Awele Documentation Reap what you share

The meeting place is the forum address, to which you will invite participants to subscribe.

Give yourself time …

As for any meeting, you need to establish a calendar previous to its opening. Before contacting the potential participants, you must have defined the specific objectives of the forum (for example, discussion of a preliminary document in preparation for a meeting or drafting of a paper). If you are setting up a work group, its purpose and objectives must also be clear. If called for, determine the different topics that you will want to discuss. Finally, you need to set a calendar.

To do this, move backwards from the final deadline and on the basis of intermediate deadlines. Here are some indications for reference:

• Plan to stop a discussion forum at least one month before the final deadline. Whether the final deadline is a meeting or the writing of a paper, you will need time to draw out the elements of the discussion that are of interest to your objective.

• For the discussion phase, if you have the time, plan on spending at least two weeks (more, if possible) for the introduction, discussion, and conclusion of each specific topic. If you have several topics to discuss but you don't have two weeks per topic, you should endeavor nonetheless to limit the discussions to two topics (simultaneously) per two weeks. You can distinguish the simultaneous discussions by adding a topic-specific [tag] to the Subject line, thus making it easy for participants to know which of the topics the message is related to.
  
  Remember that in most cases, participants can usually only get involved in a forum discussion outside of their usual activities. Two weeks gives participants just enough time to send contributions and to react to the others’ contributions. To help you to organize your time, consider that two weeks of forum time are the equivalent of one hour of discussion around a table.

You can also have several topics discussed simultaneously over a longer period of time. This requires, however, more of your own time as facilitator, to make sure that participants are able to follow the different discussions without getting confused. It is easier to deal with topics successively than simultaneously.

• Plan an “introductions” period (two to three weeks, depending on the number of participants and the duration of the forum) at the opening of the discussion: participants should introduce themselves, their activities, their interest in the discussion, etc. It is easier for people to express themselves in a remote meeting when they know whom they are addressing.

• Before the discussion begins, participants should have read the document(s) being discussed. Make sure you that they will have the time for this.

• Estimate the time that you will need to convene the potential participants and have them agree to take part in the discussion.

• Take into account the time you will need to prepare the initial document(s), the “call” to the debate or workgroup discussion, and the time needed to translate them.

• Take into account the time you will need to set up the necessary tools for the forum.

… set up the tools for the forum

At the least, you need a mailing-list-management program. There are a good number of them available on the Internet. These programs make it possible for you to open discussion lists and to subscribe or unsubscribe participants. They should provide means for giving the basic information on your forum: its purpose, who can subscribe, its working languages, and its calendar if it is a debating forum.  

We recommend coupling the list with a Web site specific to the debate or workgroup, or with a specific section in an existing Web site, where the following elements are published, if possible per language section:

at least:

• the document(s) on which the discussion is based

• the working calendar (in a meeting this would be the agenda)

• instructions for subscribing to the discussion list

• the archive of all the messages sent to the list

optional:

• an introduction form to be filled out by participants

• introductions of the participants

• summaries of the discussions

• experience reports relevant to the discussion

• documents contributed to the discussion

• links to other Web sites related to the discussion

• etc.

Awele can provide you with a forum-management program called Sympa and train you to use it. This makes it possible for all e-forums to be grouped in the same Web site with the same domain name, along with the archive of the contributions and the documents for the discussion.

Examples of forums grouped according to domain name:
http://www.forums.socioeco.org//lists
http://www.forums.alliance21//lists

… identify potential participants

Participants could be:

• persons in your Awele Directory in the Infotek having expressed interest for the theme of your forum or work group

• other interested people (relations, partners, other networks, etc.)

• etc.

It is highly recommended NOT to subscribe participants to your list without having previously invited them and received their favorable answer.

This is contrary to "netiquette," and adding persons without their previous consent will in most cases result in:

• numbers of persons who will remain on the list but will never participate

• numbers of angry persons who will demand that you unsubscribe them from the list, adding extra management to your time

• numbers of e-mail addresses that are no longer working

If you restrict your list to persons who have stated their interest, your chances of having fruitful discussions will be much higher.

This invitation should present

• the aim of the forum: the objective (meeting, drafting of a document, etc.), the general topic and if there are any, the sub-topics

• the expected products (documents, etc.) and a calendar

It must request persons to state their interest in participating, and to specify

• eventually, the sub-topic(s) in which they are interested

• which languages, especially among French, English, and Spanish (see Chapter III on Working Languages), they can read and which they can write

You can send this invitation by e-mail to all those who have an e-mail address. In that case, open the .txt file, customize it, and copy it directly into the “message” field of your e-mail form.

In the present state of e-mail communication, the different types of e-mail software still do NOT always interpret rich formatting (bold, italics, automatic bullets and numbering, colors, etc.). You must make sure that all your messages are sent in “text only” format.

You can also inform and invite people who don't have e-mail access to participate in the workgroup through some other form (see Chapter VII). In this case, open the .doc file, customize it, and send it by fax or regular mail.

F Invitation-e.rtf

F Invitation-e.txt

This letter of invitation is just an indication; its main purpose is to help you to not forget the different elements it should include. It needs to be customized in terms of the options you have decided on.

… subscribe the interested persons

Subscribe all the persons who responded favorably to your invitation. To do so, use the commands specific to the list-management program that you are using, or the Technical Manual for Citizens' Forums if you are using the Sympa list-management software provided by Awele.

If subscription to the forum remains open, subscription requests will be progressively addressed to you.

… and publish the following more detailed rules for reference on your forum Web site

The “Translation” file is only needed for the forums that use more than one language. See Chapter III.

F Forum-rules.txt

- General working rules: this file is to be customized, but to be kept as such on the whole.

F Layout.txt

- Layout and coding of the message: this file is to be customized. It describes the most complete layout. You can choose not to use all the elements.

F Translation.txt

- Writing tips in view of machine translation: this file is to be customized, though very little.