STED Committee Teleconference
Conference Call Agenda and Notes
February 23rd 2012
(2:00-4:00 pm Eastern Time)

Dial-in Logistics   Purpose    Agenda    Attendees    Discussion Notes

Dial-In Logistics

Conference Date:	Feb 23rd 2012
Conference Time:	2:00-4:00 pm ET
Bridge Call-in #:	703-648-4848
# of Ports/Lines:	20
Conference Code #:	97727#

Purpose

Attendees List:

Nicole Bogeajis, Joyce Williamson, Jen Dansie, Rod Sheets, Tony Paulson, David Pollock, Franceska Wilde, Pete Griffiths, Jim Kolva, Mike Ierardi, Alan Ward, Pat Lambert

Agenda And Discussion Notes

Brochure/Handout – Mike

• Audience – It was agreed that one document would be used and it would include the content that could be generically used for all audiences.
• Edit status – Mike is concerned that there were not enough edits of the document and he would really like to have edits done before he works on the final document
• It was agreed that there is no need to make this item a fact sheet, The document will stay in house. It is not a report and does not have any interpretive content.
• It was decided when we looked at the brochure, that it would be good to move the tel course information to the STED web site and out of the document. AI: Nicole will remove the TEL content, move it to a web page, and make the document reflect the new location by cob feb 27th.
• AI: Team – Review brochure that is located at (https://collaboration.usgs.gov/wg/sted/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2Fwg%2Fsted%2FShared%20Documents%2FDocuments&FolderCTID=0x012000758FD778CC43554892A1EA0C3043FCC0&View={4A210F3B-2EED-42E8-B24A-7972151B6FF0}&InitialTabId=Ribbon%2EDocument&VisibilityContext=WSSTabPersistence) by March 16th
• AI: Mike to use updated document after March 16th and send to STED for final review before sending to the printer in April sometime
• AI: Mike to upload the final brochure/handout in a postscript format to our STED Web Page.

Status of Tech Memo – Franceska

• Status of email promoting STED

• Franceska’s class is hugely successful which is causing a repeat investment in training in June and then next January. Great job!!!! That is where your focus needs to be.

• AI: Franceska to send a web page to Nicole on draft tech memos

• AI: Nicole to write draft tech memo and send to team for review

• AI: Franceska to forward completed tech memo up the chain as appropriate for distribution

  Streamgagers Course – Jim and Jen

• Jen and jim were on a call with regional sw specialist
• Regional specialists are taking a draft agenda and deciding on the technical aspect of the course. They will be meeting next week to decide on the final agenda and move forward.
• Questions about political side and mandating course for new hires
• Pat: Mandating the course – Center managers are interested in putting together training plans that are informed by discipline offices and STED. Making it a strongly recommended course for any hydrologist doing flow.
• Suggest keeping TEL portion free and instructor led portiong be 800 dollar. Also expect 100 dollars of that go into nest egg for future TEL development.
• Franceska: We can not tell science center directors how to spend money
• Jim: We require ADCP and 2 week field gaging course in Denver. So we are currently already requiring it.
• Nicole: Can’t we or Don’t we.
• Jim: Consensus among specialist is to charge for instructors time and make strongly recommended.
• Joyce: For her sending class to training the travel is most prohibitive.
• Jim: We could show the principles in web based course but felt hands on was important and could not be taught with web
• Jen: If class was in geographical areas then that would help with travel. Also model like GRSAT – can go to sites.
• Nicole: Asked about train the trainer
• Jim: Train the trainer would have to be a different course to have people be qualified to train.
• Jen: Highly Recommended or Strongly advised seems to be the consensus??
• Franceska: It is up to the office of Surface Water to decide on the sanction (from Bill W) and the wording
• ???: Jim brings up a good point with ADCP – if they can require the consistency then they can also decide that on this also
• Franceska: As long as the administration agrees. HazWalker training is an example of mandatory also. Also DOI training for water boat training. Asked
• David Pollock if office of Groundwater has anything mandatory. STED has the authority to recommend a course could be mandated or required.
• Jen: New to process and learning. Looking for input. In order to move process along, Sounds like get content taken care of and get office of sw to ask if can be required and work with oed to get cost worked out. Any recommendations or suggestions should be sent to Jen
• Franceska: We have been here before
• AI: Jen and Jim to continue to be involved with the moving forward of the streamgaging course and to keep STED informed of the progress. STED agreed that strongly recommended is a good approach but the final descision of class requirements do not fall on us.

TEL Cost Recovery – Jim and Jen

• From last meeting - Alan – Franceska’s course will start generating money that could be used. There may a small amount of ‘seed’ funding from NTC based on proposals, but no idea how much
• Discuss ideas for TEL Cost Recovery
• Franceska: Charging for instructor led part of the course. OED manages the money and where it goes – so they can not collect money for TEL. Right now got to STED or Alan and ask for funding from Water Quality principles course. Hope that that money would be available.
• Jim: They are not charging from Instructor led courses.
• Jen: Trying to take money from instructor led component and send to TEL part. IT would still be handled by OED.
• Jim: Asked Alan about money for future TEL courses coming from current TEL courses
• Alan: We have not created money for TEL courses before. IT would go into a working capital courses so not going towards a year. Franceska’s course is a cash cow. We could meet at the beginning at every year. We can get a report to STED and STED decide
• Jim: Asked if STED can decide
• Alan: Making sure money can not be grabbed. Traditionally TEL RFP process. WE might not have the money to do it this year. An RFP process for water might make sense. They ofter fund 50% of SME time. The good news is secured funding through Frenceska’s course. Get mike nolend to ghost write.
• AI: Alan and Team – Work on a process where the TEL money that is in a Working Capital fund can be accessed with a TEL RFP process.

2012 WRD Training Survey

• Survey results versus real needs
• Is the survey generating the expected interest
• Is the survey being used as expected for training planning
• Are non-travel options being captured
• Possible Budget money being tight and then “finding money” for training (or the revers) might be one of the causes of the difference between planning and reality.
• Jim: Speaking for Joyce and asking Pat – is the survey truly asking the questions that need to be asked regarding the training needs.
• Pat: thinks the survey was appropriate. Thinks maybe the field is just not responding well.
• Franceska: Survey only showed 6 people and yet they had 50. Joyce said it had to do with to many data calls, etc in the email thread
• Tony: Asking alan what the response rate of the survey
• Alan: Much lower – sent out different – region changes made it more difficult. Lots of forwarding may have deluted it. Response was 50% less response.
• Tony: Last years coverage was hard to determine. Some were section level and some data versus studies.
• Alan: 70% last year – half that this year. Looking at it at least this gave an indication of some need. Maybe blazing success might have more to do with delivery method. No travel
involved. Found that comparing the columns of need / willingness to travel were much different. Still show need and location of need based on the statistics. Immediately send out to course instructors and asked how they should meet that need. They all honestly looked at it and said they didn’t have the resources to do classes. Some SME’s made additional offerings or two. All in all – important to engage – nickels worth is that it takes time. Can we make it quicker process. Maybe better if we make it every 2 years rather than annually so not a burden. We have been looking forward to getting this info for a long time, but it still gives us something to target rather than shooting in the dark. Thoughts on improving or changing cycle.
• Tony: Made concerted effort to fill out the survey accurately. Found it difficult to fill out. Hard time filling it out and whether it registered or not. Finally said heck with it an send some emails trying to get it filled out. Also travel requirement to cut 20% so training is going to get disperportionately hit. Had to cut leadership training. That is why it is imperitive to get TEL classes out. OED classes out.
• Alan: If there is a need and we can get ahead of that need it is going to help. It is going to require more staffing to get TEL online. Laborious labor of love. TEL is not always the answer – blended also
• Nicole: Should we make a list of threatened classes
• Alan: Long list might be 80 classes or so. May be a way of prioritizing.
• Alan: What courses do we translate to distance learning. How do we make it happen. Run into SME availability, time, we can give them skill to make the course but time and funding makes it an additional challenge. It would be nice to identify a top ten each year for development into TEL. That would be a rich conversation. The work is far from done…find SME and give them a priority. We know all the bottle knecks and pitfalls. STED can find funding. Can we figure out how to review and which are essential to work on now.
• Franceska: One course that has not been taught in a while and may be important. Toolbox course
• AI: Alan to get us a list of top ten for us to start working though.
• AI: Team – add a few additional courses to the list that seem of critical value that may not have been taught in a while like the toolbox class.
• AI: Team – Work with Alan on an RFP process and a document describing a plan of suggested TEL classes that may be threatened in the near future with the 20% reduction in travel and find an audience to gain leverage

Moving Training on the web pages - Jim

• Contact Mike Nolan and find out about moving the training that was done by him and is stored in Menlo Park to Reston status
• Jim taled to mike about a month ago. Mike is making necessary revisions to his stuff and willing to release it to allow the OSW to be the care taker. Mike is in the office frequently and actively working on that for the transfer. Space has been put aside for it. When we do that it will make the training courses public. Then the training courses will be available to the public (sister agency).
• AI: – Jim and Mike – Jim to work with Mike to adjust STED web pages as training is updated and moved

Making STED a public web site

• Alan – Approximately 5-10% of students are from outside WRD, most have been from sister agencies. It does not seem difficult for people to find our courses through DOI learn, which is a public web site.
• Much of STED believes we should not go public at this time but it will be discussed when Franceska is available.
• Agree that pages will stay private and not go public

Traning Paths - Mentoring

• Sense of Legacy to Agency – How are potential candidates promoted and made ready for the next generation of leaders
• How do we want to be involved in this process?
• What sort of process do we want to develop?
• Can we pull the Mentoring Program (Kim Miller) into our process to help provide a training track that prepares new staff for future specialist and chief positions?
• Franceska: works when on SW track but maybe not maybe for other tracks. Assuming we keep the same QW. GW. SW paths – SW was able to lay it out. Office of Water Quaility may not be able to lay it out. Sourses may need to built into the list that we have not been able to develop or not able to maintain. Dependent on career path. Even more true for GW – very clear that there may be some field training for some water measurements, etc the career paths diverge from there. This is also true for hydro techs, hydrologist, and researchers. What I found interesting in my course…equal number of hydro techs, hydrologist, supervisor hydrologist, and rge people. Understand we are trying to follow a model…but it might not be that easy. Can go back to the offices asking if they can lay out a career path for their staff
• Dave: Think offices do not get enough credit doing this in an informal bases. A lot of attention paid by the specialist to people just starting in their career. That goes on and a lot of it is independent and does not get a lot of publicity
• Tony: Agrees with Franceska that there is not a real carreer path. Water quality principles class is a starting point but then they will diverge and go different ways.
• Dave: might be able to do something but done at the office pages – like office of gw, sw, and specialist levels. Info is out of there in localized ways. STED can point to those assets. We already do it effectively. When we try to force it – it doesn’t work as well at being more nimble and as it is now. If specialist is doing their job- there is a lot of effective training and counseling that goes on that doesn’t get a lot of publicity.
• Jen: If it already out there – that is great. We can
• Dave: We have to adapt to things frequently – nothing seems static – changed in some major way. In that sense it is easier to do it now than in the past.
• Nicole: So I am hearing that we will let the ownership of the training paths and development be with the different specialty areas and we will continue to work on developing TEL and working with the specialties to move training to the future with technology and needs.
• Jim: May be times and positions that we are inadequetly developing the candidates. There may be something then we can be more specific, such as that data chief in a water science center. What do we need to do to groom people for that position? Maybe start at other end and see if we have any gaps on that end. People going ot retire – how do we develop candidates. Part of employee development.
• Tony: The west had the Warmac class – several data chiefs came out of that program. Wasn’t really successful – more often than not scared people away. For him coming in as a section chief – learned it didn’t hurt to put ap in for rg-eg rather than go the management route. That was counterproductive. Hard to make them beneficial.
• AI: Nicole – Clean up this document for next agenda and remove excess AI’s that are no longer on the radar regarding training tracks

Next meeting: April 26, 2012 at 2:00 pm EST.. Reston phone bridge 703-648-4848 and code is ?????#

Discussion and Action Items;

TEL and Streaming:

• AI: Create a list of current limitations to streaming and a plan for testing creative solutions to get streaming out to the field. Need actual statistics and results on how streaming is received in the field.

Web Page (Michael Ierardi and Steve Lipscomb):

• AI: Mike to make a draft web page so that edits can be sent to the STED for review.
• AI: More photos to be added to the page. Send photo’s (assure appropriate safety is being followed in photos) to Mike to add to pages (ALL) – More pictures will help the page’s appeal.
• AI: Set up schedule and assign members the monthly duty of checking web pages for errors. Find tools that can be used to scan pages for dead links (Nicole and Mike).
• AI: Contact Mike Nolan and find out about moving the training that was done by him and is stored in Menlo Park to Reston (Jim)

Interaction with Data Committees:

• AI: Draft an official tech memo. Have STED review it and then request it be reviewed by Bill W for consideration and distribution. (Franceska – Nicole to assist as needed)
• AI: Work with Data Committees regarding STED presence at their conferences. Plenary session, Booth in vendor area, brochures in registrations packets. (Jen) – Franceska also suggested that a demonstration of training tools and TEL might fit into a poster session. Jen will follow up with committees as we get closer to meeting dates and explain our options.
• AI: Work with CRACD to assure that as they start to develop cheat sheets and tip sheets that there is a cross reference to their pages from ours and vice versa (Jen).

Training Tracks:

• AI: Create a list of Job Series which STED will target to create training tracks – Start with 1-4 and expand as process develops.
  – Do we start with Hydrologic Technicians, or other series that might be easy to define?
• AI: Create a list of different “tracks” or “specialties” for each of these job series. – How can we come up with a way to define the difference between general courses and those that would only be needed for people in specific career specialties?
• AI: Create Categories for training and classify all current training classes within these categories (Computer, Ground water, Interdisciplinary, HR, Leadership, Management, Safety, Surface water, Water Quality) – are the NTC categories enough or do we need more breakdown or are their gaps? – What can we add?
• AI: Create different targets for career tracking (examples: Before they start working, Annual, First Month, First Year, Emerging/Changing Technology, Role Based, First 5 years, Within Career) – Start to define a catalog – think of it like college catalog of things to choose from to graduate
• AI: Fill in Gaps and come up with a plan to reach out to teams to fill gaps for future training. Encourage trainers to design courses with national consistency in mind – STED to present training plans and reach out to training developers to suggest gaps and content needs
• AI: Develop a point system to assure staff reaches appropriate training per year. – Credit hours needed per year – scale to show managers and employees are invested in continues training and advancement to assure consistency in our data/product.
• AI: Determine which classes and instructors are official –Jen asked some questions on this AI. What is official training? Is it things tracked in DOILearn? Do we need to make sure that all training is in the DOILearn system? Is this a STED function? Suggested only classes 8 hrs or more is entered. Suggested only official instructors are allowed to instruct and offer credit. Should there be a separate track for misc training and non official instructors? Who handles rosters in DOILearn – instructors or regional people?
  Here is the new blurb IF the person is trained as the Instructor/Roster Manager (which there is a 2 webinar to become a Manager for DOILEARN). Collaboration between myself and Melanie Hood.

"We are mandated to track our official training within the USGS Learning Management System called DOI LEARN. The courses can be served using the same delivery method, but (official?) Instructors must fill out a course template provided by OED. It can be emailed to oeddoilearn@usgs.gov or faxed to the NTC for the Data Steward to set up the course. Please Note: a 'course' is a description of an activity such as Calculus I, and it becomes a 'class' when you add a date, time, location, etc. so a course can have many classes in DOI LEARN. OED requests the course template be completed and sent to the NTC for entry into DOI LEARN at least one month prior to course/class date. This allows one week for OED to set-up the course and 3 weeks for the Instructor/Roster Manager to create the class and/or advertise, and students to register through DOI LEARN and obtain Supervisor approval. It is important to note, that the delivery of your course remains the same, but the tracking will be done through DOI LEARN. When a student signs up for a class, a notification email is automatically sent to their supervisor for approval, provided the student's DOI LEARN profile has a Supervisor's name listed in it. After the class, the Instructor/Roster Manager must complete the Class Roster within 7 business days so the transcripts show complete."

• AI: Emphasize training options that are effective without being costly to the science centers. – With the shrinking budgets of science centers, we have to find cheap alternatives. To assure consistency in the organization, people must be trained regardless of shrinking budgets.
• AI: Provide a skeleton product to management for their consideration and approval. If approved, STED to post guidance and get management approval to include guidance as part of employee development program. – Management needs to determine if training tracks are optional or mandatory. If they decide they are mandatory, then the governance lies with them to communicate this to science center managers.
• AI: Determine equipment needs and identify network issues at office that may interfere with video streaming - Reach out to those involved in streaming and video conferencing options to test and plan for how to optimize these options to extend the training beyond the traditional classroom and still be effective.
• AI: Tip Sheets? Field Manuals? Lecture Series?