PLEASE WRITE YOUR NAME BELOW AND Comments to agenda items DURING CALL to help take notes/minutes. George has graciously offered to take notes as well.

Attendees: Joe Capesius*, Jennifer Dansie*, Jim Kolva*, Rod Sheets*, Jim Cornwall*, Peter Griffiths*, Pat Lambert*, Greg Clark*, Franceska Wilde, Mike Ierardi *, Alan Ward*, George Sechen, Dave Pollock,. *- video camera
Not able to attend: Jerad Bales

✲ Next meeting: March 20th, 10 AM Mountain Time

Agenda Items:
• Mike Newly updated STED website has been generated which now includes a dynamic course list on right side of the web home page.
  The list now automatically updates from the Human Capital Services Support web site.
  The STED home page now utilizes php, json, and js to automagically write the course listing from the http://www.usgs.gov/humancapital/doilearn/listCourses.php web site.
  Please review our website.
  The included page for the STED web home page is located at http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/STED/learncoursesform.html.
  The STED course listing on the right side of the home page are now self-sufficient / dynamic as new class come online & old pages roll off.
• Mike: thinking about migrating off of STED, since he has been a member since May 2010.
• Joe: nice look to pages / nice job!
• Add additional external links to STED page- should we Add Courses found on DOILEARN to the external training page.... http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/STED/ext_training.html
• Jim K- can we put course catalog on the STED page?

Notes/Comments:
• Action: Alan will see if the old “course catalog” can be found and then updated by the Technical Offices.
• Add note from Alan… Alan will look for old catalog and get rolling on this by March.
• Jen: national web site failure maybe resend notification of STED pages
• Annette Goode: sent USGS wide email (subject line not changed to new) Resend?
• Time for mid-March? employee development time frame include list of classes… for IDP
• George: to post STED notes to SharePoint
• Adobe Connect not working this week
• Action: George investigating: other videoconferencing; Hangouts; Polycom; webex contact Joe Nielsen for more info on how CARP uses it for better video
• Jen:
  Memo for STED website promotion sent out to WMA on 11/15/13 by Annette Goode.
  I would like to send this out again as a follow up with correct subject line. Also, did not help that national websites went down the Monday after that memo was sent.
• George Sechen - working on other teleconferencing technology beside WebEx. Working with Ralph to try using Adobe Connect next meeting.

Update of previous round robin from October--->
• Joe- Data chiefs meeting in Reston- National meeting Data chiefs will be working on CARP stuff in future. Notes: Meeting was in December 3-6… ADR hard copy to be possibly going away….
• GW- working on internal training page. New training page is done. See http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/ogw/training.html
• Rod- Jared is pushing for data committees to merge into one National data committee. Long story--short--decision not final yet. Conference call next week. National data meeting important for delivering training to technicians. 2014 Regional Water Data Workshop hopefully in Kansas City, MO on Sept. 8-11, 2014
• Alan- 42% reduction. 7 WMA classes for 2014. Still need to get approval for classes from Jerad. Streaming. Annual report is done. Update on classes?? Improving, 8-9 courses approved by Jared, how to push to remotely held classes (streaming, as proof of concept) February Paul Barlow “Groundwater Surface Water interactions”; 6-7 remote students, ask questions, whiteboard, blended approach, TJ Lane work with, provide stream no additional costs (folks that do not get approval), “Pilot”
• Greg- Dollars are tight and need to get word out on online, streaming, saving time. What are other ideas to ‘get the word out?’

Membership and Rotation There are members up for rotation this year… You are welcome to continue your service, if you are willing. :)
• Peter Griffiths- 3/14 will find own replacement
• Pat Lambert- 9/14 will stay on
• Rod Sheets- 10/14 will get back to us
• Mike needs to rotate off and make sure web site can be taken care of
• Franceska on part time basis- probably need to think about a replacement.
• QW Principles is in 4 th year, 6x, 24 students, Lisa Olson & Michael Rosen cocoordinators January
• James Cornwall - NWIS/OWI rep, Air Force computer career, ADAPS programmer (time series data), NWIS Vision s/w, CARP testing training coding, rollout plans (asked to join STED by Dane and Nate) Happy to answer questions...
• George Sechen- IT specialist that started as a student... with USGS for 20 years

NTC and Important Items:
• Alan- update on RFP process -
• Waiting on guidance on money and support. NTC has sheltered some money….
• Think about other TEL development? What classes need to be re-developed in TEL… revisit top 5 or 10 classes?
• Alan- Update on Video Streaming Memo- Sent by Jared to Water Mission Area leads (technical office chiefs, NRP, etc). Sent May 9, 2013 and resent 9/25/13. What has been the response?
• Streaming option will be tracked…. with 2 different sessions. Tuition is the same. Two different classes: classroom vs streaming version

• Water Quality Principles is 80 hour course, $300, have a month to finish, course is full x3, chat boards, live instructor lead, 100% completion rate, produces revenue $ reused for additional online training, big time commitment, highest needs for http://www.usgs.gov/humancapital/doilearn/viewCourse.php?course_code=USGS -OED-QW1022-Blended approval process: in DTS system,
• Karen Baker has put a hold on it, ready to roll; funding comes from OED, dozen courses, panel of impartial folks to determine worthiness, due by Sept 30th,
• Top 5-10 courses for redevelopment? (possible tele component); training needs analysis 70 water mission area
• Hands on sampling course: hard to do via tele-conf/streaming … certain modules could be (2 week class) very expensive,
• As we move into Aquarius classes going to need to be redeveloped, Surface Water Records Computation: well suited for blended (after Aquarius roll out ~2016), webcast/podcast during curricula development release date May/June 2015
• SME : no cap for RFP
• Some questions about Streaming tuition ----> Email.
  

  Thanks Paul and you have brought up a great question regarding the level of tuition for groups of streaming students at the same location. I will certainly bring to STED for discussion at our next meeting. In essence it's a bit of a balance we are attempting to strike between making live streaming a value proposition while ensuring that everyone paying tuition and putting in the time get the same high quality instructional experience.

  The overall numbers of streaming students for each live classroom class definitely plays into this equation. As we started to stream classes several years ago we wondered what that limit was. At this point we have settled on the maximum advertised class size plus 4-5 streaming students. This ensures that the streamers can get the instructor attention they need. We have gone as high as 8 streamers in a single event and found that to be a bit overwhelming since that particular course was already at its advertised capacity.

  The idea of students attending together from the same remote site is certainly desirable from the standpoint of those folks encouraging and supporting each other and also reducing the feeling of isolation from the classroom event.

I'll include the STED chair, Jenn Dansie in on our email conversation.

Alan On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Barlow, Paul wrote:

Hi Gloria, Staci, and Alan, I've had some further thought on this and I think my preference is that we not allow a group of people to participate from one phone location with only a single payment--at least for this particular class. We decided to include the Live Video Streaming as a test with only a few attendees (maximum of 4) participating this way. Allowing 4 people to attend from a single location--when I know that there are others who want to participate from afar-- would go against this. So, my preference is that we tell Josh that each person should register independently and we'll make a final selection as to who can attend after receiving all of the registrants. And each person selected from their office will need to pay the tuition, as originally envisioned. I'll be glad to call Josh if you would like me to (although I don't have his last name).

I think the larger question of how many people can participate from a single site with only a single tuition payment is one for Alan and the OED and STED to resolve.

Thanks, Paul

CARP Training – STED’s role?
• JEN- Update- CARP is going to have on-line prerequisites. CARP is still considering TEL for the on-line classes and will likely be making a decision by the end of February.

  1/9/14 Curriculum planning is well on its way, and includes on-line prerequisites as well as classroom component. At this point we're still expecting everyone to do on-line prereqs, and probably the prereqs will be the same for everyone. Classroom instruction will be directed primarily at the core users and the LDMs (DBAs in current vernacular). Then LDMs will have additional on-line instruction for specific dataand site-management tasks that the core users don't have to know.

  Our training-planning team (8 people or so) will have a long webinar session soon to hammer out the curriculum plans, and then will have a week-long face-to-face meeting to start drafting the curriculum, making sure everyone is in synch with the effort. Hoping that the face-to-face meeting will be no later than March or so. Part of the team will focus particularly on the prereq/on-line stuff.

  BTW, the overall project timeline has slipped a little due to the vendor's development needs and project funding. Unsure when the release date will be now, but probably not before April or May 2015, and possibly later than that.

  Holler if I can answer any additional questions. Good luck with your meeting.
  -------
  Chuck (207) 622-8201 x 111

CARP- Very rough timeline (which will be refined and added to the Plan):
• Revised timelines (still in draft):
• Last AQ build for USGS release: December 2014. (This reflects the addition of 1 more quarter of development.)
• Testing for the release build: through early Jan 2015.
• 2nd pilot installation: later January 2015.
• Supertrainer train-the-trainer class - About the same time as 2nd pilot, or a little later.
• My team will be working hard to finalize the curriculum before then, but we'll train what we have and ask you all to assimilate tweaks as we need to make them.
• 3rd pilot installation: March 2015. ○ Release starts: May or June 2015
• Local expert training classes: for early deployment WSCs, just before roll-out; for later deployment WSCs, about halfway through roll-out.
• NOTE that this is all still conjecture, but at least we are sure that deployment won't be in January 2015, as once stated.
• 36 super trainers, learning curve with new lingo/terminology, quality of video and audio very good, Aquarius speak to tech speak, lot to do in next year

Data conference (workshop)-
• tentatively week of Sept 8-12, 2014 in Kansas City, National data workshop hosted by CRACD. They are working on approval.
• Deadline to register is June 10, 2014 at https://obis.usgs.gov/SitePages/Reservations.aspx
• JEN to team to think about… - STEDs presence at the conference?? -
• keynote speaker during plenary session
• booth?
• Face2face @ data conf? feasibility?
• Jared: like single data committee (decision not final yet) national data meeting important for delivering training, no guaranteed for this year.
• TEAM- Need input as far as continued webpage promotion and other ideas to promote new technology and learning.

WEBSITE
• Promotion Email to Director and IT groups has been sent 10/18.
• Email to all techs and hydrologists to use the STED page for finding training sent 11/15/13.
• 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 Jen

Statistics jumped in November, so people did look at the website.
• Jan 2013 6905 7742 3.78
• Feb 2013 6556 7733 4.33
• Mar 2013 6818 7415 2.56
• Apr 2013 6479 8108 6.36
• May 2013 5846 6445 3.04
• Jun 2013 5947 6443 3.59
• Jul 2013 5757 6282 3.07
• Aug 2013 5677 6105 2.32
• Sep 2013 5600 6188 2.78
• Oct 2013 5816 6454 3.88
• Nov 2013 6922 10947 21.72
• Dec 2013 5651 6855 5.66
• Busiest month: Nov 2013 (6,922 requests for pages).

Round Robin- Please share ideas.
• OSW (Jim)
• OWQ (Franceska) water quality principles class candidates for TEL SMEs NRP isotopes--- stable isotopes/carbon isotopes
• OGW (David) OWI/NWIS (JimC) - new portal application for NWIS Discrete Data (water quality, groundwater, water use) scheduled for a ‘soft release’ 1/29, release to internal USGS audience 2/28 - part of the NWIS Vision project (multi year project to combine groundwater, water quality, and water use discrete data into a single national database); will provide users with new s/w to provide readonly access to new aggregated DB, Agile development process, modernise OWI organization and processes.
• Pat
• Peter (NRP)-
• George
• Rod
• Joe
• Jen
• Alan
• Mike Ierardi

Current Action Items:
• RESEND web page promotion - mid March (with course catalog)
• CARP updates, Alan keep us up to date on RFP process
• Need to evaluate courses that would be be good for redevelopment using blended learning (TEL and/or ILT)
• Action: Alan will see if the old “course catalog” can be found and then updated by the Technical Offices.
• George to talk to Joe N about advanced WebEx.
• Possible Face to Face at Data Conference??
• TEAM to review website weekly- check links especially since new STED page with auto-updating course list on right side of page.
• Next meeting: March 20th, 10 AM Mountain Time