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This October, with support from NSF, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) will once again hold the biggest ATE gathering of the year in Washington, DC: the National ATE Principal Investigators Conference. For projects and centers old and new, the annual conference offers a chance to share, collaborate, learn, and meet with other innovative members of the ATE community, including PIs, select project and center staff, and NSF program officers. ATE Central is particularly excited about this year’s meeting; after all, ATE only turns 21 once!

Along with other projects and centers, ATE Central is gearing up to host and assist with a number of events at this year’s conference. In getting ready to head to DC, many of us will be double checking website material, creating handouts or workshop material, and generally making sure that our project and center information is up to date. A number of ATE Central services and tools may be helpful in your efforts, as you get ready for the 2014 Conference:

• Resource/Project/Center Records. Now is a great time to look at the description of your project or center and its resources on ATE Central. Let ATE Central know if you have new resource URLs, a new project description, other social media outlets, or a website we should know about. We can best support and amplify your efforts when we have up-to-date information about your project or center and its deliverables.
• Activity Reports. ATE Central sends out quarterly Activity Reports that communicate data about project and center presence and usage of project and center deliverables on the ATE Central site. You are free to use this information however you wish. It is our hope, however, that the Activity Reports will support and inform your ongoing outreach efforts.
• Events. Now is a great time to update your upcoming events. In addition to posting these on your website or through various social media outlets, make sure all your events are on the ATE events calendar. If you notice your event does not appear, please submit it here.
• Archiving. The ATE Central archiving service is available to all ATE projects and centers as part of the support provided to the ATE community in executing data management and digital curation efforts. Having an archiving plan in place means that your hard work will have longevity beyond the course of your project or center’s funding period. We are committed to working with projects and centers to help with plans that work for everyone and encourage you to contact info@atecentral.net to develop an archiving plan tailored to your needs.
• Outreach Kit. The ATE Central Outreach Kit can help projects and centers come up with an outreach plan or some specific outreach ideas. Leading up to the PI meeting, the Communication section of the Outreach Kit might be particularly helpful: it includes tips on creating a mission statement and designing key messages so you can get the word out about your project or center.
• ATE@20 Books. Last year the ATE@20 Book + Blog launch was received by the community with an exorbitant amount of enthusiasm. Whether you received free copies of the ATE@20 book to promote your project or center’s efforts and need more, or you never got around to ordering some but would like to push them out on your campus or to industry partners now, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Just send an email to ate20@atecentral.net and we are happy to help you spread the word.
• PI Meeting App. Plan which sessions to attend and track your PI meeting experiences with the annual PI meeting app. This year's app will be available in October, so keep an eye out for it on the ATE Central PI Conference page.

Additionally, when registering for the conference (the deadline is September 25th) remember to take advantage of the pre-conference workshops, particularly the Getting Started Workshop that will be held on Wednesday, October 22nd from 1pm-5pm. This workshop will provide a detailed overview of the ATE program, the conference itself, and introductions to some key cross-cutting projects and resources (including ATE Central) that support the many efforts of the ATE community.

Whether this is your first time attending the PI conference or your tenth, you can look through past conference presentations and even view videos on the AACC website.