P2Rx Admin Group Conference Call

Wednesday, February 11^th , 2009

Attendees: Jean Waters and Veronica Doga (P2Rx); Andy Bray and Rachel Colella (NEWMOA); Gary Hunt and Julie Woosley (WRRC); Bob Iverson (GLRPPR); Rick Yoder (P2 RIC); Myla Kelly (Peaks to Prairies); Ed Gonzalez (WRPPN); Paula Del Giudice and  Deb Taevs (PPRC); Beth Anderson (EPA);

Action Items:

All: Send Jean the email of the person at your center that needs to receive the list of broken links

All: Provide Beth a list of additional questions centers might want to use in surveying by February 16, 2009 so Beth can get ICR approval (customer satisfaction only)

All: Let Jean know about the decision each committee (marketing and content/technology) takes regarding a scheduled call or further actions

Jean: Revise the technology committee, it has too few members

P2 Programs Directory: Clear criteria need to be established if we want to list 2-3 “main” P2 programs at the top of a state’s list of P2 programs

All: send Gary the web-based collections your center would like indexed with his Google box

Answer with a new P2 resource you've discovered since Dallas: 

NEWMOA: Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator

WRRC: Green space issues

GLRPPR: MnTAP Metal Finishing Pages (http://lib.wmrc.uiuc.edu/glrppr-blog/2009/01/january-2009-site-of-the-month-mntap-metal-finishing-pages/)

P2RIC: OZARKS Center for Sustainable Solutions, http://www.drury.edu/multinl/story.cfm?nlid=246&id=22451

Peaks to Prairies: Montana green schools ABC series, chemical cleanouts, eco logo and green seal, usgbc.org the US Green Building Council site.

WSPPN: New west coast collaborative underway in Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) that will involve coordinators in Washington, California, Hawaii, Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon.  Ed will collaborate with PPRC.

PPRC: Seattle Climate Action Plan has sector-specific guidebooks for carbon footprinting, http://www.seattle.gov/climate/SCPresources.htm

Dallas Action Items:  

   The following are the action items discussed at the Dallas meeting:     

1. Centralize topic hub maintenance (link-checking) and programs directory maintenance (except for P2RIC and GLRPPR) with the P2Rx coordinator (note:  this does not include updating Topic Hub content) - Jean said that Jocelyn Hegge is going to check the broken links for all the centers.  She will look for replacement links but if she cannot find one, she will send the list of broken links to center directions. Jean asked center directors to tell her who else from their center should receive the broken links.  Centers will have a week to fix the broken link or it will be deleted.
2. Eliminate reporting of web and activity measures- Jean said that centers can still track their web activity on their own but no longer need to report it to her.
3. Institute cookies or static feed-back page (using “common questions” – agreed-upon language) on all Center websites to determine type of client and short-term outcomes in accordance with the logic model of information dissemination.  Beth will get an ICR for user satisfaction questions so all centers can ask the same questions. In addition, Centers can ask other questions if they don’t use their EPA grant money or if they only ask fewer than 10 people.  For example, one of the states from the region could put the survey together and distribute it; however, centers can analyze the results using the grant money.
4. Institute surveys for known clients (such as rapid response clients or advisory boards) to determine intermediate outcomes in accordance with logic model.  Andy can make a “survey monkey” that centers could use.  Centers could provide a link to their known users and centrally collect the data.  The seven center directors on the call agreed they would use this. The process and timeframe are:

-          Decide on the questions for the survey (today)

-          ICR approval (which will take about 2 months)

-          Andy will put together the survey using SurveyMonkey

-          Centers can start sending the link (about 3 months – May 2009)

5. Provide Beth a list of additional questions centers might want to use in surveying by February 16, 2009 so Beth can get ICR approval
6. Marketing committee needs to work on how to engage community of practice around national focus areas
7. Technology/content committee needs to work on what exact technology will be used to publish new national focus product

Andy proposed to build a framework to help move the committees work forward. He suggested scheduling a call for each committee meetings. Let Jean know on what each committee decides.  Rick said it would be helpful for the technology committee to get more members.

8. Considerations for next RFP
           - Collaboration among centers for national focus topics
           - Migrating selected topic hubs to archived or other status

Andy said he transferred the EMS Topic Hub to Thomas (Zero Waste) from Rick (P2RIC). Julie (WRRC) is about to transfer the EMS in Government Topic Hub to Thomas.

Update on Programs Directory:

Tom Fort of Zero waste has been working on the P2 Programs Directory database in order to display a small icon for NPPR members.  In the process of doing this work, there was a call with Tom, Andy Bray, Jean, and several NPPR board members about what they desired.  NPPR has been displaying the P2 Programs directory on their website.  On the call, it was expressed that there is some desire to have the "main" P2/assistance program displayed at the top of the list of P2 programs for a state.  Currently, some states have more than two dozen programs listed.  The purpose of changing the display would be so businesses could easily know who to contact for P2 assistance.  The "main" program(s) could be a P2 grantee, an SBAP program, or an SBDC that provides environmental assistance.  We could potentially also use this info to have a separate display of EPA grantees only, for example.  

Jean asked if center directors agree to designate a few programs on top of the list that would be the first place a customer has to go for help. Rick said he agrees that there should be a better way to connect businesses with programs; maybe put two main programs on the top and then list the rest of the programs alphabetically. Maybe list the P2 grantees differently than those who provide direct P2 assistance. Myla was not sure if the listing P2 grantees would work for Peaks. Beth said EPA lists about 3 programs as a point of contact for each state on their P2 website.

Jean asked center directors to respond to the following two questions:

1. Would it be valuable to have 2-3 programs on top of the list of state programs?
2. Would centers be able to let Jean which programs to list?

NEWMOA: yes/yes

WRRC: yes/yes

GLRPPR: no(does not see what the value is)/yes

P2RIC: no/yes

Peaks to Prairies: yes/yes

WSPPN: California might have to have more than 2 contacts listed yes/yes

PPRC: yes/yes

The criteria for “main” programs needs to be clearly defined.

WRRC indexing sites: - Gary requested centers let him know what on-line collections (publications) they'd like indexed with his Google search box.  If he indexes their whole site, it is not as useful and he does not have enough capacity to accomplish it.  He is also interested in useful collections outside of P2Rx.  Gary gave an update on what progress and problems he encountered while implementing the site indexing. The current license limit is 100,000 documents.   This box differs from the free Google search that is on P2Rx.org because it is directed specifically at publications/collections of resources.  The free Google search that is on P2Rx.org looks at everything on every center that is accessible to any search engine.  (in other words, if the center does not have it blocked from being indexed, it will be available via the P2Rx.org Google search box)

Common Questions: 

Beth said that the questions regarding behavior change most likely will not be approved through ICR. However she said that if centers ask less than 10 people the same set of questions, they don’t need the ICR approval and they can use the grant money to do that. The purpose of the questions is to show that centers are following the logic model. She also said that she’ll send the static questions and the pop-up questions for approval.