Office of the Chair

Curriculum Committee Establishes HPME Website Sub-Committee

A sub-committee of the Curriculum Committee has been established to look at updating the HPME website. This committee, chaired by Tina Smith, includes Anna Gagliardi, Robin Hurst, Louise Lemieux-Charles and Zita McWhinnie. The mandate of the sub-committee will be to review the content, design and functionality of the Department's website, conduct a stakeholder analysis, and make recommendations re updating the current website and redesigning the site for added features. The sub-committee will report back to the Curriculum Committee within three months.

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Communication Task Force Establishes Faculty Resources Web Page

In September 2001 a Communications Task Force chaired by Tina Smith was created to address the recommendations of the Governance Task Force for the Graduate Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. One of those recommendations reads "Encourage faculty to set up 'virtual' nodes for activities such as student supervision, research projects and/or teaching techniques. A list of these nodes should be made available to all members of the Department".

The Communications Task Force felt that more information about Faculty needs was required to understand what resources would be considered most useful. As an example, the Communications Task Force is developing a budget template that will be available electronically through the Department website and can be used by Faculty when preparing grant applications. An e-mail survey was distributed to Faculty (n=100) on January 15, 2002 and a reminder e-mail was sent on January 23, 2002.

The response rate was 37% (n=37). Of these, 32 indicated they would contribute to an inventory of professional resources and 32 said they would use such a repository. The majority of those who would use the inventory selected the HPME website as their preferred format for accessing resources (22/32, 68.8%). Desired resources expressed by the proposed users included tips on supervising graduate students, teaching tips, and research-related tools. Additional suggestions for professional resources included computer skills workshops, grantsmanship, and sources of funding and application deadlines.

Based on the needs expressed through the survey, we have developed a web page providing links to information and resources supporting teaching and research activities. Go the HPME website and select Resources from the navigation bar on the left-hand side of the page. Note that access to a budget template is forthcoming from the Communications Task Force.

Please send suggestions for particularly useful resources to zita.mcwhinnie@utoronto.ca.

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