TEC Meeting on 25/01/2002

 

Participants:    Isabel Bejar-Alonso, Margrit Burry, Francois Fluckiger,  Sue Foffano, Andrée Fontbonne, Michelle Mazerand, Erwin Mosselmans, Paula Ribeiro, Josi Schinzel, Mick Storr, Mauro Taborelli, Marc Tavlet, Davide Vite, Sylvain Weisz

 

Excused:           André Arn, Enrico Chiaveri, Sudeshna Datta-Cockerill, Francoise Fabre, Friedmann Eder, Linda Orr-Easo, Alberto Scaramelli, Tony Shave, Peter Sievers,  Myriam Veyrat

 

 

1.        AOB and matters arising:

Sue Foffano recalled that DTO can modify the budget code on which a training will be charged: In this case, EDH does not ask for the signature of the new budget holder who is thus not informed about this commitment. We suggest the DTO to ask for a confirmation from the budget holder (phone or e-mail) while the document can remain in the “hold” state pending that confirmation.

Sue also asked about the situation concerning Web-based training. Mick Storr is presently finalising the contract with the course distributor that can offer either the product from NetG (our past Web-based course provider) or with Ziff-Davis. The individual access would be given for 3 months, and charged from 30 to 100 CHF depending on the course or set of courses. HR-TD will pre-pay ~10 kCHF and we will get a Web portal: The linking of this Web portal with CTA (for invoicing) is still to be defined. Erwin Mosselmans asked about access to Web-based Management Training: These are not presently included in the package, but it could be if there is a demand. Erwin and Sue would appreciate access to such Web-based management courses as a complement.

Erwin asked about the introduction of courses on negotiation and on interviewing skills within the 1LM (Running a CERN unit) seminars: The members of the Management Training team were absent (they had to attend a MAPS seminar in the EP division) and we will come back on that subject at our next meeting.

Josi Schinzel has a demand for LINUX System Management training in the PS division. There is an offer of external courses, but these are very expensive and she wants to know if there are similar requests at CERN (Ex in experiment, control system, etc.) to see if such courses could be organised at CERN. Francois Fluckiger does not expect any demand from IT, the other DTOs will check in their divisions.  Josi also announced that Uli Raich (PS-BD) is preparing a course on how to interface and control hardware on the Web: It is an 8 hours course that should take place before Easter and there are already ~5 candidates in the PS division, participants from other divisions are welcome.

Mauro Taborelli reminded that EST provides courses on EDMS: Those are free but, in the context of present budget constraints, one may think to charge for them. Mick Storr recalled that the practice is to provide user’s support whenever a group/division develop a tool that is widely used at CERN (Ex: Training on AIS packages). EST developed EDMS and it is thus natural that the courses remain free,  however the question raised a discussion that indicates a need to clarify the cost and invoicing policy of internal training: This is obviously a large subject and Sylvain Weisz proposed to prepare it for a coming meeting of the TEC.

2.        Individual Training Plan:

The functionality’s required to edit and access Individual Training Plans where reviewed by the WG on its meeting held January 17th (Minutes in Annex I). The WG confirmed the need to edit/retrieve the fields of information already proposed for the pilot test at the end of last year. It also retained functionality’s as: Get and display the summary of individual training when editing the training plan; Modification or deletion of entries; “Clone” button to generate similar entries (ex courses with different levels); Launching of training request from the training plan.

The plan could be edited either by the staff or its supervisor, but the workflow requires the agreement of the supervisor. The formal agreement of the DTO is not required at the planning stage, however a copy is sent to the DTO with a possibility to reject or to add comments. Data protection and access rights should be similar to those in HRT.

                Information concerning the proposed training session (course, workshop, etc), cost, dates, success ratings and a comment field could be entered as training follow-up. The tool should also contain a budget management part to present a summary of the divisional budget situation, when launching a training request, and an individual summary of training expenses.

What about this year exercise? It is clear that no standard tool will be available and any action can only be taken at a divisional level. Josi Schinzel will enforce the usage of the ITP editor that she developed in the PS division: She added a few functionality’s according to the comments received after the pilot test of last year, and she proposed to make the new version available for all DTOs. The URLs are:

-         Supervisors:         http://oraweb01/pstraining/owa/TrainingPlan.Supervisors

-         Individuals:         http://oraweb01/pstraining/owa/TrainingPlan.ITP

 Another short-term solution would be to ask supervisors to send to their DTO a copy of the training objectives as stated in the MAPS form. Many participants recalled that if we want an active participation of supervisors, we should not ask them to duplicate the entry of information with what they already have to do in the MAPS exercise. Sue Foffano reported that, at the MAPS seminar she attended the day before, the possibility of an electronic MAPS form was raised. The idea to embed the individual training plan editor in an electronic version of the MAPS form was strongly supported by the DTOs.

3.        External Training Support - Proposal for a procedure to allocate CERN support:

The WG on standardisation of the external training support provided by CERN is finalising its objectives. The presentation of Isabel Bejar-Alonso (Annex II) covered the selection criteria’s, the procedure and follow-up form, and a document classification in EDMS.

The procedure proposed reflects the present practice. A few comments concerned the respective roles of the division leader and of the DTO: It should be the DTO who proposes the level of support, based on a study of similar cases, but it is the DL who finally agree to provide this support. Francois Fluckiger added that the procedure is very close to what is done in IT, although many questions do not have a Yes/No answer (Ex. The origin of the demand for training is often not clear …). Usually, if a support is allocated, the form of the CERN contribution (balance between time, travel and fees) is finalised between the DTO and the person concerned.

Isabel also insisted on the need to provide a standard report about the support given (or not) and to trace all demands. The recommendations must be visible, thus ensuring a transparent decision making process. A reference to this report, classified in EDMS, should appear in HRT and in the Individual Training Plan.

The TEC recognised that the proposal represents a major improvement and supported its entry into force.

4.        Training in 2002 - Review and update of the training programmes:

The time approaching noon and in the absence of the Chairman and of representative of the Management training programme, there was a consensus to address the issue at the next meeting.

However, to prepare the discussion, Mick Storr recalled that the Technical training programme use to have 5 specialised TEC Working groups to cover Office Techniques, Electronics, Mechanics, Software and Safety. There is a large offer of Web-based courses on Office Techniques and the need for a WG to define a programme could be questioned. Concerning Electronics, we expect follow-up from the ELEC2002 courses and this will impact on future training provided at CERN in this field. The Mechanical Design working group met end 2001 and the participants were ready to continue. The Software and System Technology WG is dormant. Finally, a new Safety Training WG had just been created (refer to Anne Kerhoas - TEC meeting on 30/11/01) with a participation from TIS, from the DSOC and from HR-TD.

Concerning ELEC2002, Davide Vite reported that he received 149 enrolments and that there was well above 100 participants at each session. He got many demands for a similar course on analog electronics, which is widely used in the accelerator sector, and he would like to focus on those techniques in 2003.

5.        Next meeting:

The next TEC meeting will take place on February 22nd . We have to continue the discussion on the evolution of the training programmes and to review financial aspects. The next JTB would have met shortly before (on February 20th ).

 

                                                                                                                Sylvain Weisz