[NCAP-Discuss] Draft final Study 1 report

[Rod Rasmussen]

Hi Discussion Group!

I’m replying to this thread without quoting anything in particular since there have been different conversation topics over the past week or so.  I am glad to see that the little bit of a “kerfuffle” that popped up on-list was resolved quickly and amicably, as I know we are all here to have a serious discussion on the report, examining its various aspects, findings, and conclusions and I have seen nothing contrary to that.  And while we all have our own thoughts and positions on the issues at hand, we’re all dealing with this in a professional manner, respecting each others’ opinions and concentrating on the data we have available to guide our work.  I’ve been pleased to see that in our discussions so far and look forward to that continuing.  The discussion group has the opportunity to review the report now and provide input on this draft that may lead to some changes in the final report.  That would include addressing items that have been brought up in this thread and probably others.  

I also wanted to remind everyone that the issuance of this report is not the end of our process for this stage of the NCAP work, both as the discussion group and for the SSAC.  The co-chairs will have more to say on this as well, but I thought it would be good to remind folks at this point in time that at the end of the day, there is an SSAC set of recommendations that will be a final output.  Once this research report is finalized, the discussion group itself will then likely present its own consensus recommendations and critique of the paper during the public comment period.  Beyond what the discussion group comes up with, the SSAC’s own work party will separately write up our own thoughts/reactions to the paper and any recommendations it contains to provide our own consensus on findings, shortcomings, agreements, and recommendations which will then go through our full SSAC consensus process.  That SSAC WP work may come after we take into account things received during the public comment period, including the consensus feedback from the discussion group.  I don’t know how well aligned all three of these efforts will be (OCTO researcher paper, Discussion Group comments, SSAC document) but all will be made public and be out there for consideration by the Board for deciding next steps.  Beyond that, the SSAC still has the original Board questions to answer, so regardless of whether there is further OCTO funded research to help us with that process, the SSAC (and this discussion group) still has lots of work in front of it.

Cheers,

Rod