has great potential and as it moves forward.  some of the challenges, of course, will be funding especially during these times of severe budget cuts.  At some point PTSC-Online will have to consider  "membership" fees/dues to help maintain this website.  One of the things that I have noticed is that many views are listed on the forums but not comments.  I wonder if a poll of the members would help to discover "why" very little response? 

Great work and hope to see more in the coming months.

Quick question - If a member wishes to share a program with other members (Trainer manual, Participant manual and power point) on Community Awareness/Preparedness, where and how does one upload to this site? thank you.

Excellent question and the answer is really what PTSC-Online is all about - sharing knowledge, ideas, best practices and challenges when you are looking for help. This sharing should help us develop better emergency management and business continuity programs.  You have two main choices for sharing your ideas (1) blogs and (2) the wiki knowledge base. In some cases both may be appropriate in other cases just use one. 

If you go to blogs in the main menu under the heading CHANNELS you will see nine blog channels listed but you will need to click on MORE at the bottom of the list to see them all. PTSC-Online members have write access to create articles in all channels except PTSC-Online News which is managed by Ed Myers and Developing PTSC-Online which I use to provide updates on changes to PTSC-Online etc.  To add an article click on the ADD ARTICLE  button which opens a form for you to write a blog article.  Use the pull down menu opposite the title to choose the most appropriate blog channel for the topic you are writing about.  Give your blog a title, write a brief summary highlighting what it is about to help get readers attention then write your article in the description box. Using the icons in the menu bar you can add links, images and even imbed video.  My guidance for writing blogs, if you want folks to read them is that shorter is better and provide additional information via links and attachments.  

The next section below the description is for adding attachments and I think it is relatively straightforward. This is where you add your pdf files, manuals, PowerPoint files etc. which your readers can view on line or download.

Select the most appropriate tabs in the next box and most important SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM AND CLICK THE GREEN ADD ARTICLE BUTTON to save and publish your article. It will publish immediately or you can select a future date to publish it.  Once published you can edit your blog article using the pull down menu to the right of the title. 

The wiki knowledge base works quite similar to the process for adding blog articles except there are no channels.  The articles are filed alphabetically by title. 

The wiki should be used to create a more permanent record for resource material. One may choose to add a wiki entry and also write a blog on the same topic to promote discussion with a link to the wiki.

When new articles or wiki entries are published we use social media to try to increase the visibility of the article and this really makes a difference in the number of views an article gets. 

At this early stage in PTSC-Online's development, if you really want to get some good discussion going on your or someone else's blog article I recommend picking up the phone and encouraging your peers to join in the discussion. 

I hope this helps and answers your questions. Please let me know if you require ay additional assistance. I look forward to reading your articles and thank you for your efforts. 

As of Aprin 2011 you do not have to create a new blog, discussion forum or wiki article to attach or link to information you want to share. It can be done within a reply. 

In response to your comment  "At some point PTSC-Online will have to consider  "membership" fees/dues to help maintain this website" 

The # 1 priority for the PTSC-Online steering committee at this time is to develop a model or plan for the ongoing sustainability of PTSC-Online.  Ed Myers and Gerard van der Berg are working on a first draft  which will be presented to the next steering committee web conference later this month. I am developing a draft budget for sustainable operation. We are currently leaning more to a sponsorship rather than a membership model. 

Some additional information on this subject can be seen under the SUPPORT PTSC-Online tab.  If you have any suggestions or recommendations please either post them here or send them to Ed or myself.  We are looking for all the help and input we can get. 

Because the financial support from Public Safety Canada covers only a portion of the cost of setting up PTSC-Online we will be placing more focus on obtaining founding sponsors in the near future. Financial support is great but 'in kind" support is just as valuable and I believe it opens up the opportunity for organizations such as your organization to be founding sponsors to show your support. I can provide details later. 

In response to Lynn's comment "One of the things that I have noticed is that many views are listed on the forums but not comments.  I wonder if a poll of the members would help to discover "why" very little response? " 

This blog can actually be used for members to provide their comments and we may add some formal polling capability in the future.  I do, however, understand that a low percentage of comments is quite typical during the early stages of development and it will be overcome in time as we work with and encourage member participation. Having a real hot issue that folks feel obliged to comment on will help, but I thought that might happen with the blog articles on the proposed federal budget cuts and discussion forum on the same topic.  Do you have any opinions on that? 

Thank you Bill  for clarifying the process.  I would recommend to other members that if you are having difficulty in "uploading" attachments, check with your IT Wizards as there is probably a security setting (especially if you are on a governemnt network) that will have to be changed.

Would it be possible to have an "Open Forum" on Emergency Management so that if there is a topic that does not "fit" in the listed categories, members would still be able to post and receive comments?

Thanks Lynn for your excellent and numerous contributions to PTSC-Online.  In answer to your question about an "open forum on emergency management", PTSC-Online currently provides you with two choices (1) in the blogs section there is an "emergency management" blog which is meant for posting and receiving comments on any emergency management related topic. This is likely the best place to introduce a topic.  (2) secondly in the discussion forums "emergency management" is one of the main headings and PTSC-Online members can create new discussion topics under that main heading.  

I hope this answers your question. If I have somehow misunderstood or if you have any questions about using either of these sections please let me know and I will be pleased to help. 

Yes and thank you.

Bill:

Do we have a way of knowing what material from the Wiki page has actually been downloaded?  This way we could get a feel of what people were just looking at and what they ere using.  Is it also possible to see what else is downloaded from the sire?

Thank you,

Unfortunately we can track only the views on an article and not the downloads. I submitted your suggestion to IGLOO as a possible enhancement. If it is important to know who wants to download a particular document I could create a form using a 3rd party service WUFOO and require that form to be completed as a prerequisite to getting access to a document. Tracking this would, however, be a manual process. 

Thanks Bill:

Not an issue  I just thought that it would be interesting to know what was actually being downloaded as I thought that would give us more feedback on what the members and the general public found useful.

Thank you again for looking into this.

Open forum on Em and BC would expand the blog or forum areas.

Membership would also assist with maintaining the site and enhance the community.

Document downlaods have also been great for sharing EM and BC information.

Responding to Dan's article above. Thanks for your comments Dan. 

The "Emergency Management " blog is our open forum for discussing general emergency management topics .

The "Business Continuity" blog is an open forum for bisiness continuity discussion. 

I agree fully that member contributions are what is needed to enhance the site. I know our members have a wealth of knowledge. The challenge is encouraging them to share it on line. 

I also agree that document downloads arew a great tool for sharing emergency management abd business continuity information.  Sean Tracey has made extensive use of this feature in his NFPA Canada group space.  Some of the documents he posted have been downloaded nearly 500 times.