STED Committee Teleconference
Conference Call Agenda and Notes
Thursday September 30, 2010
(1:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time)

Notes recorded by Lynn Taylor

Dial-in Logistics   Purpose    Agenda    Attendees    Discussion Notes

Dial-In Logistics

Conference Date:	09/30/2010
Conference Time:	1:00-3:00 pm ET
Bridge Call-in #:	703-648-4848
# of Ports/Lines:	??
Conference Code #:	48928#

Purpose

Attendees List: Introductions and Roll Call - 1300 - 1305

• Invited- Alan Ward, Barbara Kerans, David Pollock, Dianne Jefferies, Franceska Wilde, Harry Jenter, Joyce Williamson, Mike Nolan, Lynn Taylor, Steve Blanchard, Steve Anthony, Steve Lipscomb, Theresa Lane, Bill Hazel, Mike Ierardi
• Attended - Alan Ward, Harry Jenter, Steve Blanchard, Joyce Williamson, Bill Hazel, Mike Ierardi, Steve Lipscomb, Steve Anthony, Barbara Kerans, Joyce Williamson, Mike Nolan, Lynn Taylor

Agenda And Discussion Notes

• STED Web pages http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/STED/
• Lynn's response to Barb's email
Hi Barb,

My comments are below


From: Barbara K Kerans/WRD/USGS/DOI
To: Robert L Taylor/WRD/USGS/DOI@USGS, Michael Nolan/WRD/USGS/DOI@USGS, William F Hazell/WRD/USGS/DOI@USGS
Date: 09/23/2010 02:18 PM
Subject: STED web


From my notes, I'm not sure that we have our own directions straight enough to communicate them to Mike Ierardi yet.
This may just be me.
It is not just you, I agree. I think STED needs to write down the purpose for each page and a list of attributes for each with the attributes some kind of priority like,
1 - Critical
2 - Needed but not immediately
3 - Would be nice but not necessary

We could then provide Mike I. with concrete needs in writing.

Two things happened in the transition which are pretty basic that we may need to discuss ourselves.

One:
The two STED web sites, one for the STED Committee and one for the users, have been combined.
I think we had discussions about one being more public than the others.
Especially if we were going to let cooperators or other users take offered online classes.
I also thought we were going to have two separate pages one internal for STED activities and one for public consumption with all the training material/links.

Two:
In combining the sites, the STED Committee information appears to take precedence over the training links.
I'm not sure that's what was intended by the committee.
I believe the web assistance was to help complete and improve the user pages as first designed by Mike Nolan.
Separating the STED internal page from the training information page would fix this.

We also seem to have picked up multiple links to things already there (NTC, DOILearn, etc).
These should be available, but not primary.
I think what we wanted was the links to specific WRD mandatory/improvement courses and specific online access?
Agree.

We should probably get our committee on the same page for these basic ideas before we communicate specifics with Mike?
Specifics in the form or written needs.
Thanks, Barbara

• Everyone agrees with Barbara and Lynn about having the internal STED page and a separate page for training information.
• Mike N. asked Alan how the STED training information page will mesh with the NTC web page. Mike's experience is that users are having a very difficult time with DOI learn. There is a lot of confusion.
  • Alan - Sees the need for both also but does not want to see to much redundancy. There will be a new web site for OED and the NTC training site will be housed intenally at OED. Does not believe DOI learn will help us that much we are better providing our users the information they need to take to DOI learn when they want a course. Our users have well defined and fairly simple needs we need to focus on these. Would be a good idea to find out from the users what these needs are.
• From Bill - Are there things in the DOI catalog that OED/NTC do not have on their site and we should include? Alan - Yes we should attempt to provide this information on the STED training page. Bill it would be very beneficial to search the STED page on keywords to find available courses.
• Bill do we need someone to be responsible for maintaining and updating the information
• Alan the most important thing is to get the site up and running
• Lynn, I agree with Bill it is very important to find someone responsible for maintaining and updating the information.
• Comments from Mike I.
  • Understands from the comments that the site is backwards with the STED page being the most prominent thing.
  • Need a statement at the top to tell users what the site is about and how it will help them.
  • Is confident the DOI learn site can be mined to provide data to to the STED page if that is the direction we want to go.
  • Question - Each learning web sites (DOI learn, OED, Hydrotech Tool box, etc.) has strong points, benefits. Need to decide what information is important to include on the STED training page.
  • From Barbara - The western region Hydrotech Tool Box (HTB) page is a good template to start with for the STED page. The concentration for the STED page should be WRD training like the HTB page. Links to DOI an OED should be included. This is a large project. Barb asked Mike how much time he has available. Mike is unable to comit at this time to a specific amount of time. Barb - As Lynn said, STED needs to write up the specific needs to help Mike with how large this project actually is.
  • The training page Mike is working on is at: http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/STED/
  • Mike I can separate the training page from the STED page
  • Bill to Mike - hold off on making changes until the STED subcommittee, WORK, provides more information. To WORK, can you do this remotely using conference calls. Alan and Lynn, yes we should be able to at least get started that way. AI - Barbara, set up a WORK conference call.

OED/NTC Update - Alan

• Streaming of Kolva/Turnupseed Course
  • was taught the week of Sept. 13 at the NTC.
  • Two attended the streaming part remotely one was a new USGS employee. From what Alan heard it went very well for both.
  • Streamed 32 hours, NTC staff and instructors did as much as they could to keep the remote students engaged.
  • There are two FBMS classes in October and NTC will be streaming these.
  • Might be a good item to link off the STED page, information about courses where streaming is available and what it is.
  • From Bill - did issues that occured during the test on Sept. 2 get resolved for the Sept. 13 course. Alan - The Sept 13 class did not use the new software that was used during the Sept. 2 test. Need to get the bugs worked out for the new software/hardware because it does have some good featurs not available with the older version.
• Training needs survey
  • There will be the water wide training needs survey. The Water supervisors will get an email from Matt Larson in October letting them know the web based survey is available and it is important that OED get the information.
  • From Steve B. it will have to be Bill Werkheiser because today is Matt's last day unless it goes out today. Steve is acting for Matt so he could send the memo for Matt.

QW Principles Course

I'm sorry that I can't be on today's call, as I am completely tied up with plans and support for next week's post-oil spill sampling in the Gulf of Mexico. Although all of my core work, including the WQ Principles course, was put on hold to respond to USGS work on the oil spill (April 20), work on the course has not been completely neglected. Here's my report:

The beta test was very successful; it ended and all evaluations were received by mid-May.
About two-thirds of the participants completed the entire course.
The course evaluations were tabulated, and additional responses and suggestions have been collated. Overall, the response was very positive.
Roger is on contract for $10K and is going through the evaluations and making some of the changes needed, lesson by lesson. Currently he has completed 5 of the 15 lessons. He is writing out our responses to comments, as we routinely do for any report review.
Roger and I have renewed weekly calls to discuss and determine how to address some of the comments. These include, for example, adding narration, moving a couple of the later lessons closer to the beginning, doing more with the class exercise -- including more real contact time, considering offering the course in separate sections, and straightening out some access problems (especially regarding the pre-lesson reading assignments).
I have had to postpone a planned trip to work with him in Austin four times already. I'm now planning for mid-November.
My goal at this point is to have the revisions completed and be able to offer the course late Spring, 2011.

Best regards to all,
Franceska

SW Policy and Procedures Course

- Mike Nolan

• 8 beta testers were suggested, 3 have not responded.
• Got a couple of very detailed reviews and the rest were intermediate.
• The last beta tester was a new empoyee and gave the coures 4 our of 4 stars.
• There were comments that the first word or two of each topic are missing, this does not happen to Mike when he is in his office.
• It is very close to being offered by OSW. Steve B. agreed. Perhaps by early next year.
• The life of a hydro tech has gotten a lot more complicated, alot is expected of them and these type of courses help.
• Essential and Recommended Technical Courses - Mike is the only one here
• here have not been many changes. There is a new hydrographer class that should be added.
• Eventually this will be added to the STED training page for all disiplines.
• Steve A. comment - Sees this training page as not only a resource for courses but also as a career developement tool.

Regional Co-op Status

- Joyce

• Sent an email to get things moving
• A suggested acronym for the comittee is HIRE (Hydrotech Intern REcruiting)
• See a need to summarize the various programs, how they got started and how they are working, so we can decide which are working best. Has requested information from others but they are very busy
• HIRE committee members
  • James Kircher
  • Bob Swanson
  • Jeff Stoner
  • William (Bill) Hazell
  • Jeanne Robbins
  • Kevin Wright
  • Deb Lowe
  • Phil Turnipseed (I have not heard back from Phil since he took his new position)
  • Joyce Williamson

Face-to-face meeting this year? Bill

• No options available yet for the meeting
• The WORK group could definitely benefit from a face-to face meeting
• Does anyone feel the entire STED needs to get together this year? No response from anyone. Bill does not feel there is a strong need for a full STED face-to-face.

Rotations - Bill

• Bill H. and Steve will be rotating off next spring
• Will need two new members and a new chair.

Next conference call:

The next scheduled call is for December 02 , 2010. Scheduled for 1:00-3:00 Eastern Time.
Reston phone bridge 703-648-4848 and code is 48928#

STED Committee Activities – 2010

Current Activities

1. Continue to develop, populate, maintain, and promote the STED web page as the primary source of STED communication to WRD personnel.
2. Continue to promote Technology Enabled Learning and establish an electronic learning repository for WRD personnel featuring links to a wide variety of instructional and informational material.
3. Promote the development of "Essential and Recommended" training programs for all disciplines, including Information Technology, for use by all scientific and technical WRD employees.

Future Activities

1. Investigate opportunities for a WRD advanced scientific education program to meet USGS mission goals and encourage career development.
2. Consider the advantages of a regionally based cooperative education program with selected colleges and universities as a means to promote training of potential future scientific and technical WRD employees.