Back from AuthorAID’s Yearly Project Meeting

Greetings again. I hope you’re doing well.

Like the AuthorAID community overall, the AuthorAID project team has members in multiple countries and communicates mainly electronically. We team members are in continual touch by email. Sometimes we also talk by phone or Skype.

Once a year, we meet in person to review AuthorAID’s activities and discuss plans. Such a meeting occurred this month in Oxford, England. Oxford was chosen because INASP (where AuthorAID is based) has its headquarters there.

Several INASP staff members took part in the meeting. Among them were Julie Walker (who directs AuthorAID) and Andy Nobes (who provides administrative support). Others at INASP whose work relates to AuthorAID also participated.

In addition, Ravi Murugesan (whose work focuses largely on e-learning) came from India for the meeting. Alex Arreola (who translates AuthorAID materials into Spanish) arrived from Mexico.

Bernard Appiah, a team member who is Ghanaian, arrived from the United States, where he currently works. I too arrived from the United States for this two-day meeting.

Tharanga Thoradeniya, from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, came for part of the meeting. Because she was doing a fellowship in England, she could join us to discuss AuthorAID-related activities at her university.

As well as being productive, the project meeting felt like a reunion. I enjoyed talking face to face with people I interact with electronically day to day.

I especially appreciated spending time with Alex and Bernard, who had been graduate students of mine. The accompanying photo shows the three of us. (I’m on the left.)

Until the next post—

Barbara