History of Workforce Development

This week I concentrated mostly on updating the History of Workforce Development WPDP study guide. As I reported earlier, the Board approved dividing up each 100+ page study guide into 4 modules, and then dividing each the 100-question test into four 25-question tests to correspond with each module. It has been a few years since the History study guide was updated, so I have spent quite a bit of time researching workforce events of the last few years. And as you know, it's been quite a ride these past few years! This week I put all those hours of research into editing the information into a usable format. Next I will need to send it to a few SMEs (subject matter experts) to review it and see if I covered everything that needs to be covered. It will also need to be proofed for typos. After the review and proofing, I will need develop additional test questions to cover the added material. Finally, I will put the exam online and the History modules will be ready to go. I anticipate it will be late spring before all the History modules are complete and placed online. It's quite a task to get this upgrade complete.

December Board Meeting

Today I participated in a conference call board meeting. The primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss the St. Louis International Conference. Conference Planning Committee Chair, Laura Coburn gave us an overview of some of the conference activities and re-emphasized that this conference would be "creative and different" because for the first time, the conference would be done completely without help from a local chapter or workforce agency. She specifically asked board members to help solicit donations to cover conference training and entertainment. Laura also asked each district to be responsible for a carnival game at the Missouri Night function (sounds fun!). Laura indicated that the agenda for the conference will be posted on the IAWP Web site in January. There are many assignments that still need people to cover and those opportunities will also be posted on the site. The board will meet again on January 20, 2011 for a regular board meeting.

Strategic Planning

A strategic planning committee was formed to look at developing a 3-year plan for IAWP. I did some research on strategic planning and then contacted the members of the committee for input on what they believed were IAWP greatest asset and what sets us apart from other organizations. Most everyone agreed that our membership is our greatest asset and that our educational programs set us apart from other associations.

For the next step I researched past planning documents and reviewed our mission statement. A survey of chapter presidents was conducted in 2008-2009 and it provided a great deal of insight into the strategic planning process. Based on the survey results I am suggesting 6 strategic goals covering Education, Communication, Chapter Development, Recognition and Marketing. I have asked the committee to review the proposed strategic goals along with specific strategies and get back to me in early January. I will keep you posted on the progress.

How can it be?

How can it be that it's been 3 and a half weeks since I last blogged. I think it's just that time of the year when I get really busy with holiday activities and other things that divert my attention. Maybe I need to make a New Years resolution to keep up with the blog better.

Despite the fact I have blogged, I have been busy with my IAWP efforts. I reviewed the results of the survey for the individual and group awards and recommended changes based on the survey. The Redesign Team and officers had additional suggestions and those were incorporated into the final recommendations. I composed an e-mail to distribute to the same people that get the Countdown and asked for input on the proposal by the end of the year so we can take the final, final proposal to the board of directors in January for approval. Also in the awards arena, I wrote an article for the next Workforce Professional outlining the new membership awards. We wanted to get them announced to the new members right away.

Back in the Saddle

After more than two weeks absence I am back. Along with my vacation I had some personal "stuff" come up that demanded my attention. Don't worry though, I did accomplish quite a bit this last week.

First, the IAWP executive board met by teleconference and approved the changes to the membership awards. The board requested on additional change to the Gold Key Award. Originally we had proposed it go the the one person who recruited the most new members, now it will go to everyone who recruits 50 or more new members.

The second thing I accomplished was to send a summary of the survey input, for the individual and group awards (merit, citation, etc), to the redesign team. We hope to have a proposal finalized by the first of December and share with the board and on this blog at that time. It looks like we are still on schedule for final approval by January 1st. I felt pretty good about getting these two things accomplished this week, especially with playing catch up from being gone. Perhaps next week will be even more productive.

Membership Awards

I finished reviewing the input from the officers and Awards Redesign Team members and have come up with the finalized proposed changes to the IAWP membership awards. I will send the proposal off tomorrow for the officers and team to give it a last look, then ask the Administrative Office to send it out to the district directors and current committee chairs for review. If any of them have problems, I would like to get them worked out before it goes to a vote.

There won't be another post until the week of November 15th. By then I will have my feedback from the board and will be ready to move on to the Individual and Group awards.

Seriously Behind

It's been two weeks since my last post, but I really have accomplished a lot. I have been having some neck and back problems that make me not want to be on the computer in the evening, and that's when I usually update this blog.

In the last two week I have compiled the results of the awards redesign survey and sent a summary and initial recommendations to the awards redesign team. I am waiting for their feedback before proceeding on. I also finished my research on the NASWA Web site looking for significant events from the last 10 years in the workforce development arena. I made an initial pass at updating the History of Workforce Development module of the WPDP. I still have a ways to go. I also looked up the duties of the IAWP Legislative Steering Committee and made some proposed changes that came out of the board meeting in St. Louis. I have sent the revisions off to the officers and board liaison to review.

So you can see, I have been busy, just not busy blogging.

Researching

I have spent many hours this last week researching workforce system legislation and programs over the past 10 years. I am updating Module 4 of the retooled WPDP History of Workforce Development studyguide. Sadly the last entry was the passage of WIA from 1998, so it's about time for an update. I started with reviewing the NASWA Bulletins from the last 10 years to see what's happened the last 10 years. That's been very time consuming because each bulletin is several pages long and reports on all proposed legislation and since I only want to include those programs that actually came about, it's a lot of reading and clicking. In the course of reviewing the material I had almost forgot about many things such as Y2K, the 2000 census, the recession in 2001 and the low employment (under 5%) in the mid 2000's. It was like a walk down memory lane. The common denominator...the workforce system was always there to help people. I hope to reflect that in this latest update to the WPDP.

Survey Says!

Sent out the survey today to 40+ people asking for input on the awards. I hope this format (Survey Monkey) is user friendly and give us a bunch of input to start redesigning the IAWP awards. I am optimistic that people will respond and we can get started with the membership awards by mid month. I looked before I left work today and only three people had responded...less than what I had hoped for...but maybe tomorrow we will have 50! If you happen to be reading this blog, click on the survey here and give me your input.

Survey Monkey

Anyone ever use Survey Monkey? I have used it to take surveys other people have developed, but never put a survey of mine on it. A week ago I developed a survey for IAWP awards. The Awards Redesign Team wants to gather input from members about awards before making any recommendations for change. I had a paper survey and decided to try my hand with Survey Monkey. It's a free online product that allows you to put a survey online and send a link to people to complete the survey. The free version allows up to 10 questions and 100 responses. I think it will be a much better way to get responses because people don't have to print a document and fax it or scan and attach it. I have it out to the Team to review before sending it to members. Once it's finalized (hopefully tomorrow) I will send it out to several members and also post in on this Blog.

Meet me in St. Louis

I returned from the IAWP board meeting in St. Louis on Sunday. My compliments to President Rich Vincent and the entire board for a terrific meeting. It's one of the best I have ever attended for keeping on track, discussing the issues, and planning for the future. I felt a real spirit of friendship with everyone on the board. We covered a lot of issues but the one near and dear to me is the online WPDP testing that I have worked on and blogged about over the past couple of months. The board approved my recommendation to divide each of the current study guides into 4 modules and place the exams online using "Hosted Test." Now the work begins of accomplishing the work. There were many other issues discussed and approved and I will blog about them later in the week.

Reading, Reading, and Reading

I am trying to prep for the IAWP board meeting that starts on Friday. I printed off the rather large board packet, double-sided to save a few trees and to make it lighter to carry. If you know me even a little, you know I like to be prepared and am totally off-kilter if I am not. I have made it through the last two board meeting minutes as well as the committee and subcommittee reports. I was starting on the district director reports when I decided to take a blog-break. I am looking forward to seeing my fellow board members and friends and spending a little time getting to know them better. I will keep you posted on the outcome of the meeting.

Google Docs

I was playing around with Google Documents trying to educate myself a little on the technology available these days. I believe technology is to be embraced, even if sometimes the learning curve seems long and involved. I think IAWP can especially benefit from using the latest technology. With these extremely busy times, it can make projects go much smoother and take less time to accomplish tasks. Google Documents is an application where someone can initiate a document or import a document from their computer and share it in real time with others via the Web. I can see this as a good idea for committee assignments, WPDP updating and development, awards collaboration and lots of other things. As I discover more about it, I will blog about it and hopefully get some of you to explore and share other technology.

A Day of Training

The Montana Chapter of IAWP put on a terrific institute. Three main speakers took us though the economic outlook, seeing the best in others, and conflict resolution. There was time for interaction with the group and time to ask questions and give specific examples and "how to" tips. I enjoyed the day and meeting many wonderful Montana chapter members.

District 14 Institute

I had a long drive today from Boise, Idaho to Missoula, Montana by myself today to attend the IAWP District 14 Institute. I almost didn't get to come because my mom has not been feeling well this week but said she was much better today, so I took off at 8:00 am this morning. It's a full 8-hour drive and not hardly a straight stretch of highway in between. (No interstate.) Plus it rained off and on all day, but as soon as I arrived I saw DeeDee Baker, the District Director and immediately felt at home as I always do when I visit Montana IAWP. This is the second time I have been in Missoula for a district meeting, plus I have attended meetings in Kalispel, Bozeman, Helena and Great Falls over the past 30 years and remember each one with very fond memories. Another perk of belonging to IAWP, friendship and camaraderie abound! Remind me again why everyone in workforce development doesn't belong? Tomorrow is a full day educational session which looks like it will very good. I will report on it tomorrow.

Fastest Growing Jobs

According to CNNMoney.com's Fortune, nursing jobs followed by network/data analysts, software/application developers, biomedical engineers, accountants/auditors and veterinarians are the fastest growing jobs in the United States. It caught my eye because my daughter is a veterinarian and my son-in-law is an IT developer. Being in the workforce for 36 years and in the workforce development arena for 31, I have seen a lot of changes in the types of jobs in demand in our workforce. I would like to take credit for the wise career decisions of my daughter and son-in-law but they made them on their own, based on aptitude and interest. They achieved their career goals through education and hard work and I am very proud of both of them. For those of you who work in employment services or job training programs, knowing the labor market and staying informed on the latest information will help customers with their career goals and you might be able to influence your children or grandchildren into sustainable occupations. IAWP is one way to stay informed and updated on the many area of workforce development.

Labor Day

Monday is Labor Day and being that I have worked in the workforce arena for the last 31 years, this weekend is a time to thank everyone who works or has worked in workforce systems. Providing unemployment insurance to workers stabilizes the economy and provides workers with partial income replacement when they are out of work through no fault of their own. Employment Services helps the business community and the worker, bringing both together in a successful partnership. Job training programs help those that are disadvantaged in the workplace by providing on the job training and classroom training to help them reach their workforce goals. I hate to think what our country would be like without these programs. Happy Labor Day to everyone past or present who have chosen to be part of workforce systems everywhere.

Board Report

I completed my board reports today - one for the Awards Redesign Team and the other for the online testing project.

I made a recommendation to the board that IAWP selects HostedTest as the provider of online test services for the Workforce Professional Development Program (WPDP). Another recommendation is to break each of the 4 WPDP modules into 4 components each. This would result in 4 study guides and 4 corresponding tests for each WPDP module. It's my belief that the program will be more attractive if it's presented in smaller chunks. People are more apt to sign up to study a 30 page study guide and take a 25-questions test than the current 100+ page study guide and 100-questions test.

As for the awards redesign, I outlined the plan to look at the membership and individual/group group awards (merit, citation, administrator, UI, veterans, etc.) by December 31, 2010. Then starting in January, we can work on the chapter awards (education, legislation, professional practices, etc.) Our goal will be to have a recommendation on them by the June 2011 board meeting in St. Louis.

Final Two

After narrowing it down to the three vendors that disable test takers from printing the exam questions (and is some cases the test answers), I am definitely not impressed with ZohoChallenge. I have sent the company 4 e-mails and have not gotten any response. The other two vendors, ExamBuilder and HostedTest, have both been very responsive and quick to respond to my inquiries. I believe this is an essential attribute of any company we decide to go with. Both ExamBuilder and HostedTest seem at the higher end of all the seven companies we have been exploring more closely. I like the way HostedTest has their pricing structure set up. You don't pay for putting your test online, and you don't pay for each individual test taker, you pay for each exam taken. With ExamBuilder, you also don't pay for putting your tests online, but you pay for a license for each test taker to be able take unlimited tests with the same license. The license is good for one year. Also, overall, Exam Builder is quite a bit more expensive. My Monday or Tuesday I should have a recommendation for the IAWP Board and be able to finish by report.

Vendor Responses

Received e-mail responses from two of my three inquiries about certain aspects of the three online test providers I have narrowed it down to. One vendor gives non-profit organizations a 20% discount so the per exam fee will be less, which is great news. One of the vendors that fell out of the final three e-mailed and asked for feedback on why we didn't go with his company, so kindly I gave him both good and bad feedback. He then called me and wanted more! He also tried to talk me into staying on his pay service, which I wasn't too excited about. That vendor is the only one I actually paid money to see their "paid" version as their basic free version didn't have many options. I finally got him off the phone but he really wanted to make a deal with me. Got to love those sales people. Honestly he made me more nervous after talking to him because he said his service was only 3 months old. I was hoping for a company a little more seasoned than that. The last thing I want is to have to re-do all the exams with a new company after a few months. I am hoping to finish up my review tomorrow because I will be out of the office Thursday and Friday and want to share the results with the EDC chair and a few others before I write the report.

Narrowing it Down

Spent a couple of hours today deciphering my notes from the weekend and looking at the Web sites of three of the online test providers. Only three of the 7 currently disable the Web browser so that test takers cannot easily print the test questions. I think this is an essential element of any service we decide to buy. I also sent off a couple of e-mails to the 3 vendors asking a few questions. I want to judge their response time and quality as well as answer some missing or conflicting information from the their Web site. I have to get this narrowed down this week so I can get a report and recommendation done by September 1st...just 8 days away.

The Final 7

The online exam project is down to the final 7 service providers. I have spent the last 4 hours going through the evaluations that IAWP members completed. I also have spent quite a bit of time evaluating them from an administrative perspective, since that is also an important factor. Of the seven only three appear to disable the copy and print functions of Internet browsers which make them more secure. The others would allow test participants to print off the questions and in some cases the answers! I sent off a few e-mail messages to a some of the companies inquiring about this feature, as it is close to the top of required features from the administrative side. I will let you know what I find out. I have get a report together for the upcoming board meeting so I will be finalizing my recommendations by the end of next week.

Reminder Friday

It was a busy day for IAWP reminders. I sent out what will be the final e-mail on evaluating the 7 different online test providers (ClassMarker, ExamBuilder, ExamProfessor, HostedWare, ProProf, QuizEgg and ZohoChallenge). By the end of next week I hope to have a lot more evaluations back and will look closely at the comments I received as well as my own reviews from the test administrator point of view. I am looking at things separate from the test taker. Things like ease of test design, test security, test taker notification process, etc. Some providers are much easier than others! I really appreciate all those who have given me feedback.

The other reminder was sent to the Education, Legislation, Communications, Veterans, Workforce Systems, UI and Specialized Customer Services committees. I am the IAWP officer who is the liaison to those committees. I designed a planning tool for them to use that lists all the committee job duties from the IAWP Handbook along with the "points of interest" identified by each committee. If you know me, you know I am a planner. If it gets written down it's more likely to get accomplished and from my point of view, that's what we need in IAWP. We need to set goals and accomplish them. (Okay, off my soapbox now.) The planning tool list the actions items that will be accomplished along with timeframes. I will probably drive these committee chairs nuts with my ongoing dialogue over what's to be accomplished.

Still Coming In

Received a few more evaluations for the online testing project. I will probably send out a reminder tomorrow listing all 7 possible sites. I am sure some people are sick of me asking, but I need to feedback to make a good recommendation. August is almost half over and we will be submitting our reports for the board meeting in September before you know it.

Still Reviewing Vendors

Fixed some problems with people reviewing the different online testing vendors. A few of the reviewers were not able to get logged in so I made some fixes and they worked. I also took all the exams again using all 7 vendors. The seven are: ClassMarker, ExamBuilder, ExamProfessor, HostedWare, ProProf, QuizEgg and ZohoChallenge. I would like to know if anyone has had any experience with any of these companies? If so, please leave a comment. I think we are on track to narrowing it down to three companies and letting the board decide at the meeting in St. Louis in September. It's then the real work begins converting our paper tests to online versions. Any proofreader out there? One requirment...you have to be a WPDP Master (for test secruity).

Third Installment

Not only is this the third installment on the blog, but on Friday, I sent out the third and last installment of the online test providers to the reviewers! There are 7 possible providers. All cost under $1000 per year and some as cheap as $25 a year. We need to be careful not to have the price persuade us because sometimes "you get what you pay for." I am hoping we will have a recommendation ready for the board meeting in September. Once we select the provider then we can start moving the exams online.

Long Demo

Reviewed "TestShop" online testing system today via Web conferencing. An hour and a half on the phone looking at the different features of the system. It was loaded with neat stuff and had a test generator portion with over 90 options. I still have a few more vendors to look at and several of the Educational Development Committee members and other volunteers are in the process of taking sample tests from other vendors that have already been given the once-over.

Online Testing Providers

I spent a considerable amount of time this week reviewing online testing service providers. My hope is to have the WPDP exams available to take online instead of through snail-mail and proctored exams. There are some fairly reasonable priced online test providers, but this is a major decision and I want to be sure that ultimately we select the provider that is right for IAWP. Tell me what you think about this?