Supercourse Newsletter - January 12, 2001
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Dear Friends,
This has been a wonderful week for us. We received many very kind
letters thanking us for the CD. We felt very good about it, but it
really is not Pittsburgh, it is all of us worldwide who contributed
to this effort by writing lectures, commenting on the lectures of
others, and using the lectures. These e-mail notes were the kindest
presents you could have given to us. It has made the effort well
worthwhile.
There has been a broad effort for re-distribution of the lectures,
something we had not expected. We are having the lectures distributed
through the Ministries of Health and throughout the country in Oman,
Argentina, Nigeria, and Israel. We have been talking with Nancy John-
son from the American Public Health Association about having the CD
distributed by APHA. There is interest in distribution through the
Peace Corp. We are surprised as to how easily it has been to obtain
wide distribution. Please feel free to contact any Non-Government Or-
ganization, or your government for distribution.
Many have asked for permission to copy the discs. You have permis-
sion. Remember these discs are "copy left" so that anyone can copy
these. The only requirement is that they not be sold.
The more people who have a copy of the disc, the better. The discs
have been very beneficial in getting the Supercourse known.
A small number of the CDs are defective. Before contacting us, try
the CD in a separate machine to see if it works.
We appreciate your response for the CD, in fact, we have received
many positive comments from people who already installed it. However,
due to the large demand of the CD we were not able to send a copy to
all of you, especially to those who confirmed their address after De-
cember 7. We are planning a second shipment in the next few weeks and
we will send new copies in the same order we received your informa-
tion. Unfortunately the number of available CD's is limited. We are
pleased that there is still an enormous interest for the CDs. If we
can afford it, we will make additional copies, if not, we will ask
some of you to share your discs with those who request them in your
country.
The total group of 2000 people provide these CDs to you. We only re-
quest, again, that you maximize distribution to your friends, to you
university, to your ministry of health.
We are celebrating on Jan. 16, the breaking of the 300 lecture bar-
rier, we flew right through this. We are going to an Indian Restau-
rant in Pittsburgh. We wish you could join us.
We now, amazingly have almost 370 lectures. There also are about 400
lectures that are promised to us. It is wonderful to see the lec-
tures. The first two phases of our effort, creation of content, and
distribution are moving along very well. We now need to start the
third phase, utilization. We would appreciate any comments you might
have.
Eun Ryoung Sa is planning to write a series of papers, and out like
your thoughts. The first describes the Supercourse. We are a very
rare group, we have established a global organization that works to-
gether very well. The question is why have we been able to do this
with no money, heavily funded programs have not. We have created a
global program in health with over 2000 people from 110 countries
that work together. Why? We would love your thoughts about this.
Best Regards from Pittsburgh. Once again, thank you so much for your
comments.
Ron, Akira, Eun Ryoung, Benjamin, Eugene, Beatriz, Deb, Tom
Ronald E. LaPorte, Ph.D.
Director, Disease Monitoring and Telecommunications
WHO Collaborating Center
Professor of Epidemiology
3512 Fifth Ave. Rm 310
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA
mailto:super3@imap.pitt.edu
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