Science and Technical Employee Development Team (STED)

Agenda
Date: April 16, 2013
Time: 12-2pm Eastern
Bridge: 703-648-4848
Code: 97727
WebEX: NONE

Attendees:

Jen D., Rod S., T.J. Lane (for Alan Ward), Nicole Bogeajis, Lynn Taylor, Pat Lambert,  Peter Griffiths, Jim Kolva, Joe Capesius, Mike Ierardi
Not able to attend: Franceska Wilde, Alan Ward

Agenda Items:

NTC

• Video Streaming Memo- update--waiting to send until instructor list is updated and timing is good regarding budget.
• Instructor List-  NEEDS Updated
• Newsletter from NTC NTCNewsletterApril2013.pdf View   Download  
• Travel restrictions impacting Water training - Mission Critical classes can be approved- share the knowledge.

          QW field methods and refresher approved
           STATS- Lori Sprague- approved

  • *Need to investigate how courses are chosen as Mission Critical.  Should leadership (senior staff) be involved in decision.  Jim- group of Directors? Pat to contact OWLs and suggest same for other groups. Tj to give Pat list of approved classes and previously scheduled classes.

    -Make sure instructors you know are requesting continuation of their classes.

CARP Training – what can STED’s role be?

• Update
• SuperUsers
•  TEL possibility. Jen and Tj may sit in on CARP meeting to discuss TEL classes.  Finding SuperUsers on hold, CARP will let us know.

Web pages-   Suggestion: Go through the website every few weeks and click on links to ensure quality.  If you find any mistakes or outdated information, please send an email to Mike and/or Jen

Membership and Rotation

•      Nominees- Joe Capesuis, Data Chief, has been sent to Jerad Bales
•      Need nominee for Studies Chief.  Rod Sheets has contacted several people in the NorthEast.  If you know of anyone who is willing and capable to participate, please let me know.

  Rod Sheets has exhausted almost all possibilities in the NE.
                          -Ideas to get representative in regions that are not already on the team.  Maybe an email can be sent to Studies Chiefs?  Ask Jerad to send email to Directors in specific regions.  Jim says Jerad would be best person to send email.  Jen will send an email to Jerad, Jim to follow up.  Pat suggests choosing one region at a time.
                                      - Northwest Region
                                      - Pacific
                                      - Midwest
                                      - Alaska

WEBSITE-
Promotion-  
Email to Director and IT groups to add STED page to all internal WSCs webpage.
            - Need to write email... Rod wrote draft and its in STED folder on Jens’ Google Drive.
Email to all techs and hydrologists to use the STED page for finding training.
            - Need to write email... pending
PRESENTATION- Already on Google Drive.

Should the STED google docs pages have a link from the STED web page ? Nicole says it may not work very good.

New Ideas for training-

• Terry Kenney and others have been discussing TEL courses and future training access.

    - Below, I have attached the notes from a telecon on 4/3/2013.

• Promote development and use of short instructional videos that can be posted to http://gallery.usgs.gov/video_collections/Water
• Idea- Webpage where USGS employees can find free-web based training. 

     Tj-   Jen, we also have a web page of our Human Capital site that lists some other training sources:
http://www.usgs.gov/humancapital/ecd/ecd_trainingsources.html

Jen, not sure if you were aware but the Office of Groundwater has pages with links to outside, self-study courses.  For example, http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/ogw/training.html#usgsself

Also, Jen, right now until September 30, 2013, all Skillsoft courses in DOI Learn are free!  There's a bunch of 'em too.  To continue the Skillsoft courses, tho, when and if we get a new LMS to replace DOI Learn, it may be up to each Agency in DOI to buy the licenses.

There's also the following sites with free courseware:

Open Education Database:
http://oedb.org/open/subjects/science/

MIT OpenCourseware:
http://oedb.org/open/subjects/science/

 
Round Robin- Please share ideas.

Thanks.  And, yes. The OWQ requests that 3K of the tuition receipts for the WQ Principles course be provided in FY 2014 for SMEs to administer and update course material. Please recall that we requested 2,500 for FY 2013 for the same purpose. In 2013, 30 students passed through the course @ $300 each. It was very successful. The FY 2014 course offering will be held in January-February. I propose that tuition be raised to $400/student.

Thanks, Jen. Let me know how it goes and the outcome of my requests.
Franceska
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
F. Wilde, Hydrologist
USGS Office of Water Quality

JEN READ OWQ REQUEST TO TEAM- Need to know if a vote is needed by STED or has this been decided? Email has been sent to Franceska to verify.
 

Next meeting: June 20th??

Discussion and Action Items

Training:

AI: Nicole – 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.
    IS THIS STILL BE WORKED ON???

Web Page:

AI: All members:  Scan web links for errors and outdated information every few weeks. Send error list to Mike and Jen

AI:  Added HydroAcoustics weblink to STED.  Done
AI:  Put Course catalog link above Slide Show per WestDac suggestion. Done

Interaction with Data Committees:

AI: Work with National Data Committees to ensure 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).

New Training Ideas:

AI: Jen to talk to Data Committees about their website
AI: Joe C to look at some vendor training links, in coordination with Jen

Mission Critical training:
  

AI:  Communicate the need for instructors to get permission to hold Mission Critical training. 
AI:  Pat to contact OWLs and suggest same for other groups. Tj to give Pat list of approved classes and previously scheduled classes.

External training links on webpage:

AI:  Tj to get Rod disclaimer for external links and STED to vote if we want to add external training on sted page.  Mike can add it however we want on the STED page.