At AADE19 in Houston, we gave a first glimpse of the new online community website to our CB and COI leaders in their respective meetings. The demonstration given to the attending volunteer leaders showed the possible layouts for the community page, the administrative controls, as well as some of the functionalities and modern amenities that the new website will have. 

The website is slated for an early 2020 launch and while we as staff are busy building the new site, there are ways that you, our community leaders can help us with a smooth transition.

One of the major pieces of the new website build will be integrating the data from the current MY AADE NETWORK, so that you and your community subscribers don’t lose any of the information that currently lives in any of the communities. That means bringing over all the discussions, blogs, files and other content types of content, which equates to about 10 years of information. MY AADE NETWORK has become an impressive library full of histological information and archives and we want to make sure that we preserve all of that relevant information. 

Over that time, though, some information has changed, new files supersede old files, and cases become outdated as new evidence arises in the field. As community leaders, it’s important to make sure that the file libraries in each CB or COI community page is providing only the most current and up-to-date information and published works available.

If your community’s file library has been well maintained and moderated over the years— great! If your community’s file library has become an unruly monster, no worries! Now is the time to start looking through the past uploads and removing anything that is no longer deemed relevant. Divide the work up between you and your co-leader(s), put together a group of volunteers to help take on the work and decision making of what should go and what should stay, set aside a month to re-categorize the library. If you’re unsure how to clean up old files or need advice on deciding if a file should stay or go, staff is always here to help. 

Cleaning up your library can seem like a daunting process, but your subscribers’ experience will be vastly improved, and it will make the data integration and the launch of the new online community a much smoother process.