A Productive Spring Break in Sri Lanka

Greetings again. I hope you’re doing well.

Here at Texas A&M University, the students’ spring break just ended. While the students were away, I had a trip to Sri Lanka, where an AuthorAID planning meeting was being held. As well as taking part in the meeting, I observed part of a workshop and gave a talk.

Shortly after arriving, I sat in on most of a train-the-trainer workshop given by AuthorAID team member Ravi Murugesan. The workshop was designed to prepare researchers and teachers to facilitate online AuthorAID courses.

The workshop was quite informative, and I appreciated the chance to attend. I now understand much better how to facilitate online AuthorAID courses. Having given AuthorAID workshops, I look forward to doing such teaching online too.

For 2 days during my stay, the core members of the AuthorAID team met to summarize recent activities and discuss plans. Much of the discussion regarded 2 aspects that AuthorAID plans to emphasize increasingly: online education and “embedding”.

In this context, “embedding” entails helping to prepare institutions in developing countries to give AuthorAID-type assistance themselves to their own researchers. We hope to build on the successes that already are being achieved in this regard.

On my last day, I spoke at the Sri Lanka Medical Association. My talk was titled “Writing and Publishing Journal Articles: Ways to Decrease Stress and Increase Success”. I was happy that many people attended and that people asked many questions.

A busy and enjoyable trip!

Until the next post—

Barbara