>>Elena: We'll get started in just a couple minutes. Give everyone a couple more minutes to log in.
All right. Good morning, everyone. I am confident that we'll have some others continue to join, but we promised to be respectful of your time and so I wanted to get started here at 11:00. We are providing this presentation today on behalf of Nick's team for helping everyone to gain a better understanding of the FEMP training development process, some of the nuances that go on behind the screen that no one know about, and you don't really need to but it might help you gain a better understanding of the timeline and the need to submit your training documents as promptly as possible. I think everyone knows me. I'm Elena Meehan, your training coordinator for FRMP. And we also have hosting the webinar and online today Kyle Barry from Whole Building Design Guide, our IACET compliance manager.
So, Kyle, I guess let's get started. Okay. So, to let everyone know, all your lines are muted. It helps to cut out all of the travelers. And we would ask that right now if you would submit questions as we go through the webinar through the chat function, we will turn on – we're actually recording the event so it can be posted as a resource internally, but we will stop recording and open a live question and answer session at the end of the webinar. So, during that time feel free to continue to use chat or also raise your hand and Kyle will unmute you so we can hear everything that you would like to pose. Next screen, please, Kyle.
We will not read through these but this is meant to provide a further resource for all of our great acronyms in our little team here. I know everyone has them across all the technical areas and we have our own on the training side. So, again, this presentation and the recording will be posted as a resource, and feel free to refer to this as helpful. Thank you. Next slide, Kyle.
Okay. I'm not going to read every word but this is our best visualization of what goes on once you have initiated the training process with us, when you have sent me the training form and I have reviewed it for compliance with our quality control standards for ICT, and I – we start initiating the train here. So, your team will send the training form to me and I, as most of you have experienced, will respond back with an affirmation that I've received it and then follow up with you on any questions or concerns. And then, we also in general are looking for the quiz submission at the same time. I then forward the "approved" – your training isn't denied or approved; it's just approved or identified for any issues – but we sent that on to NREL to Heather Prock for edit and any additional concerns. Then she forwards it on to the Whole Building Design Guide to Kyle for his review from the IACET compliance perspective. Then we continue to move it through the process to where Nick offers a final signoff. And the – Nick's Whole Building Design Guide team then receives that final package and they begin to program – for my lay person's understanding – the documents, the quiz, and the training form details into the learning management system. And then, that magical link appears. It's sent to me. I share it out with the training team that submitted the form. And we also at that point share that link to the communications team so that we can begin the promotion process.
So, Kyle, did you have anything you wanted to add at this point on this?
>>Kyle: Not so much, Elena. I think the most important dates that people should look at are just – it takes the whole Whole Building Design Guide team to get the package ready for publishing. And so, because of that and the necessary review time I would make sure that – I would ask people to make sure that they – if there's a desired early promotion date that that date be your target date for publishing, and then work backwards from there to make sure that all of these compliance elements that Elena just detailed are fulfilled before that date. So, that's the only thing I'd add, Elena. Thanks.
>>Elena: Okay. So, what we're trying to emphasize here because this comes up a lot – I know especially in your live events a lot of you want to promote a couple months out. Well, we can't get the forms at that eight week point and then get the link to you. It does take time. All these teams do have backlogs. So, just kind of keep that in mind. And also, I want to add a quick aside that they're working on – within FEMP – a good pipeline tool to where it will help you all with scheduling and kind of seeing what else is out ahead, and your training will get added to that once we've processed it. So, just – the earlier the better. Okay. Next slide, please, Kyle.
Okay. So, we're just – these slides are just going to add a little detail to the nice high-level visual. So, I'm the FEMP training coordinator. We review. Please get me that form to process. We are very encouraging of the CEUs, not only for the professional benefit to your professional stakeholders, but it is our quality control process within FEMP. And even if it's a non-accredited training, it goes through the exact process, lest you're checking those few extra boxes and you're not providing an assessment. So, it's not usually that much heftier of a lift. So, we just really do encourage your teams, if they aren't applying for CEUs for training – see, I understand some are not appropriate, but if they are, go ahead and put it through because it's just the – it's a great industry- and public-recognized way to provide quality training.
And there's a note here which I follow up on later on as well that in the fall when the new FEMP Central comes online much of this process will be automated. We will get away from having to e-mail all these forms back and forth but we just aren't there yet. So, we've already gone through I provide a preliminary review. I'm looking at those learning objectives very strongly. We have strategic objectives within FEMP. And then, we also have our Federal Building Personnel Training Act and the IACET requirements, so that's why you'll usually get a little banter asking if I can make a tweak or if you can make something more robust. Next slide, please.
Okay. So, after you get an e-mail back from me, if you do, if you'll fill in the gaps, complete the modifications, then I will turn that in to the process as quickly as possible. I kind of wanted to make a note: One of our most common delays right now, I've noticed over the past several months, are really light bios. We're not looking for a book from everyone, but as Kyle looks at things from the IACET perspective, and also as your stakeholders consider your training, it really benefits you to make sure you have the current employer, the core career accomplishments of your subject matter experts, at least a listing of their education – there doesn't have to be a lot of detail – and of course their expertise. Many of you are doing quite well at this but we do – I'd say about half of what I get we have to kind of go back and forth on this a bit. So, I just kind of wanted to note that there.
Kyle, anything else on that?
>>Kyle: No, that highlights it, Elena. I think just to summarize quickly from a compliance perspective for the International Association of Continuing Education Training standard, the important thing is that the bios for this particular course or a particular course convey the expertise of the instructor. So, I think anything that captures that – and Elena and I have conferred and believe these core elements help to convey that best – will allow the bio presented to show that. So, that's it.
>>Elena: Okay. Thank you. And I guess there I wanted to make a quick note. You all may not be aware, but to keep our IACET compliance status and our ability to accredit these courses internally we have an annual review and a deeper audit every several years, and we have to – Kyle usually has to provide the documentation on all these courses. And they do some random, more in-depth, and they just kind of look at the program as a whole. So, we really aren't just asking these things to cause you more work. We're trying to keep our program in compliance and our ability to grant these internally.
All right. So, I went ahead – I know I've e-mailed many of you and these are posted elsewhere, but because we hope this presentation will be a good resource for your team I went ahead and posted our quiz requirements because we continue to get those questions. And then, you know to send everything to me and I will send it on to Heather. And that usually takes a week or two. I usually am able to do my part, unless I'm really buried with other obligations, within a couple of days. But we just can't count on it. All right. Kyle, next slide, please.
Okay. So, once I have everything and Heather has reviewed everything then she sends it on to Kyle. He reviews it and then he sends it on to Nick. And once Nick says everything looks good, since he is the federal accountability point, then the link gets created. And that creates both your registration and quiz-taking access. And we do want to note there if you are using a different web platform – GoToMeeting or something like that – that's completely fine. We do encourage you to use Whole Building Design Guide for a couple of reasons. One, you can see how awesomely proficient Kyle is, and his whole team is equally proficient with managing these. It takes some of the stress off the presenters. The other thing is that when you use this tool your registration is obviously recorded and Kyle is able to send me those registration reports rather than you having to e-mail me the logs and documentation of attendance so that we can identify who is eligible for CEUs. And also, if it's not CEU granting, then we do have that log of attendance to make sure that we record the proper attendees to the proper training programs and events. So, it really is a benefit. If it's something you're comfortable with, I do encourage you to do it. Okay, Kyle.
Okay. So, on the Whole Building Design Guide side we get a lot of questions about who sends what and what contact there is with the registrant, so we kind of wanted to make sure we cover this. So, when a trainee registers for a training through the LMS, through Whole Building Design Guide, they will be sent a confirmation e-mail with the webinar information, whether it's the Whole Building Design Guide WebEx or whatever you've provided us on the form. Then, after the event FEMP training teams are responsible for communicating with your attendees regarding the assessment and evaluation. So, that translates – and I know especially Rachel's team and a couple others are very familiar – we encourage a post-event e-mail thanking them for attending, if you want to share your slides that way.
And then, I think it's very important, because we've had a few events slip through where attendees were very interested in the quiz and they missed the six-week deadline. So, please make sure in that e-mail you reiterate they have six weeks from the date of the event and include the link so that they can access the assessment easily, and obviously anything else your team wants to communicate. And dependent upon your technical lead – obviously, if they feel it's too bothersome to the attendees, don't do it – but I always – on the events I host I would send one out right after the event and then a couple weeks before the deadline just to kind of touch base and remind them, because we all know everybody gets busy. And Kyle has noted here that the Whole Building Design Guide team is exploring integrating some of those functions. However, at this time that is the process. If you have any specific questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to me and we'll do our best to resolve them.
Kyle, do you want to speak to anything else on that?
>>Kyle: I guess, just quickly, talking about those additional kind of communication integration options. Mostly, what that means is looking for pre and post event communications options. There's some options that need to be built into the WebEx tool that can include automatic reminder e-mails as well as follow-up e-mails, I think which can also be sent automatically. So, we're looking into those but at this time you still need to fill them in.
>>Elena: Thank you, Kyle. Okay, next slide.
Okay. So, the path to promotion, another item I get a lot of questions on. So, once we have the Whole Building Design Guide-created link to the event we automatically send an e-mail to Jennifer Landsman, and she adds that event to the communications team efforts, which right now are the Digest and the FEMP Training Highlight. Additionally, Heather Proc receives that link and she adds it to the FEMP training search on our main catalog page. And then, we obviously will share it back to you for whatever promotion effort that you internally would like to pursue. But I just want to clarify: The only formal promotion that FEMP provides at this time is the Digest and our new – every two weeks that FEMP Training Highlight goes out. And I want to note there that the Digest has been getting delayed unfortunately for almost a month. So, we are very lucky at this point that the Training Highlight has gotten a blanket approval, last I know, to go out every couple weeks. So, don't assume that if you haven't seen the Digest or whatever that we've dropped your event. Unfortunately once a month passes some of the events have passed and Jen has to trim them off, but hopefully if you've communicated with us in a timely manner, then the communication on the Training Highlight will have gone out and so your event will still be recognized.
So, once again, that's the only standardized promotion that we do. There is the possibility – and I've worked with some teams – and it will continue to improve, that if you would like to reach specific stakeholders to your technical area, I am able to access the training data and pull out contact information to do so. So, if that is something that you need or are interested in, just contact me individually on that and we'll work that out. And again, at least four weeks in advance of your event we want to have this prepared to go out, so that 8-week timeline may need to be moved back to 12 or more in some cases depending on how much interest you want to foster. And your event will continue to go out in the Training Highlight every two weeks until the event. Thank you, Kyle. Next slide, please.
Okay. I know that the internal FEMP link to resources has been shared out amongst the teams for different avenues, but we went ahead and included it in this presentation to largely answer – I get questions on what slide deck should be utilized for the format of any FEMP training, and here is the link. And that is updated every time there is a change. So, if you'll just hop over there when you're getting ready to prepare and just make sure there's no updated format, that would be great. And then, we also – which we're going to run through here in a moment, we have the canned IACET compliance slides that I try to send out to every team, and also when I get a new training form try to make sure everybody has. But if you don't have them, please contact me. Those are also rather fluid. We continue to tweak them. But there are slides which we will run through, if you haven't seen them, or even if you've just kind of skimmed through them, that address your live events, your live workshops, the different requirements for each. And then, just a reminder here that in your promotional materials, what you – any contacts you have the day of, post-event, remind your trainees that they have six weeks from the date of the course to complete their quizzes.
Kyle, anything else there?
>>Kyle: Not from me, Elena. Thanks.
>>Elena: Okay. Next slide, please.
Okay. So, I wanted to also note I hope all of you have gotten to meet Kyle and Bob and the team. They are extremely helpful. There is the option, and I know several teams have exercised this, if you would like to go through a dry run of your event, if you are utilizing the Whole Building Design Guide WebEx, contact Kyle and he will get that scheduled with your team. Again, it's an average of 15 minutes. My experience a lot of times has been five to ten. But if it gets you and your presenters more comfortable with any nuances of this WebEx platform, or if you're coming from a different platform where you kind of just want a general feel for how things will flow, this is a really great resource. And I'll assume Kyle will jump in at any time if he has anything to add. If not, we can go on to the next slide.
Okay. After an event, just a reminder, if it is a live event, please provide the final roster to me on this. If it's a live event, we need to see documentation that your attendees signed in and out to document the length of time they were present so that we can give them the full CEU opportunity. If they do not meet the attendance requirements, they are not able to quiz and receive the CEUs. I know that it's only a small segment of a lot of your trainings that people are interested in pursuing that, but for those that are they get very frustrated, I'm sure some of you have experienced, that they can't take the quiz. So, this is important by our audit and IACET regulations we have to have that documentation.
So, again, it's easier if it's a WebEx live webinar to use Whole Building Design Guide's resource. If it's a workshop, I need those physical forms scanned or whatever format you want to get to me. I've had them texted to me. I've had them e-mailed to me. Just please get those to me so we can get that available as quickly as possible.
And you're also – we visited on – I just really encourage you to send that post-event e-mail reminding your attendees of the quiz. And I do – I haven't had anybody take advantage of this this year. Sometimes, especially after the Energy Exchange pre-conference workshops – or pre-events, sorry, not conference workshops – we use the FEMP training e-mail address and I can send those reminders out. So, I'll extend that offer again as we approach Energy Exchange, that I am able to do that if your teams would prefer it to come from a generic address like that. A lot of teams just want the close contact, and that's great. And I already said I really encourage you to send a second post-event e-mail a month to two weeks before the quiz cutoff date. Next slide, please.
Okay. We're just – I'm not going to read everything on these slides. I just wanted to make sure that even if your team has received these canned slides that you actually have seen them at some point. So, Kyle will advance and we'll take a quick glance at the first one.
We get a lot of questions about the CEUs because different professional accrediting organizations utilize different acronyms and they equate to different hours of training. So, I just want to clarify that very quickly. Whole Building Design Guide is working on an equivalency chart and that will be on the site and we will notify you of where that is for any of your users. IACET uses the "one CEU equates to ten contact hours." Many of the others do use one to ten, so we get confused questions about "Why would I spend all day in a training to receive point-whatever for my efforts?" That does equate back to your contact hours, which you guys that have processed the forms, you've divided it, it's not rocket science. It's 0.1 equals an hour and we round up from the half. So, I just want to clarify that. It's actually quite an exchange with a new group that had not been exposed and they were just extremely confused.
And this just kind of gives you – if you want to put this in the presentation so that your attendees have this resource and can gain an understanding for themselves, I encourage you to do so. If Kyle doesn't have any comments, we can advance to the next slide.
Okay. And this is just – we also hear that sometimes attendees balk at having another account somewhere. So, just as a slide of why it is of benefit to have your Whole Building Design Guide account, it does – I think that a really great feature, especially when you're looking at Federal Building Personnel Training Act compliance, is that all of your trainings for multiple sources and organizations can be tracked through one platform, and you have your assessment and your evaluation all in one place, and again, just back to your tracking, everything you train in in one location. And you can also look back at all of your CEUs for reporting to whatever professional organization that you need to.
Kyle, did you want to speak to anything else here? This really is your area.
>>Kyle: No, that's okay. I think – I just noticed it now, Elena, but rather than "Eases the CEU achievement process" I think it really is kind of a requirement for the CEU achievement process. CEUs are only eligible if you use the WBDG system as the – since the Whole Building Design Guide is the learning managements system for the FEMP training program. So, that's a requirement under our accreditation with the IACET.
>>Elena: Okay. We will modify that before we post the presentation. Thanks for clarifying that. Okay. Next slide, please.
Okay. We've really already covered this. We have to have the roster. We have to record anything in a live event. Obviously, the on-demand courses are automatically being logged, and if you use the Whole Building Design Guide WebEx for your live webinars, we'll also have that documentation. And we've covered everything else on that slide. But it's just a resource for your training coordinators to review. Next slide, please.
Okay. This slide – really, we probably – we're saying "Insert this slide at the beginning of the presentation." We really require you to insert this slide. If you will have this slide so the trainees can review and you can run through really quickly on how they get their CEUs and review that six-week timeline, and how to – you would put your live event there; that's why we've got the nice highlighted As. If you'll just use this canned slide, put your event in there, when they download the presentation, when you go through it in the course, they're again just getting it reiterated on what they need to do and it'll avoid many of the exchanges I've seen at the seven- or eight-week point of "Why can't I take the quiz? I really need to get my documentation to AIA." Please insert this in your presentations. Next slide, please, Kyle.
Okay. This is for the workshop version. The same thing, just more simplified because it's a little bit different process. But just if you're giving a live workshop, insert this slide into the presentation to guide them through the same information. Next slide, please.
Okay. And I just want to kind of throw in before we go on to the next part of the slide deck, which will be pretty quick, that we are, as I mentioned earlier – I say "we" – NREL is working vehemently to automate the training application process, and hopefully that'll be available late this fall. And I know you will be notified as soon as it is. And then, that will also open up the door to a whole new suite of training reports and feedback to the training teams in a more direct fashion. And then, in the meantime, just continue to contact me with any concerns or asks. I think about 95 percent of the time we're able to get you what you need. Sometimes it's just – keep in mind that our process right now is extremely manual without the new system up, so I can't just push a button and get you what you'd like, but I am able to most all the time find the data or the contact information that you need.
Kyle, is there anything you want to add before we go to the next portion of this?
>>Kyle: Not right now, Elena. Thanks.
>>Elena: Okay. Next slide, please.
Okay. We wanted to cover briefly probably our most frequently asked need, or inquired about need in the past six months. And I also touched on this on a training that I went to in January through IACET: increasing user engagement as the training platforms evolve, and our picked topic today was the use of polls. We have gotten questions from several teams on this. We do realize that WebEx has this capacity. Our problem is that when we poll we need to make sure that we are not retaining any individually identifiable information on any of our attendees. We can only have results or it creates a whole other onus of approval and documentation. So, Nick verified that the driving act behind it is actually the Paperwork Reduction Act, so feel free to read through that at your leisure. And then, we as a team reviewed some of the free polling services and we like DirectPoll at this point. It doesn't mean you have to use that, just if you utilize something else, just please know that it cannot collect the individual user information. And we wanted to reiterate that the WebEx polling does collect identifiable information, so we so not wish to utilize that. Next slide, please.
So, we just kind of – we're not going through every facet of DirectPoll but we kind of wanted to give you their summary screen. And it is extremely easy to use. I think Kyle learned in one minute. And after I'd gone through five or six I felt this to be very intuitive and to have neat features for a free product. Next slide, please.
So, we are going to demonstrate right now. If you would like to answer this question and see how the poll works, Kyle just sent out this link through the chat. And if you want to just click on the link, the question will pop up. And if you answer it, Kyle will be displaying the live results. So, just click "yes" and vote. And it's a nice polite system: It thanks you for your vote. And as you can see, you can be giving your presentation, have the live link, and you're going to see the tallies come in. And for those that are voting "no," you're actually see the demo right now, so I'm sorry to not respect your wishes. We'll give it another couple seconds. We mainly just wanted you guys to get a feel for it and how simple it is. And I think, Kyle, we can move on from that.
So, we're not going to run through this today, just to say this is an example presentation for a poll demonstration, just kind of showing you how you could fit it into your presentation. And I gave you some screenshots. And now we're at just thanking you for attending. And I think we're going to cut the recording at this point if we didn't already. I forgot to flag Kyle; sorry about that. And we're opening for Q&A. So, if you want to raise your hand –
[End of Audio