NLPES Question of the Month

March/April:

WHAT WOULD BE THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS IF NCSL WERE TO PRODUCE "WEBCASTS" OR "PODCASTS" FOR YOUR STAFF'S PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND WHAT CONCERNS/QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS APPROACH DO YOU HAVE?

Martha Carter, Nebraska Performance Audit Section

One of the potential benefits (especially of webcasts or "webinars") could be to deliver professional development to people who can't travel to conferences. The cost--which I think is around $2,500--could be paid by offices who want to participate or it could be partially subsidized from the "reserve" money we have from our training conferences (if the Executive Committee agrees). The big question is how do we find a topic that is both of interest to enough people and also lends itself to this form of presentation?

Ken Levine, Texas Sunset Commission

Just FYI for everyone: The use of web and podcasts is of great interest to the Professional Development Task Force of LSCC (Legislative Staff Coordinating Committee.) The ideas you develop and post here can include ideas that are appropriate for all legislative staff, regardless of which staff section they belong to. Of course, some ideas you have will relate to program evaluation only. All ideas are welcome.

Mentoring programs, succession planning and recruitment/diversity are some of the topics I have heard thrown around to date. If the programs are fairly short and presented well, our office would have interest in participating. What's to lose, forty-five minutes or so?

Rick Riggs, Legislative Division of Post Audit, Kansas

I love the idea of webcasts, for a couple of reasons: first, it would allow staff to pick and choose those topics of most interest to them, especially if the sessions didn't need to be attended in real time. In other words, they could be captured on a server indefinitely and accessed as needed. We currently have a couple of people who really need training hours, and the ability to access previously recorded webcasts would be a godsend sometimes. Second, it would save money.

My big concern is that the sessions be high enough quality. Often, training sessions don't have audience questioners miked, or the camera doesn't pan over to the screen showing the slides, or something, so that technical shortcomings detract from potentially useful material. With that caveat, I think it's a great idea.

A second concern is that there needs to be some determination of whether a given webcast counts as Yellow Book CPE, and if so, how much, so it's standardized for everybody.

I think most people think of 'webinars' as live events, but I'd like to see us capture such events to disk, to save for posterity, sort of like recording a teleconference. I think this opens up a world of possibilities. For example, I'd be very interested in "auditing 101" topics for new staff. Another thought: If somebody would publish specifications (like acceptable webcams, server software, etc., why couldn't we all capture our own training sessions? Those too office-specific for general interest still could be kept on a local server to train future new staff, or as a refresher for current staff, but those potentially of use to others could be uploaded to the website, building a library of relatively short training sessions that could be accessed as needed by anybody.

Beth Ashcroft, Maine

I am very interested in the idea of webcasts. I find myself in theunique position of having 6 folks (including myself) who are new to performance auditing in state government. There are many topics that I would like to be able to give them some training in but, like everyone else, am limited by budget and time. I think webcasts offer an opportunity for relatively inexpensive training that can be accessed when convenient. I agree with Rick Riggs that it would seem worthwhile to capture the sessions indefinitely and have a library that folks could access at different times. I believe the Institute of Internal Auditors is offering something like this. It may be useful to talk with someone at the IIA and find out what their experience has been in running it and what kind of feedback they have been getting from those trying to use it.

In general, I would have the same concerns as the others - making sure the topics appeal to as many folks as possible, making sure the webcast is quality and that the presenters are good and knowledgeable.

As far as topics, because we are new, we are also interested in everything from Audit 101 classes to specifics on such things as sampling as other methodologies. We are also still learning in terms of interacting with our oversight committee, our mission and key customers, what types of reviews and products we offer. We would be particularly interested in a discussion, for example,on what to provide for written products to satisfy our stakeholders needs. Lessons learned from other states are always helpful.

Joel Alter, Minnesota

It has been a challenge for our office to find good training opportunities, so we would welcome experiments with webcast training. Due to legislative travel restrictions, we have not been able to attend the NCSL annual meeting or NLPES fall conference very much in recent years. Our staff have assembled in-house training, often using outside experts or our own staff as presenters.

A few years ago, the NLPES Executive Committee sponsored an initiative to develop a training module on CD for member agencies. As with the webcast idea, this initiative was intended to find new ways to offer training--preferably ways that were low-cost, portable, and flexible. Gary VanLandingham of OPPAGA did a nice job of putting together a training module on performance measures, but he also found out that it's a LOT of work to do it well! It would be great to have an online library of training webcasts on various topics, as Rick suggested above--but do our individual offices have the resources to do this? It may be better to start with some NCSL-initiated experiments.

Also, I have some questions: (1) If NCSL provided webcasts of a training session, could persons viewing the session via computer in "real time" participate in a somewhat direct way (e.g., by e-mailing questions or comments to the moderator during the training session)? (2) If NCSL wanted to charge a modest fee to participants to cover the cost of developing the training, is there really a feasible way to do this? (For example, how would it know which persons are accessing the training?)

Finally, I don't have specific suggestions regarding training content--there are many options--but I think NCSL should try to initially identify topics that would appeal to "rank and file" staff in legislative offices, not just to manager-level staff.

Ken Levine, Texas Sunset Commission

Joel and others... Commercial sites exist to do webcasts in the manner that you have discussed. Try livemeeting.com for an example. On that site you can also observe a previously recorded training session so you can get a feel for how it works. Of course, with commercial ventures and sophistication, comes cost.

Ethel Detch, Tennessee Offices of Research and Education Accountability

I think it could be very useful, if we were able to get to topic that affect most of us. We have actually been trying to figure out how to have a set of classes for new people that could be pulled up as needed. I am a little concerned about the cost. If it cost $2500, as Martha suggested, that would be high for our office. Although you could argue that it costs that to send one or two people to some national meetings, it's unlikely that we're going to quit sending them, even if we had this resource available, so would have to come up with another source. Thanks to those who are giving this some thought!

Keenan Konopaski, Washington

I think the idea is intriguing. We are struggling to find good training opportunities. And yes it can cost close to that amount to send one person to a conference. In general, I'm interested if there are better ways to partner with other states on training opportunities. Whether that would be advice on good sessions/trainers, or considering bringing in trainers to a central location and sharing the cost.

Jane Thesing, South Carolina Legislative Audit Council

We always need access to relevant and informative training at a reasonable cost, so we are interested in the Webcast concept. Most crucial to us is the content of the training (not so much the subject matter--most of the topics mentioned sound fine--but the quality). If NCSL were to experiment, who would prepare the Webcast? Our potential use of the Webcast would depend on the cost, any technology needed to access, and whether the session was of high quality. We are talking about individuals viewing it at their individual computers, right? We have participated to some degree in NASACT audio conferences, and the quality of these has really varied. In some cases they have been excellent, and in others they have been hampered by poor technical quality (presenters who couldn't be clearly heard, accompanying overhead slides with infinitesmially small fonts, etc.) and uninspiring content. It would be preferable to have something that would have some interactive capability or something that could be viewed whenever (if it didn't have interactive capability).