Rex Brooks Suggestions for Collaborative Expedition Workshops in 2008    (3O5E)

Timely Notifications    (3O50)

Funding Opportunities    (3O51)

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My point is:    (2W)

In the effort to develop a citizen-centered and responsive government, I think the ISSUE OF TIMELINESS to facilitate wider public participation in collaborative efforts is in order.    (3O52)

In fact, simply achieving timeliness in notification to parties who have displayed an interest in given topic areas would be a good place to start. We need to continue encouraging information sharing. Unfortunately, we are still falling short. Cases in point:    (3O53)

On Sept 5, we had the public hearing on the funding opportunity for the AHIC Successor. This was the first time I learned about the effort in any detail. This opportunity was listed on Grants.gov Aug. 13, with a deadline of Sept. 10.    (3O54)

It is specifically aimed to be a collaborative effort, yet, I did not receive notice of this important public event until Aug 27 in an email. Relying on interested parties to read through FebBizOpps daily begs the question at best. (Could a user-configurable publicly-available digest service be a possibility?)    (3O55)

Until that time, I did not know that a funding opportunity was in the offing to fund the public/private collaborative effort to succeed AHIC was underway. Unfortunately, being busy, I didn't have the time to explore this more fully than to put the Sept. 5 meeting on my calendar. So, I discovered on Sept 5 that the proposal deadline was Sept 10. Of course, it could easily be said that if it was priority for me, I could have discovered this sooner, but the point is that I am probably less busy than the most important people who never knew that this was coming.    (3O56)

Likewise, my attention was drawn to the recently released "Information Sharing Environment Enterprise Architecture Framework." http://www.ise.gov/docs/ISE-EAF_v1.0_20070830.pdf    (3O5B)

On page 89, Notifications, Alerts and Messaging is discussed yet the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is not mentioned. CAP has now been approved by ITU as well as OASIS and is being used widely for emergency alerts and warning by various agencies.    (3O57)

Additionally, he OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) is not mentioned. The development of EDXL-DE, along with current efforts for succeeding members of the EDXL family, EDXL- Hospital AVailability Exchange (EDXL-HAVE) and EDXL Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) has been supported by various agencies and departments.    (3O58)

3. Specifically troubling is the recent release of HHS Hospital Preparedness Program, http://www.hhs.gov/aspr/opeo/hpp/2007_hpp_guidance.pdf which specifically requires the use of the "Hav-Bed" proposed specification that was submitted to the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee more than a year ago. "Hav-Bed" is now embodied in the EDXL-HAVE specification which we are preparing for its second 60-Day Public Review (PR). This second review is necessary because we were required by due diligence to make substantive changes based on the first PR.    (3O59)

I think we need to draw attention to these inherent difficulties in Information Sharing and Collaboration before money is spent on efforts which will need substantive revision and may actually cause problems because out of date proposals may be implemented.    (3O5G)