Dave, Abbas, Thanks for yoru workshop proposal for the workshop proposal "Healthcare Security and Privacy". I am sending this email as the current GROC co-chair and also on behalf of the newly proposed community council. As a part of transitional activity of GGF governance to strengthen the community activities, the GFSG and the proposed community council therein will be taking active responsibility in workshop oversight. In the light of this we have decided to provide active dialogs to the workshop organizers to help strengthen the organizational process as well as its exterior outreach. Please re-distribute this email to other organizers as well as anybody else involved in your workshop organization. Since time is short till GGF14, I am accelerating the process by sending you comment(s) already made. As you see, although you have solid backings, and the workshop is accepted in principle, nevertheless as you see the comments below indicate that there is room for improvement in the proposal. I hope you could make the initial revisions by reflect the comments as you see fit, and send to the (proposed) community council the revised version in about a week's time (around April 15th). In the meantime as additional comments come along, which will be forwarded to you if deemed helpful in the improvement, and if you make improvements as well, please let us know where you would like to do so. Also please note that the primary intention for this is that we will want to allow some of the workshop to be a academically viable and recognizable activity from not only within the Grid community but from other CS communities. Thus, we would like to push on external communication of the workshop, both in terms of the content as well as the viability of its organizational manners. It is NOT intended to increase bureacratic stronghold of GFSG and the community council therein over the research groups. To quote one community council member: "I am passionate about the high value of good workshops: they stimulate, they inform, they build communities, they cross-fertilise and they recognise the need for new lines of work. Without workshops I think GGF would drift towards narrow technical nit-picking standards. The value of workshops is much diminished if the only effects are on those at the workshop. Hence the demand for publication and publicity." I hope the new (proposed) community council can fruitfully work with the workshop organizers to fulfill such desires, to have you host a high-quality and a productive workshop. Looking forward to the revised proposal as well as the workshop itself. Thanks. Best Regards, Satoshi Matsuoka Comment 1: === The Health ... Workshop looks well conceived and the proposers have an excellent track record of running workshops associated with GGF and elsewhere. I'd like to suggest a few extra organisers / speakers if that is not out of order, from Europe. I vote for accept, but push on updating the speakers & organisers, and on publications. === Comment 2: === The report from the last LSG workshop held at GGF13 (and previous somewhat informal one in GGF12, etc.) should be in the works. At least there should be some "evidence" that such are being worked upon. === Comment 3 (general): === I think we might encourage more substantial publication such as journal special issues so as to give greater credit to (academic) participants However in general I think we should let each workshop make its choice as "external outreach, publication and publicity" which should exist in some fashion === Comment 4: (Satoshi) I believe this workshop could be quite synergestic to the community track being proposed for GGF14, in that if this workshop would be held stragically prior to the community track, then the workshp itself will serve as an effective community gathering. One thing to note for the GGF office is to ensure at least phone connectivity. I could personaly bring a Polycom conference phone if required. ---------