Google Group, Blog and Website for PIDE Faculty

At the moment all three are in use. As suggested, the Google group is being used for discussions. My suggestions is that notifications – like reports of committees consisting of routine decisions – should be posted on the BLOG (address given below). Anyone who wants to look at it and comment can. The Group mailing list should be used for items of general interest. At the moment, we are EXPERIMENTING, and I am posting on blog, updating website as well as using the Google group mailing list for discussions. With time, we should get greater clarity on which mechanisms are more efficient. The central place currently (in my view) is the ACTION page on the website, which will list all PENDING activities, requiring work. NOTE THE TWO LEVEL STRUCTURE here – the ACTION page is list of owners/issues/status. The middle item LINKS to a subpage which provides detailed information on the issue – since this structure was not understood by many, I have taken to providing detailed information on the BLOG instead. This also provides an easier mechanism for comments and discussion. COMPLETED actions will be posted on the blog, and removed from the action list.

Google Group for DISCUSSIONS: Sending an email to pide-faculty@googlegroups.com will start a discussion.

PIDE Faculty BLOG for posting notifications, committee reports, items not requiring general group discussion. Note that people can read and comment on blog by topic.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2972724470405372332#overview/src=dashboard

Google Website:PIDE Faculty. This has the action list, and one webpage devoted to each actionable item. Progress reports should be posted on this website.https://sites.google.com/site/pidefaculty/

There was a lot of concern about lack of transparency, and even lack of rules and regulations at PIDE. I am planning to move towards E-Governance, where all significant issues will be discussed via emails (since physical meetings of all are too difficult to manage and time consuming) prior to decision making. As I am also new to this, I have introduced THREE different mechanisms for this purpose; later on, we will see which is most convenient and easy to use. At the moment, our PRIMARY mechanism will be the PIDE Faculty Google Group.: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/pide-faculty . Any faculty member wishing to discuss any issue can post to the group. The discussion group is meant for issues which require discussion.

In addition to the Google Group, I have also created a PIDE Faculty BLOG:

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2972724470405372332#overview/src=dashboard

The BLOG is meant to be for posting outcomes of discussions, often in the form of official notifications.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2972724470405372332#pages

I have also created a Google website called PIDE Faculty. The website is for storage of material of long-term interest and use. For instance, Certain minimal rules of courtesy and etiquette must be followed in our discussions and blog posts. These rules have been posted on the website. Also, a page describing a long-term vision for PIDE has also been posted on the website.

The website address is: https://sites.google.com/site/pidefaculty/

Our webmaster Khurram Iqbal has been given responsibility for managing the blog, website, and Google group, and getting our faculty enlisted in these groups.