On November 1st and 2nd, 2010, CAPTURE held its second International Advisory Board (IAB) meeting in Toronto, Ontario. The meeting was attended by 11 of the 15 member advisory board. The objectives of the meeting were to update the IAB on CAPTURE’s progress, obtain feedback on the first set of platform features, and obtain advice on populating the databases and working with different populations. This report represents a thematic distillation of the comments made throughout the meeting, the questions asked, and the advice offered. These have been framed and presented as action items for CAPTURE.
Click here for the full report.
WHAT WE HEARD
CONTINUE TO REFINE COMMUNICATION MATERIALS
The questions and comments of IAB members indicated that CAPTURE has not yet succeeded in describing the platform in a way that is universally understandable. Included in the progress update was a framing of CAPTURE features as a series of applications (“apps”). To some IAB members, this framing failed to convey the overall purpose of CAPTURE and demonstrate how these features interconnect in serving that purpose. While the mission and vision resonated with IAB members, concerns were expressed that the conceptual foundations were obscured and the connection between the mission, vision, and features was not clear. CAPTURE was advised to continue to refine and develop materials that spoke most directly to the value-add of CAPTURE in meeting client and user needs.
IMPROVE PLANNING, MONITORING, AND REPORTING ON PROGRESS
It was difficult for some IAB members to see the overall business strategy and operational plans for developing and releasing platform features. Suggestions were made to focus on external indicators of progress rather than internal indicators of learning and process improvement.
CONSIDER THE IMPLICATIONS OF AN ITERATIVE RELEASE STRATEGY
CAPTURE had planned on using an iterative release strategy with periodic new feature releases. The first set of features available for release include “Share your Intervention,” “Connect with Others,” and “Find Resources.” Discussion centred on the value and risks of releasing these features in advance of the evaluation features (“Plan your Evaluation”, “Find data collection tools”, and “Collect data and report.”). Concerns were expressed about the potential impact these initial features and a continuous release cycle might have on brand perceptions.
CHOOSE CLIENTS FOR THEIR STRATEGIC VALUE
The IAB members offered three considerations for client engagement:
- Their representativeness of public health interests in Canada;
- The alignment of client needs with the stage of platform development particularly when customization would be required; and,
- The client’s influence in public health within Canada.
BORROW FROM EXISTING REPOSITORIES TO POPULATE THE DATABASE
IAB members suggested that CAPTURE should capitalize on existing repositories of validated data collection tools as a first strategy for populating the database. CAPTURE was also directed to work with “centers of excellence” throughout Canada and the United States.
ENSURE MINIMAL BARRIERS TO ENTERING INFORMATION AND MAXIMUM VALUE-ADD
There was general agreement that entering information into the CAPTURE database needs to be easy and the benefit of using CAPTURE needs to be clear. CAPTURE was advised to find other ways to populate the database that do not rely on practitioners entering their own intervention information. IAB members suggested the following approaches for populating the intervention database:
- Send personalized invitations to encourage practitioners to input their interventions
- Import interventions from other existing databases
- Engage IAB members’ networks
- Import poster summaries/abstracts from public health conferences
POSE QUESTIONS FOR THE IAB
IAB members indicated that the meetings could be improved by structuring the agenda around eliciting advice to specific challenges or areas of uncertainty. Providing updates on all the work CAPTURE is undertaking was also suggested as was providing some of the material ahead of time.
INCREASE IAB ENGAGEMENT
IAB members expressed an interest in being more involved with CAPTURE. Many IAB members volunteered further engagements with CAPTURE beyond their attendance at the meetings. These included:
- Writing blogs for posting on the CAPTURE website or writing about CAPTURE on other social media sites.
- Asking staff from their respective organizations to enter interventions or provide feedback.
- Connecting CAPTURE to centers of excellence.
- Helping CAPTURE with its French language strategy and Quebec engagements.
- Offering advice on evaluation and IT development.
The next IAB meeting with be held in the spring of 2011 in Vancouver.
