Meeting Minutes - February 2013

Society of American Archivists

Committee on Education Meeting

February 27-28, 2013 

Chicago, Illinois

Minutes

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

 2:00pm – 8:00pm 

Welcome/Introductions – Graham Present:  Julie Graham, Chair; Lorraine Dong, David Kay, Naomi Nelson, Jennifer Pelose, James Roth, Shelby Sanett, Ellen Swain, committee members; Geof Huth, Council Liaison; Solveig De Sutter, Director of Education; Amanda Look, Education Coordinator. Absent: Kim Anderson, Lori Lindberg, and Heather MacNeil.

Review and Approval of the Minutes from August 2012 

Sanett/Roth

 Review and Approval of the Agenda

Nelson/Roth

 Membership Survey ‑ SAA Council Liaison, Geof Huth, provided an overview of the results of the SAA Member Survey viewed from the Education perspective.  Issues pertaining to education included many things the education committee has been working on.  For example:

·         Quality of materials (most people want handouts of some kind) – people can’t read the screen shots, and if the handouts are too small they are nearly impossible to read.

·         People wanted more pre-readings (Huth also suggested post-readings/further readings via an appendix).

·         Some comments about the quality of the instructors. People suggested more vetting of presenters. And, perhaps, more “Training of the Trainer.”

·         People want relevant content – practical advice and not theory. People want to come in, learn something, and be able to go home and do it.

·         People want good value for the cost. People want cheaper workshops next door to them. Offering more webinars may be a good solution to this issue. People want free training as well (like web seminars).

·         People preferred in person workshops vs. web seminars.

·         Perhaps developing an online training system.

 De Sutter remarked that she was struck by the finding that people who had attended SAA educational offerings were more loyal to the Society. Also, people were SAA members primarily for information and that one could perceive education as information.

 Roth asked about the outcome of the survey and what more the Education Committee (COE) should be doing to address these comments.

Huth answered that the Council met in January 2013 for a strategic planning session and that members are in the process of fleshing out sections. The plan will be finalized at the May SAA Council Meeting. He asked for input from this committee about the strategic plan so he can incorporate suggestions or at least bring them back to the Council for consideration.  He expressed support for the committee to continue on the current path making the program more cohesive and better. He believes that education is one of the main drivers of the organization, and that it is an important part of the strategic plan.

 The chairs commended the progress of the DAS program facilitated by the DAS Subcommittee and staff, and added that once the DAS program is refined, it will serve as a great case study for what we do with SAA education in the future.  

 Staff expressed gratitude for the work of the DAS Subcommittee who was asked to do an incredible amount of work.   While expanding the DAS subcommittee to five brought us to this stage, we need more resources to track our exams, etc.  The group acknowledged that the DAS exam is a paradigm shift for the Education department, and it needs to be clear that proper resources are required to manage the program effectively. 

Update from January Council meeting ‑ Council focused primarily on the strategic plan but also looked at dues and having a bridge membership fee and, as a result has extended that benefit to two non-consecutive years instead of just one. Council looked at options for Annual Meeting sites and considered second tier cities.

Update on DAS – De Sutter, standing in for Lindberg, reported that:

·         Arrangement and Description of Electronic Records has been extended into a two-day course – Part I and Part II. Part I has been offered once, and there are still comments about Part I having a lot of information. We are looking for an additional instructor.

·         The Thinking Digital web seminar is being revised, and we hope to offer in in late April. The Subcommittee and the developers agreed initially on an update but have since decided that a revision was necessary.

·         Another reason DAS will continue to demand resources is that courses will be reviewed every two years, and that courses that were grandfathered in are currently under revision.

·         Legal Issues in Digital Archives was split into two separate courses – Copyright Issues for Digital Archives and Privacy and Confidentiality Issues in Digital Archives – by Menzi Behrnd-Klodt.  The torch has since passed on to Heather Briston and Aprille McKay who are busy fine tuning the courses.

·         The DAS subcommittee implemented a new policy with the result that shepherds are no longer anonymous, much more involved, and changed the title to “liaison.“

·         Providing Access to Digital Archives –the last course to be developed in the curriculum the DACE Task Force outlined; a search for a developer is in progress.

·         Achieving Email Account Preservation with XML was revised and extended from a half-day to a full day course. Initial exam results had a high failure rate, and the XML team has revised the exam.

·         Digital Forensics for Archivists was originally offered as a one-day course. It was also extended into a two-day course, theory and hands-on.

·         Accessioning and Ingest is currently under development and scheduled for the first time in June.

·         Managing Electronic Records in Archives and Special Collections has been condensed from a two-day course to a one-day course. It will now be ‘truly transformational.’

·         Digital Curation:  Creating an Environment for Success will undergo a change to become more foundational to be a better fit with Digital Curation: Sustainable Futures, a transformational course.

·         Asking instructors/developers to write exams turned out to be a huge undertaking, especially since some have never created exam questions.  As staff and DAS Subcommittee learn more about writing exam questions, that knowledge is shared with instructors and developers.

COE reviewed exam pass/fail statistics and went on to discuss how staff manages the DAS program including processing and tracking exams, exam orders, etc. The group came to the conclusion that more resources were needed to manage this program so staff could spend more time on improving the program, serving member needs, offering more face to face workshops/courses instead of manual administration of processes.  By shifting that focus, members will be better served and more revenues will be generated.

Comprehensive Exam – A review of the criteria used to create questions for the Comprehensive Examination led to outlining the standard setting process scheduled to take place during the DAS

 Subcommittee’s upcoming meeting.  De Sutter gave a quick overview of the process and answered ensuing questions about having a different pass rate for the Comprehensive Exam and the course specific exams.  

 The committee discussed the DAS tiers and course curriculum and agreed that the DAS Subcommittee must spend a lot of time with the curriculum, consider necessary changes to existing courses and come up with new course.

 Huth suggested a course on “Digital Storage“ including assessment system, CDs, etc.

DAS Certificate Renewal criteria – current policy states that DAS Certificate Holders have five years to renew their Certificate.  COE needs to determine the number of courses a certificate holder must take and pass and if these courses must come from specific tiers.  After spirited discussion and taking into consideration that two more members would join the group the next day, it was decided to table this issue.  

 SAA Education Staff Report – De Sutter asked for questions on the report and covered some of the highlights and changes that occurred since the report was done.  After informing the committee about the success of the ARL proposal that resulted in 10 ARL hosts committing to six courses back-to-back over 18 months starting in June 2013, they suggested adding new initiatives to the front of the Education Report to better highlight Education Department successes.

 Update on DACS – Hillel Arnold is revising the existing DACS workshop to include recently adopted changes to DACS.  Following the revision, other short workshops or webinars are envisioned to take people to the next step, e.g. DACS Applied to Naming Authority, DACS Applied to Digital Objects, etc.  Hillel Arnold and Jackie Dean are the current DACS instructors and reviewers include members of the Standards Committee.

Role of COE/Members/Shepherds – Roth and Graham

·         What was communicated to new members of the committee before accepting the appointment?  No one recalled anything.

·         After your appointment as a COE member, you receive the new member orientation via email; should that information be disseminated prior to the appointment so people know what to expect?

·         How can we make the process better for new members of the committee?

·         More information needs to be communicated;

·         Schedule a new member orientation call to answer questions and take 20 minutes prior to the start of the August meeting to welcome new people and become more familiar with each other.

·         What do you wish you had known or received as a new member?

·         A calendar of when things happen throughout the year.

·         Talk about the proposal development process and share web site resources on SAA’s site.

·         Use the Education Committee microsite to communicate. 

·         Create speaking points about SAA/cheat sheet to answer education related questions and refer to most recent Education report.

·         Create an FAQ.

·         Tell new members about the listserv.

·         Tip sheet

·         More information about the shepherding process and the review process.

·         Acronym list

·         Distinguish between role of members, auditors, and shepherds and communicate that to the entire committee.

·         Has the workload been too much? Not enough? Most members agreed that they could do more, but would need to know in advance if they took on more and what exactly that would entail.

·         Chairs and staff will create a tip sheet that’s sent to the committee for review before sending it to new members.

·         Current list of COE responsibilities as well as possible additional responsibilities was shared: 

·         Take on projects delegated by Council

·         Review CE proposals

·         Identify gaps in current CE Curriculum

·         Advice Education Director

·         Conduct a five-year review of all workshops

·         Update GPASS Guidelines

·         Update ACE Guidelines

·         Staff COE office hour in Exhibit Hall at annual meetings

·         Staff an information table in Career Center at annual meetings

·         Expand to?

·         Individual shepherds proposing new workshop/seminar/webinar development in their category along with recommended developers/instructors?

·         Identify topic structures like DAS?

o   Somewhat in planning stage with DACS –

·         Shepherds reach out to Sections/Roundtables – here’s what we have, what do you need?

o   How do we strengthen flow of communication between component groups and COE?

o   Shepherds make presentations at Section/Roundtable meetings?

·         Other suggestions:

·         Look at specific categories (Foundational, TST, etc.), consider gaps in the curriculum, and suggest ways to fill the gap – new developers to work with, etc.

·         Create a flyer/bookmark give away at the Annual Meeting with “Did you know that SAA offers 60+ educational offerings? Do you want to bring one of them to your hometown? You can host!” etc.

·         Discussion moved to the SAA education website, the perception that what is listed on the calendar represents our entire curriculum, and how to market our curriculum.  Suggestions included re-ordering the catalog as follows:

Search term: Arrangement and Description

·         Add a page to the website that lists all of the information that someone could give their supervisor if they wanted to host – layout expectations of SAA on the host, lay out the benefits for the host (comp spot, etc.)

·         Offer a free webinar drawing for people who come to the Education hours or to a meet and greet about how to host a workshop.

·         Target market SNAP, College and University Archivists, or other groups who we know could be interested in this. 

·         Presentation in the Exhibit Hall two-hour time slot – how do you bring a workshop to your institution? (We need better signage).

·         Continuing Education: Looking For New Skills? – sign idea for the Education Hours in Networking Café. Encourage people to drop business cards for a raffle drawing.  Have them put list about workshops they’d like to have and/or ideas for improvements on the back of the card.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:00pm.

Thursday, February 28, 2013 – 8:00am – 4:30pm

Present:  Julie Graham, Chair; Kim Anderson, Lorraine Dong, David Kay, Heather MacNeil, Naomi Nelson, Jennifer Pelose, James Roth, Shelby Sanett, Ellen Swain, committee members; Geof Huth, Council Liaison; Solveig De Sutter, Director of Education; Amanda Look, Education Coordinator. Absent: Lori Lindberg.

Assigning Liaisons (formerly known as Shepherds) – Visual Literacy for Photograph Collections – Lorraine Dong.

Other Certificate Programs SAA might consider – the catalog (or list of SAA offerings available for hosting) is already showing the tiers used in the DAS Program applied to CE workshops.  COE is envisioning other certificate programs with individual workshop exams (No Comprehensive Exam) that would enable certificate holders to show that they took workshops and passed exams that SAA deemed important in regards to that category.  The process of planning for a new certificate program would take place while we finish Phase III (FY 2014) of the DAS Program.

A certificate program should teach someone to know why they are doing something not just how to do it.

 ·         Based on existing workshops, the following tracks were identified and ranked:

§  **Arrangement and Description (A&D)

§  **Management and administration

§  Visual materials/AV/Sound – may encounter difficulty finding a developer.

§  Preservation and protection

§  RAO

§  Appraisal

§  Ethics/legal

·         After A&D was selected for the first track (based on the number of workshops already created and deemed low hanging fruit) COE determined which workshops should be included in an A&D track.  Everyone volunteered to review several of these workshops (spreadsheet attached).  This review is also the first part of the five-year review mandated by COE policy.

 ·      Staff and chairs will create procedures/guidelines for the reviews and, and staff will have provided electronic files of workshops and guidelines to each liaison by April 1, Reviews are due back to the SAA Education Department by June 15 for compilation, staff will distribute the summaries by June 18, and COE will discuss the results during a 30-minute slot at the August meeting. To facilitate the discussion in the allotted time, COE members are expected to have read the two-page summaries for each review prior to the meeting.

·         During track identification, identified a gap for “sound” education. At this time, we have only one developer/instructor (George Blood) who has delivered that instruction. 

·         Staff to find if the Research Tutorial is about 1) research skills for researchers or 2) how to write a scholarly paper for archivists.

·         There should be two parts of A&D – traditional management and ???  Transformational workshops should focus on “how do people find our descriptions, crowd sources, and advanced metadata.

DAS Certificate Renewal Criteria was taken up again at that point.  Current policy states that the DAS certificate must be renewed every five years.  Options discussed included:

·         One course per year (total of five) from the TST, T&S and/or TR tiers;

·         Three or four courses in 5 years from the TST, T&S and/or TR tiers;

·         Requiring a certain credit point total by assigning different credit hours to webinars (currently considered one course credit) and face-to-face courses.  (7.5 for 1-day, 14. for two- day, 1.5 for webinar in CEUs); Or, .5 for 1-day, .15 for webinars in ARCs.

Also discussed were options for DAS instructors wanting to renew and getting one credit for the courses they are teaching.  

The committee agreed unanimously that to renew your certificate:

·         DAS Certificate Holders may take one foundational course, only; other tiers are optional

·         DAS Certificate Holders must complete 25.5 credits within a five-year period (three face-to-face one-day courses and two web seminars; OR any other combination that adds up to 17 credits (25.5 CEUs for SAA; 17 ACRs for ACA). 

 COE suggested approaching those who have completed the certificate and did really well (in grades) and invite them to be part of the DAS Subcommittee.

 After staff explained the many manual workarounds currently necessary to manage the program, COE members felt strongly that more resources are needed to allow for proper management of the program.  This includes personnel – hiring the right number of people with the proper skill set and creating a career path will allow the program to grow and stay successful.

Pre-conferences proposals – no longer the typical workshop – COE decided last year to approve  CURATEcamp;  a different kind of program that doesn’t lend itself to our traditional way of offering workshops, needs to be marketed differently, and offered in a different way, etc. Is this the kind of proposal we should continue to look at? And, should we continue to spend our resources offering these?

 Anderson, MacNeil, and Pelose were asked to look at a specific workshop proposal and to make a recommendation on how COE should deal with similar proposals in the future.  They reported that:

·         This specific workshop presented issues from conception;

·         To deal with these proposals fairly and equitably, they should be put into a different, distinct category (something like no revenue, outreach, etc.), for which different proposal forms and different review forms would be used. These forms would include questions on how this workshop gives back to the archivist community. Would the community be interested/engaged in this offering?

·         Suggestions to make this work included:

·         Dealing with the funding issues (since these are no revenue workshops), by only offering one to two of these a year.

Partner with regional organizations (to split the cost).

·         Offer it online to save costs.

·         Drawing on ICA guidelines for organizing training workshops to enable the workshop to break even or possibly generate funds.

·         COD agreed that workshops like CURATEcamp should only be offered at Annual Meetings.

·         From the four proposals received in this category, one was already rejected. 

·         There was agreement on the need for a new form.  Nelson offered to write a first draft of this proposal form.

·         Suggestions for titles included “Peer-to-Peer, UnConference, THATcamp.”

·         COE agreed to try up to two workshops at the Annual Meeting.

Proposed New Orleans Pre-conference Selection – two of the proposals “Archivist and the Law:  A Risk Assessment” (two-days) and “Rights and Permissions (one-day) received good reviews and were approved; however, COE felt that two workshops about legal issues was too much and would split the registration numbers.  After careful evaluation, it was decided to go with the one-day workshop.

·         The group felt that the pre-conference line-up was varied and interesting.

COE Micro Site demonstration – Look walked the committee through the three new microsites for COE, DAS Subcommittee, and Faculty. 

·         Ideas to improve and populate microsite included::

·         Posting of all proposals; Spreadsheet of all SAA offerings with liaisons, shepherds, instructors, and the last time a workshop was audited/reviewed.

·         Stats about our most popular course/workshop offerings;

·         New member orientation document;

·         Education report;

·         Articles that committee members wrote for Archival Outlook;

·         Link to Boudreau’s “Diary of a DAS Student” blog;

·         Published comments of SAA education;

·         Co-sponsor evaluations/testimonials; and,

·         ACE Guidelines as a word document so that COE members can enter proposed changes.

·         Ideas to improve website:

·         Restructure catalog information so one can look for ____ and have that info pop up. Make it more interactive, easy to find what you need, etc.

·         Doesn’t need to be so comprehensive, it can be geared toward the user.

·         Even using language like ‘browse our offerings’ instead of ‘our catalog.’

Schedule Archival Outlook article writing

·         A big thank you to Ellen Swain for her great article in this upcoming Archival Outlook!

·         Put this on the August meeting agenda and sign writers at that time.

·         Make it a new requirement for committee members that they must write at least one article – there seemed to be agreement.

ACE – five-year review

·         ACE Guidelines were handed out and members were asked to review and provide feedback on any revisions/additions.

Appraisal Survey – Anderson reported on a survey done by the Appraisal Section:

·         There is strong interest in electronic records appraisal;

·         People didn’t realize they could request a course/workshop  if they don’t see it on the calendar;

·         Main reasons people didn’t take workshops were location and cost;

·         Good workshop topic suggestions: Review of specific appraisal methods, appraisal of AV materials, government records, institutional records, privacy and confidentiality issues in appraisal, creating collecting policy and working with dealers

·         Appraisal models could be a web seminar;

·         Sixty-six Appraisal Section members took the survey.

Current Appraisal workshop should have a description component.

The group suggested asking all of the sections to create a member survey like this.  Another suggestion was to survey the Arrangement and Description Section about certificate ideas to get their feedback.

 ·         Adjournment - Roth