Infokiri

To:        Operational Contact Points for Influenza, COVID-19 and SARI, National Focal Points for Viral Respiratory Diseases

Cc:        National Coordinators

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the launch of the ECDC Respiratory Viruses Collaboration site. The new sites are known as ECON sites and are replacing the ECDC Extranet sites, which are being decommissioned at the end of this year.

Please follow this link to access the site: ECON Respiratory Viruses - Home

The site will be used both as a working space for collaboration, as well as a repository for information. We look forward to collaborating with you there and to populating it with news and documents.

To carefully manage the volume of notifications you will receive going forward, we plan to work in the following way:

• For items where we would welcome and need your input: we will send an e-mail alerting you to the document.

• For significant documents and news that you may want to be aware of: we will send an e-mail alerting you to the document.

• For other types of documents and news that “may be of interest”: we will not send any e-mails, but as you are able to access the site at any time, you will be able to check these kinds of items at your leisure.

• For documents concerning only a smaller group, notifications will be sent only to those directly involved.

The Site

Please note the following:

• We envisage that we will have 2 types of functions on the site:

• Folders containing documents FOR INFORMATION ONLY: here we will share documents and news that may be of interest to you. These documents are in folders that can only be edited by ECDC colleagues – those highlighted in blue below.

• Folders containing documents FOR CONSULTATION: here we will share documents where we would welcome your input. These documents are in folders that are open and the contents can be edited - those highlighted in yellow below. 

• Only ECDC colleagues can add, move or delete documents or information / text on the site. Network Members can read, download and edit (to reiterate that the edit function is available only on selected folders and documents).

• We are sharing the screen as ECDC colleagues see it; your own view will look slightly different as each Network member will only see the folders which they are invited to access. For example, the DNCC folder is visible below in the ECDC view, but only DNCC members will be able to see and access it.

• Likewise, the Country Libraries area contains 30 folders. However, when you click on the link you should only be able to see your own country folder (there is no content yet). Please contact us immediately if you do not see your country, and/or if you are able to another country folder.

• The ‘most recent documents’ is a rolling list. It will update itself automatically as new documents are added. This works on the same principle as access to folders; you will only see the documents that you have access to. E.g. documents related to the DNCC will only be visible to the DNCC members.

• There is a menu at the top of the site: these are just links to the folders below. At the moment, this might seem unnecessary duplication, but over time as more and more folders are created, the menu at the top will be links to the most important folders for ease of navigation.  

• ECDC will update the News and Upcoming Meetings sections, as and when necessary.

• There is an Archive- in the top menu. The documents exported from the previous Extranet will remain here. As time progresses, we may move other folder and documents there. We will let the appropriate colleagues know when we relocate anything here.

• You may notice on the top right-hand side there is a list of ‘Members’ and that it is quite a low number. Slightly confusingly in ECON site terminology, these ‘Members’ = ECDC colleagues and Network Members = ‘Visitors’. That is why the number is not high- it does not include you, the Network members- your names / contact details etc are not listed anywhere on the site, for privacy reasons.

• The Visitor group is linked to nominations in the ECDC SRM system. As Network Members leave and are replaced with new nominees, SRM is updated and this will lead to the previous Network Member automatically leaving the Visitor group and losing their ECON access rights. The new Network Member nominated in SRM will be automatically added to the Visitor group, and will receive the corresponding ECON access rights.

• You may notice a very small Teams icon next to the ECON Respiratory Viruses name as well as a “Following” function on the top right: these are not functional, at the moment, for Network Members.

We would now kindly invite you to check that you can access the site using the link above. Should you not be able to, please reply to this e-mail and we will take steps to rectify.

We look forward to our continued collaboration!

Kind regards,

The ECDC Respiratory Viruses and Legionella team