Since starting with NOCoE as the Technical Services Manager in January 2016, I have been witness to one activity that, above all others, stands out as a facilitator of successful TSMO practice and policy development: roundtable discussion between practitioners. These discussions can be borne out in many forms – in-person peer exchanges, webinar dialogue, etc. In this sense, the ability to bring engineers, policymakers, and other professionals from various sectors of the transportation industry to a common “table,” for the purpose of championing TSMO, is one of the greatest strengths of NOCoE.

At the launch of the Center in 2015, it was originally envisioned that the discussion forums on the NOCoE website would play a significant role in making these connections. While this has happened to a limited extent, I don’t think that the forums are currently being utilized to their full potential. Much of this is understandable – busy schedules, numerous projects, and existing workflows make it difficult to incorporate a new communications medium into the rotation. This is why, over the next several months, the NOCoE staff are going to be working on some behind-the-scenes changes to improve the usefulness of the forums, and the ease with which they can be accessed.

Many of these changes are still in the preliminary planning stages, and as part of this process, we would like to get feedback directly from our membership. To help with this, I have created a discussion topic within the forums that anyone can visit to add their input, in order to help us focus our resource development. Specifically, the post lays out the following questions:

1. What do you think the role of the discussion forums should be within NOCoE and the website?
2. Do you currently use the discussion forums regularly (i.e., at least once per month)?
3. If not, what are some of the biggest reasons for not participating?
4. If so, what are some of the biggest value-adds that you see with the current system?
5. Do you feel that the ability to create new threads for the forum via email would significantly increase your level of participation?
6. Are there specific things that can be done with the forums to better mesh with your existing workflow?
7. Are there certain discussion topics that you feel are current missing in the forums? Or conversely, are there certain existing topics that you don't feel are appropriate?

These questions are by no means intended to be exhaustive, but I hope they provide some guidance and clarification of the type of feedback we are seeking. Additionally, starting later in July, we will highlight a single discussion forum topic within each newsletter, in order to promote greater visibility of the daily challenges and needs of the practitioner community, and hopefully stimulate additional dialogue around these issues.

In the meantime, if you would like to have a hand in shaping the future of the NOCoE Discussion Forums, I invite you to visit the following URL and contribute your thoughts: http://forum.transportationops.org/topic/145-member-survey-ideas-for-improving-the-nocoe-discussion-forums/