National Air Pollution Training Program

Overview

The National Air Pollution Training Program Collaborative was formed to review and develop training materials for the National Air Pollution Training Program (the Training Program). One component of this Training Program is to support the training of federal, state, local, and tribal (SLT) air agency staff by maintaining a library of course materials on different subjects related to air pollution management. A collaborative effort between federal, regional, and state air program staff is needed to continually review the course materials and to evaluate whether the materials are meeting the training needs of the SLT air programs.

Scope

The scope of this Collaborative is to review all Training Program course materials on a regular schedule and facilitate updates to the materials, as needed. In addition to reviewing the materials for updates, there are many courses in the Training Program curriculum that are underutilized. The Collaborative will review the courses in the curriculum and recommend removing and/or consolidating courses in order to streamline the task of managing the course materials. Finally, the Collaborative will identify courses materials that may be missing from the curriculum and develop recommendations for creating entirely new courses.

Subject Matter Teams

The task of reviewing the hundreds of courses currently in the Training Program will be managed by organizing the Collaborative around subject matter teams. Each team will be charged with reviewing and maintaining the materials for different subject matter areas. Team membership will include two co-leads. One co-lead will be from EPA, the other will be from a state agency or an MJO. The co-leads must have experience with the subject matter area and be well-connected in the national community for that area. The co-leads are responsible for prioritizing issues related to the review and maintenance of the training materials, recruiting team members, leading team member interactions, and ensuring that outputs/results from the team are communicated to the coordinating committee.

The co-leads will recruit additional team members, as needed, to support the course material review. Team members are responsible for contributing to the effort of reviewing the course materials and prioritizing improvements to the materials.

The subject matter teams will work independently and in parallel on reviewing the course materials in their subject area in pursuit of creating recommendations and priorities for how to improve the materials within their domain. A coordination committee will provide logistical support and facilitation to the subject matter teams as they move toward the goal of fully updated course materials to support the training needs of SLT air agencies.

This wiki will be used to document the progress of the work within each team.

Tasks

The subject matter teams will be responsible for accomplishing the following tasks

• Categorize all available training materials in APTI and NACT (and elsewhere, if applicable) into their subject matter area. This task may involve working with other subject matter teams to determine in which area a set of course materials is best categorized.
• Determine when each set of course materials was last updated and where those updated materials are stored (e.g., are they on APTI-Learn or with a contractor)
• Determine the level of demand for a set of course materials. When were they last used? How many trainings/year use the materials? Are there planned courses that will use the materials?
• Determine where there is redundancy across course materials and develop a plan for consolidating courses
• Identify courses that are no longer in demand, and create a plan for decommissioning the materials for the course
• Identify training needs in the subject matter area that are not being met with the current course materials. Create a list of new courses that will need to be created to meet these unmet training needs
• Estimate the amount of effort (FTEs) that will be needed from outside of the team, either as contractor support or in-kind support from the EPA/MJOs, to update/develop new course materials in order to meet the training needs of the SLTs in the subject matter area
• Hold monthly calls with the team to work through the above tasks
• Document progress on this wiki and report progress to the coordination committee

Coordination Committee

The coordination committee will provide governance and logistical support to the Collaborative subject matter teams. The coordination committee will be composed of two co-leads (EPA + MJO/state), each of the co-leads from the subject matter teams, and the MJO executive directors.

Tasks

The coordination committee will be responsible for accomplishing the following tasks

• Develop a workplan for the Collaborative
• Create and maintain logistical infrastructure for communication and information sharing
• Collect and consolidate the priorities/recommendations from the subject matter teams
• Work with EPA to secure and facilitate resources to address the recommendations for improving the training materials
• Convene regular calls with the subject matter area co-leads to track progress and work through issues in the Collaborative

Subject Matter Team Wikis

The course materials are divided into the following subject matter areas, with several courses included in each area. Click on the links below to visit the wikis of each subject matter team.

• Coordination
• Permitting
• Monitoring
• Inspections
• Source Monitoring
• Hazardous Air Pollutants
• Modeling
• Planning
• Emissions Inventories
• Special/Industrial Categories

Joint Training Committee

Steering Committee

Conference Calls

February 5 2019

Action Items

• John: update Straw Proposal, send to Zac for review; circulate to this group
• Zac: develop a conceptual model of the new JTC structure
• MaryAnn: check about EPA involvements in steering committee leadership, and EPA involvement in the steering committee calls
• Zac: try to schedule a meeting before the JTC call next week

Attendees

Zac, Adam, Kara, MaryAnn, John, Michael, Phil, Brian, Jeff, Julie

Agenda

• Steering Committee charge/scope and structure
• Communication principles
• Membership: MJOs + National Orgs + EPA, do we need a state? Or trainer rep?
• 2019 JTC workplan and role of the steering committee
  • Develop a workplan template and scope for the training material subject matter teams
  • Develop a workplan (process/timeline) for LMS upgrade
  • Engage with EPA on resources, funding, in-kind contributions, allocation
  • Coordinate on next regional surveys for setting training priorities

Call Notes Steering Committee charge/scope and structure

• JTC was formed to create a structure for collecting information on training that was national in scope, gathering information on national training needs, including courses, instructors, logistics, and making decisions on how to prioritize work to grow/improve the program
• Hourglass model envisions the JTC as the top of the hourglass, the collection point in the process, and funneling that a steering committee that works to organize the inputs, and set priorities; the steering committee then distributes these needs into actions/workgroups that draw from a broader community of expertise to accomplish the goals of improving the training program; the work of these groups are funneled back through the steering committee for review/evaluation, and back to the JTC for distribution to the SLT community through the national training program
• Steering committee would sort through this information, and prioritize; develop a coherent national training strategy, convene workgroups, and provide guidance/support to accomplish the goals of the strategy
• Create structure under the steering committee that work on actions and activities, possibly organized by functional areas, push out work products, include JTC and potentially other active/ancillary participants in these workgroups
• MaryAnn: in working with WG2, a chart was developed to visually represent this process (19 July 2017 Training Strategy straw proposal); John to resend to group for review, actual workgroups TBD, will change from the original proposal based on the current needs/direction of the community

Communication principles

• This wiki can be used for notes and distributing information/materials across the JTC
• Need to develop this area further: what are the rules of engagement?

Membership: MJOs + National Orgs + EPA

• Do we need state reps on the steering committee? Yes, to ground truth the activities of the steering committee, it would be good to include the agencies that we serve
• AAPCA and NACAA membership could serve a dual purpose, both as national and state reps
• Request that the AAPCA and NACAA training co-chairs participate as state reps; can we get all four involved? need to respect their time availability
• Are there other strong active state/local counterparts who we would consider?
  • Julie: helps to have a smaller group in a steering committee
  • John: steering committee members may need to be assigned to track what's going on in the course update workgroup, rather than have co-leads of the different workgroups on the steering committee
  • Zac: could have a structure where the workgroup co-leads get assigned to the steering committee; may create a larger number of people than we want in the steering committee
  • John: course update group needs a couple of strong leaders to organize a larger number of workgroups and heavy work load; trying to limit duplication of effort and focus the coordination activities
  • Julie: let's figure out what the subgroups are going to be, and then come back to determine representation
  • John: don't have a revised strategic plan, need to conceptually go through the plan to help solve the organizational structure; at some point we need to develop a revised strategy that we work from
  • Who else gets involved? National EPA, regional offices, contractors? Will be determined the membership by scope and scale of the workgroup efforts; only other EPA office involved in JTC is OECA, their targeted audience is EPA folks, may not need to be on the steering committee

JTC Structure

• See John's updated National Air Quality Training Program straw proposal

 Proposed new JTC committees/workgroups
 * Steering Committee
 * Communications & Needs Assessment WG
 * Instructional Services WG
 * Learning Management System (LMS) WG
 * Course Library, Updates, Development (Library) WG
   - Library Coordination WG
   - Subject Matter Teams: Intro to Air Pollution, Pollution Control, Ambient Monitoring, Emissions, Modeling, Planning, Permitting, Inspection/Enforcement, HAPs, Stationary Sources, Source Sampling/Monitoring, Mobile Sources, Climate Change

• Course Library, Updates, & Development WG
  • Do we need a single organizing group for course updates with sub groups working on topic areas; need a coordination effort above the topic area groups (see proposed structure above)
  • Coordination level in this WG will organize the subject matter teams; need to isolate the JTC steering committee from being too involved in the minutiae of the course updates
  • Coordination layer produces more structure, but it could help with organizing the broad work under 10+ subject matter areas; can we expect that people are going to be able to commit to the level of work needed to get this work done?
  • Concerns about the large scope of this WG, need to be careful about the organization, commitment, and oversight
  • As JTC is not staffed by subject matter experts, looking to this structure to engage/involve experts in reviewing and updating training materials
  • Will subject matter team co-leads really be interested in participating in discussions with other teams? Coordination committee will need to have a charge to constrain the conversations, to the extent possible, to general issues that apply across WGs
  • Coordination committee would probably be a more appropriate place for contractors and states; need to identify the charge of the coordination WG
  • Library WG will focus on identifying priorities and mechanics of course updates, not deployment
• LMS WG
  • Engage with EPA on plans for LMS updates
• Communications and Needs Assessment WG
  • Organize periodic needs assessment through the states/MJOs
• Instructional Services WG
  • Focus on e-learning, distance learning, deployment of materials
  • Rename to Training Delivery?

General Topics/Next Steps

• Organize another call before the JTC meeting next Tuesday; focus of the call will be to look at the proposed structure of the new JTC WGs and figure out how many people are needed to coordinate, think about co-leads, and set a series of charges for the co-leads to begin forming these WGs
• Who will lead the Steering Committee? Does it need to include an MJO and EPA person, or could it be just MJOs? MaryAnn will check with Adam and report back
• How important is it to work around Adam's schedule? Can we have meetings if he is not available? Who else is critical to have on the calls?

February 7 2019

Action Items

Attendees

Zac, Adam, Kara, MaryAnn, John, Doug, Phil, Brian, Jeff

Agenda

• Review previous call notes and action items
• Decide on steering committee co-leads
• Review revised JTC straw proposal and new JTC structure; discuss leadership on different workgroups/teams
• 2019 JTC workplan and role of the steering committee
  • Develop brief charges for each of the JTC workgroups (see John’s straw proposal)
• What is the message about the steering committee/JTC reorganization that we will present on the JTC call next week?

Action Items

• John: update Straw Proposal, send to Zac for review; circulate to this group; status: done, see attached
• Zac: develop a conceptual model of the new JTC structure; status: covered by John’s straw proposal table
• MaryAnn: check about EPA involvements in steering committee leadership, and EPA involvement in the steering committee calls; status: done
• Zac: try to schedule a meeting before the JTC call next week; status: done

Call Notes

Decide on steering committee co-leads

• EPA needs to get back to us on who will co-lead
• John to co-lead on the MJO side; endorsed by the group
• Zac to help with logistics

Review revised JTC straw proposal

• John: should try to streamline workgroup names to help with communications; does course library maint move to needs assessment; question about having contractors involved in the course development workgroup, may be a conflict of interest to have them involved in planning
• Adam: issue with contractors being involved in driving work that they would be contracted to do, but could help by reporting to WG; workgroups are a way for succession planning, can workgroups help to develop into new roles; training delivery: delivery of training (online, distance learning, etc) may be moved into the LMS group, look at the LMS in terms of what do we need it to do, including delivery
• John: can share responsibilities between workgroups; need to have a vision for the LMS before selecting the system; hope there will be interface with EPA along the way in the LMS developing, can we circumvent any restrictions (contractual?); will need to be interface between the delivery and LMS WGs
• Adam: looking into LMS contractual issues that came up last time, trying to avoid issues in the past; need to exercise every option so that the MJOs/states can provide input to EPA before the RFP is written
• Phil: there are active workgroups in the JTC now, e.g., WG2 is working on using the NACAA and AAPCA committees to do course updates
• Kara: WG 3 lead, wrapping up and see a lot of overlap with communications and needs assessment
• Reorganize JTC:
  • WG2 (course updates) move to course library WG
  • WG3 (instructors) to communications & assessment WG
  • WG4 (LMS) to LMS WG
  • WG5 (courses) to communications & assessment WG
  • WG6(inventory of courses) into course library WG
  • WG7 (prioritization) into course library WG

WG/team leadership

• Proposal to have EPA co-lead + state/MJO co-lead on each WG
• EPA can't commit the staff to co-lead all of the WGs; don't have the people
• Can EPA be included as an advisor, if they don't have leadership role? Find a co-lead who is a good leader, and a second co-lead who is more of a subject matter expert/practitioner
• Need to get EPA's participation, when possible, at full depth engaging and leading/active in the WGs; EPA team is building now and will need time to develop the staff to be involved
• NESCAUM and WESTAR endorse the new structure
• Is there an issue with AAPCA/NACAA being involved as co-leads in the WGs? It's a resources issue, extend the net as widely as possible, there is no issue here
• Course library WG: EPA co-lead Kristen Rhea; Phil Assmus nominated, but he needs to think about it
• Communications & Needs Assessment WG: MJO co-lead Kara Murphy,
• Training Delivery WG: Zac co-lead with?
• LMS WG: Julie co-lead? Kevin Vaughn (VA) co-lead?

JTC call message

• John to develop some bullets and send to steering committee for review
• Bottom line is to convey the objectives and structure, WG interfaces, needs for leaders and recruitment of members, talk about stimulating interest

Final thoughts

• Need further conversations on EPA resources, follow up on the meeting in November; organize this through the steering committee;
• EPA will put forward names for advisory roles, possible future co-leads