I hope that many of your reading this post were able to attend last week’s E-Courts 2012 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. This article discusses some highlights.
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
E-Courts 2012 Wrap-Up
I hope that many of your reading this post were able to attend last week’s E-Courts 2012 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. This article discusses some highlights.
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Singapore E-Courts Presentation
The Singapore Supreme Court presentation on their new Integrated Electronic Litigation System (iLES) at the E-Courts 2012 conference is available for viewing/download by clicking here.
CTC 2013 Super Saver Rate Announced
The NCSC announced a special super-saver rate for next years Court Technology Conference to be held in Baltimore, Maryland from September 17-19, 2012. The rate is $500 and is available until December 31, 2012. Click on the "Register Now" link at the conference website to sign up.
E-Courts 30 Tech Tips in 30 MInutes
The Tuesday, December 11, 2012 E-Courts Conference presentation by NCSC staff, 30 Tech Tips in 30 Minutes is available by clicking here.
Monday, 10 December 2012
Sunday, 9 December 2012
Massachusetts Courts Release E-Filing Pilot RFP
The Massachusetts Courts have released an RFP to pilot E-filing services for several of their courts. To access the RFP go to their Commonwealth's Procurement and Solicitation System Comm-Pass at http://www.comm-pass.com/ and search (see bottom of the page) for reference document number "MATCourts 2012 1"
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Court Case Management Systems 2012 Part 6: Tasks, Events, and Workflow
Monday, 3 December 2012
Leading Vendors Speak at E-Courts 2012
One of the most interesting part of the education program at every E-Courts Conference are the Vendor Bonus Sessions. We have seen groundbreaking ideas such as Chief Judge Connie Steinheimer's CASEaDia with Tybera in 2008 and Tyler's statewide electronic courts implementation approach in 2010. Here is a list of the sessions scheduled this year:
8:00 am - ImageSoft: Paving the Last Mile to a Paper-On-Demand Court
8:30 am - SUSTAIN
9:00 am - Thomson Reuters: Expand your Capabilities with Thomson Reuters
9:30 am - Tyler Technologies
10:00 am - USCourts.com: E-Filing -- The Judge's Perspective
10:30 am - CourtView: Celebrate Your Differences! (a new approach to case flow challenges)
11:00 am - Tybera: Puzzled by eFiling?: Six Things We’ve Learned from Implementing Integrated eFiling Systems.
 |
| A fire hose of ideas at E-Courts 2012 |
Friday, 30 November 2012
The Googling Juror - An Update
Our good friend (and CTC-2011 speaker) New Zealand Judge David Harvey has updated his work on jurors and the Internet.
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
State of Washington Issues Appellate Court RFP
The Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is soliciting Proposals from qualified Vendors to acquire a commercial off-the-shelf Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) and the services required to implement the ECMS, validate it, and deploy the ECMS in the Washington State Supreme Court and three (3) Washington State Court of Appeals Divisions.
One can register and also obtain a copy of the RFP at: www.courts.wa.gov/procure
Saturday, 24 November 2012
eLearning Strategy
I spend a fair amount of my consulting time working with large
organizations to help define how they will apply technology to
particular business / performance / learning needs. This is either in
terms of specific needs, e.g., improve customer satisfaction, or as part
of an overall eLearning strategy.
I've spent several hours this morning trying to find good resources on eLearning Strategy development and particularly looking for examples to use in this post. I've really been striking out. I'm hoping that people will help out.
Update Nov. 2010 - I just did a search for eLearning Strategy articles and through eLearning Learning found a bunch more around eLearning Strategies, Learning Strategies that resulted in Top 35 Articles on eLearning Strategy.
Most of the time I'm working with a centralized technology groups within Learning and Development that acts as a services arm to corporate L&D and to distributed L&D that is spread throughout the organization. I wish I had a good name for these groups, but they are called something different in most organizations. For the purpose of this post, I'll call it the L&D Technology Group.
It's interesting working closely with L&D Technology Groups because you are a key influencer, but you don't really decide much about the performance and learning strategies. Rather, you are very similar to a services company. You get requests for help building particular kinds of solutions. You determine business requirements around that solution and get to influence where it goes. But ultimately, the internal customer and likely someone who is in another department within L&D who is responsible for learning design (ID) ultimately decides on the approach that will be taken.
Another interesting aspect for the L&D Technology Group is that you really don't know what your next client may ask you to do. So, you have to be prepared for a wide variety of different kinds of requirements and be ready to service them. You can't afford to be constantly saying, "We can't help you with that." At the same time, you can't over-engineer because it costs too much to prepare for every last contingency.
This is the heart of the challenge in defining eLearning Strategy:
predicting future needs,
planning to effectively and efficiently service those needs.
Predicting Needs
The starting point for an eLearning Strategy is predicting needs. This is very hard. Clearly, you are going to go around the organization to various business owners, partners such as IT, KM, Corporate Library, etc., and to your distributed L&D organization to understand what you can about the kinds of requirements they will have in the future. Of course, you can't say - "What requirements will you have for me in the future?" Few of your internal customers or partners will be able to answer that question in a way that really helps you.
Instead, the eLearning Strategy discussion is a learning, teaching and evangelist discussion. You start the conversation by understanding what their real business, performance, talent and learning challenges are. And then you shift from those challenges to the myriad of different kinds of solutions that might be part of solutions. You have to walk people through different tools and learning methods. Show potential customers within the organization what they are and how they can be applied. Then collaborate around where and how they might fit with the organizations needs.
This conversations can result in some really great outcomes. But most often, it's quite a mess. You will hear about many different kinds of possible future needs. Some wish list kinds of things. Often you have to talk your internal customer out of something that's pretty crazy. "Sure that 3D telepresence stuff if pretty cool. I bet we could get similar outcomes by using X. It wouldn't be quite as cool, but is probably much more cost effective."
Still in my experience this is messy stuff and you try your best to capture what it means for you in terms of requirements.
I would love to hear how people do this and if they have good ways of capturing this mess of requirements.
Planning Services
From this messy set of requirements, you are really looking at a strategy where you define the set of services you will deliver to the rest of the organization. This includes:
Learning Method Support
Tools / Technologies
Process / People / Vendors
You need to be the one who is aware of what's happening generally with technology in the organization. You have to be a really good partner with IT. You are going to be learning's liaison to IT.
You likely are also a liaison to vendors. As parts of the organization have variable needs for technology solutions, part of the strategy is to be able to quickly and effectively engage with vendors to address particular needs.
Technology steward – you likely can't say to the rest of the organization, "Don't use these tools." But you can say, "We know this set of tools works. If you use this other tool, we won't be able to support you as well."
Packaging Your eLearning Strategy
In most cases, if you are going after significant dollars, a key aspect of your eLearning Strategy will be how you present it. Most often this includes some kind of vision for what you are looking to provide. It will summarize at a high level the requirements you are hearing and then will talk about what this means in terms of your Learning Strategies and then how the technologies fit into this.
Most of the time, it's best not to focus too much on all the different individual types of solutions you are prepared to deliver, but rather on the net effects. Still almost every eLearning Strategy will contain something like the Learning Methods from Reuters:
reuters-learning-methods
This is broader than the technology group, but there are implications for the technology group. You can also see that there are talent elements in this list.
It will also contain a list of major technology or related initiatives along a timeline:
image
I did a bit of searching looking for examples of corporate/workplace eLearning Strategy presentation decks. I didn't find a lot. It would be really interesting to see what people produce around these things. Please point me to them!
Bigger eLearning Strategy Questions
Focus?
See Learning Performance Business Talent Focus. This question of focus and scope has a major impact on the strategy.
What's your role relative to Talent Strategies? Are you involved in Selection, Onboarding, Reviews, Development?
What's your role relative to providing business and performance focused initiatives? Are you on the front lines of improving customer satisfaction? Do you get in and analyze aspects of performance relative to that and provide Data Driven performance solutions? Or are you going to be brought in to provide training?
Informal learning?
Are you focused on and responsible for informal learning solutions? What responsibility do you have after the learning event?
Providing a set of tools (wikis, blogs, discussion groups, etc.) that can be used as part of informal learning support does not mean that you are really supporting informal learning in the organization. There's a lot more to it than that. And part of your strategy should be to be prepared to help your internal customers with those aspects.
Others
Off-the-Shelf / External Content?What's your responsibility for finding, vetting, facilitating the acquisition of external content sources, e.g., Skillsoft, Books 24x7, Safari, etc.
Content management, re-use
Portal and portal integration
Reporting/dashboards
What are some of the other big eLearning Strategy questions?
Resources
Bersin provides a great high-level list of issues to consider in their Modernize Corporate Training: The Enterprise Learning Framework. It is good to raise possible areas to consider.
bersin-framework-detailed
Also worth a peek is: The eLearning Guild : Guild eBooks: Handbook of e-Learning Strategy
What other resources are there on this topic? What would help me think through what I might be missing in my strategy? What would help me create a presentation to executives with our eLearning Strategy?
I've spent several hours this morning trying to find good resources on eLearning Strategy development and particularly looking for examples to use in this post. I've really been striking out. I'm hoping that people will help out.
Update Nov. 2010 - I just did a search for eLearning Strategy articles and through eLearning Learning found a bunch more around eLearning Strategies, Learning Strategies that resulted in Top 35 Articles on eLearning Strategy.
Most of the time I'm working with a centralized technology groups within Learning and Development that acts as a services arm to corporate L&D and to distributed L&D that is spread throughout the organization. I wish I had a good name for these groups, but they are called something different in most organizations. For the purpose of this post, I'll call it the L&D Technology Group.
It's interesting working closely with L&D Technology Groups because you are a key influencer, but you don't really decide much about the performance and learning strategies. Rather, you are very similar to a services company. You get requests for help building particular kinds of solutions. You determine business requirements around that solution and get to influence where it goes. But ultimately, the internal customer and likely someone who is in another department within L&D who is responsible for learning design (ID) ultimately decides on the approach that will be taken.
Another interesting aspect for the L&D Technology Group is that you really don't know what your next client may ask you to do. So, you have to be prepared for a wide variety of different kinds of requirements and be ready to service them. You can't afford to be constantly saying, "We can't help you with that." At the same time, you can't over-engineer because it costs too much to prepare for every last contingency.
This is the heart of the challenge in defining eLearning Strategy:
predicting future needs,
planning to effectively and efficiently service those needs.
Predicting Needs
The starting point for an eLearning Strategy is predicting needs. This is very hard. Clearly, you are going to go around the organization to various business owners, partners such as IT, KM, Corporate Library, etc., and to your distributed L&D organization to understand what you can about the kinds of requirements they will have in the future. Of course, you can't say - "What requirements will you have for me in the future?" Few of your internal customers or partners will be able to answer that question in a way that really helps you.
Instead, the eLearning Strategy discussion is a learning, teaching and evangelist discussion. You start the conversation by understanding what their real business, performance, talent and learning challenges are. And then you shift from those challenges to the myriad of different kinds of solutions that might be part of solutions. You have to walk people through different tools and learning methods. Show potential customers within the organization what they are and how they can be applied. Then collaborate around where and how they might fit with the organizations needs.
This conversations can result in some really great outcomes. But most often, it's quite a mess. You will hear about many different kinds of possible future needs. Some wish list kinds of things. Often you have to talk your internal customer out of something that's pretty crazy. "Sure that 3D telepresence stuff if pretty cool. I bet we could get similar outcomes by using X. It wouldn't be quite as cool, but is probably much more cost effective."
Still in my experience this is messy stuff and you try your best to capture what it means for you in terms of requirements.
I would love to hear how people do this and if they have good ways of capturing this mess of requirements.
Planning Services
From this messy set of requirements, you are really looking at a strategy where you define the set of services you will deliver to the rest of the organization. This includes:
Learning Method Support
Tools / Technologies
Process / People / Vendors
You need to be the one who is aware of what's happening generally with technology in the organization. You have to be a really good partner with IT. You are going to be learning's liaison to IT.
You likely are also a liaison to vendors. As parts of the organization have variable needs for technology solutions, part of the strategy is to be able to quickly and effectively engage with vendors to address particular needs.
Technology steward – you likely can't say to the rest of the organization, "Don't use these tools." But you can say, "We know this set of tools works. If you use this other tool, we won't be able to support you as well."
Packaging Your eLearning Strategy
In most cases, if you are going after significant dollars, a key aspect of your eLearning Strategy will be how you present it. Most often this includes some kind of vision for what you are looking to provide. It will summarize at a high level the requirements you are hearing and then will talk about what this means in terms of your Learning Strategies and then how the technologies fit into this.
Most of the time, it's best not to focus too much on all the different individual types of solutions you are prepared to deliver, but rather on the net effects. Still almost every eLearning Strategy will contain something like the Learning Methods from Reuters:
reuters-learning-methods
This is broader than the technology group, but there are implications for the technology group. You can also see that there are talent elements in this list.
It will also contain a list of major technology or related initiatives along a timeline:
image
I did a bit of searching looking for examples of corporate/workplace eLearning Strategy presentation decks. I didn't find a lot. It would be really interesting to see what people produce around these things. Please point me to them!
Bigger eLearning Strategy Questions
Focus?
See Learning Performance Business Talent Focus. This question of focus and scope has a major impact on the strategy.
What's your role relative to Talent Strategies? Are you involved in Selection, Onboarding, Reviews, Development?
What's your role relative to providing business and performance focused initiatives? Are you on the front lines of improving customer satisfaction? Do you get in and analyze aspects of performance relative to that and provide Data Driven performance solutions? Or are you going to be brought in to provide training?
Informal learning?
Are you focused on and responsible for informal learning solutions? What responsibility do you have after the learning event?
Providing a set of tools (wikis, blogs, discussion groups, etc.) that can be used as part of informal learning support does not mean that you are really supporting informal learning in the organization. There's a lot more to it than that. And part of your strategy should be to be prepared to help your internal customers with those aspects.
Others
Off-the-Shelf / External Content?What's your responsibility for finding, vetting, facilitating the acquisition of external content sources, e.g., Skillsoft, Books 24x7, Safari, etc.
Content management, re-use
Portal and portal integration
Reporting/dashboards
What are some of the other big eLearning Strategy questions?
Resources
Bersin provides a great high-level list of issues to consider in their Modernize Corporate Training: The Enterprise Learning Framework. It is good to raise possible areas to consider.
bersin-framework-detailed
Also worth a peek is: The eLearning Guild : Guild eBooks: Handbook of e-Learning Strategy
What other resources are there on this topic? What would help me think through what I might be missing in my strategy? What would help me create a presentation to executives with our eLearning Strategy?
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Fresno California Seeks CMS
The Superior Court of California, County of Fresno, is seeking one replacement case management system for two legacy case management systems – Banner and CCMS V2 - implementing in stages, one CMS for all case types.
LegalXML ECF 4.01 Approved as Committee Specification - Updated 12/9/12
We learned today that the LegalXML ECF committee has voted to approve the 4.01 draft and has forwarded it as a candidate OASIS specification. Version 4.01 is a maintenance release that addresses minor schema and definition issues.
To view the specification click here.
Saturday, 17 November 2012
ePorfolios Blogs and Audience Response Systems at Back to School Night
I must say that many back-to-school nights are a bit painful. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it's an evening where you go to the school (without your children) and the teachers tell you a little bit about how they will approach the year. This year, I attended three different back-to-school nights for my three children (elementary, middle school and high school).
Most teachers hand a sheet with all the information they plan to present (which is good because there are often lots of links and other helpful information). And then they proceed to walk through it. I'm sure most of you can relate. You are sitting there while the teacher reads what's on the sheet to you. You could have got the sheet delivered to you and then just visit the teacher another time. Of course, I'm not exactly the best audience and there's no Session Hopping available at back-to-school.
I believe that many teachers will tell you that it's equally painful going through from their side. My wife used to dread both back to school and open house nights. Not sure how my mother felt (a school teacher for 35 years). I should really have asked her before I posted this. But my guess is that she didn't really like it that much either. The nice thing about being a professor is that you never saw parents except on rare visits (shake their hand, exchange pleasantries) and at graduation. You never had to do a presentation to them.
So while I was really dreading having to do three different back-to-school nights, I must say there were two very pleasant surprises. And, just in case any of the other teachers who have my children in their class this year read this, I must say this whole year was an exceptionally good back to school night. Still there were two standouts.
ePortfolios and Blogs
My oldest daughter, a freshman in high school, has a fantastic teacher, Ms. Gerber, for Honors English. Ms. Gerber has the class creating ePorfolios and Blogging as teaching tools! I honestly almost fell out of my chair when she casually mentioned this. And I was struck by the stares of the other parents who clearly had no idea what she was saying.
Now I know that many of my fellow bloggers who come from education will be saying "no duh, Tony" this is happening all over the place. But it's a bit different when you see it really being applied.
image
As an example, the students watched the courtroom drama 12 Angry Men. Ms. Gerber asked the students to post comments in the class blog: Assignment Two. Certainly, seeing what the other students said in their responses is a great thing. There wasn't much interaction among the students as in Assignment One. But it was still good to see answers. And it was funny to see my daughter say:
I used to have a feeling I would be a good lawyer, because I have a lot of arguments with my dad, but now I'm not so sure. If that's what it's like in a courtroom, I wouldn't last very long!
Ms. Gerber also has started the students on a journey of creating an ePorfolio using Google Sites. They aren't much to look at yet, but having recently run across a few examples of ePortfolios that students have pulled together across several years – I'm sure that it's a great idea to have them starting on one now.
image
I'm quite curious what recommendations people have around how to effectively create an ePortfolio that will help you get into college. Currently, my daughter's portfolio is oriented around Years and Subjects. That doesn't seem right to me, but maybe it doesn't matter at this point. Any pointers?
Audience Response System
The other pleasant surprise was Mr. Luke Olesiuk, at the middle school. He teaches math and went through all of the normal stuff that all the teachers do. However, he made it quite enjoyable because he used an audience response system in the classroom and presented most everything that way. As we walked in, he provided each parent a clicker. It's from TurningPoint Systems – see it below:
image
Then he spent what I have to believe was a fair bit of time designing his presentation. Instead of saying, my goals for the year are X, Y, and Z. He would put a question on the projector that said - "My goals for the year are all of the following except one of these …" and he would list X, Y and Z and at least one funny response. I was surprised how effectively it kept everyone engaged. Most parent intentionally would get wrong answers (at least I hope), but it gave him opportunity to talk through why those were the goals or whatever.
Truly he turned something mundane into something fun. And he ended exactly on time (used a timer in his hand to track). Clearly he spent time designing this out, but the result was great. It made me think that with the advent of audience response via web solutions, this is going to make in-person presentations a lot more interesting in the future. Quite topical given: Narrowing Gap between Face-to-Face and Online Presentations and New Presenter and Learner Skills and Methods.
The only drag was the following note that we received:
Parents - I'm still missing Clicker # C14 from Back-To-School night last night...if you accidentally borrowed it after the presentation yesterday, please send it back with your student on Monday. Thank you!
Amazing that he doesn't lose them with kids, but does with parents.
Maybe if Turning Point Systems sees this post they can send him a new one. :)
Most teachers hand a sheet with all the information they plan to present (which is good because there are often lots of links and other helpful information). And then they proceed to walk through it. I'm sure most of you can relate. You are sitting there while the teacher reads what's on the sheet to you. You could have got the sheet delivered to you and then just visit the teacher another time. Of course, I'm not exactly the best audience and there's no Session Hopping available at back-to-school.
I believe that many teachers will tell you that it's equally painful going through from their side. My wife used to dread both back to school and open house nights. Not sure how my mother felt (a school teacher for 35 years). I should really have asked her before I posted this. But my guess is that she didn't really like it that much either. The nice thing about being a professor is that you never saw parents except on rare visits (shake their hand, exchange pleasantries) and at graduation. You never had to do a presentation to them.
So while I was really dreading having to do three different back-to-school nights, I must say there were two very pleasant surprises. And, just in case any of the other teachers who have my children in their class this year read this, I must say this whole year was an exceptionally good back to school night. Still there were two standouts.
ePortfolios and Blogs
My oldest daughter, a freshman in high school, has a fantastic teacher, Ms. Gerber, for Honors English. Ms. Gerber has the class creating ePorfolios and Blogging as teaching tools! I honestly almost fell out of my chair when she casually mentioned this. And I was struck by the stares of the other parents who clearly had no idea what she was saying.
Now I know that many of my fellow bloggers who come from education will be saying "no duh, Tony" this is happening all over the place. But it's a bit different when you see it really being applied.
image
As an example, the students watched the courtroom drama 12 Angry Men. Ms. Gerber asked the students to post comments in the class blog: Assignment Two. Certainly, seeing what the other students said in their responses is a great thing. There wasn't much interaction among the students as in Assignment One. But it was still good to see answers. And it was funny to see my daughter say:
I used to have a feeling I would be a good lawyer, because I have a lot of arguments with my dad, but now I'm not so sure. If that's what it's like in a courtroom, I wouldn't last very long!
Ms. Gerber also has started the students on a journey of creating an ePorfolio using Google Sites. They aren't much to look at yet, but having recently run across a few examples of ePortfolios that students have pulled together across several years – I'm sure that it's a great idea to have them starting on one now.
image
I'm quite curious what recommendations people have around how to effectively create an ePortfolio that will help you get into college. Currently, my daughter's portfolio is oriented around Years and Subjects. That doesn't seem right to me, but maybe it doesn't matter at this point. Any pointers?
Audience Response System
The other pleasant surprise was Mr. Luke Olesiuk, at the middle school. He teaches math and went through all of the normal stuff that all the teachers do. However, he made it quite enjoyable because he used an audience response system in the classroom and presented most everything that way. As we walked in, he provided each parent a clicker. It's from TurningPoint Systems – see it below:
image
Then he spent what I have to believe was a fair bit of time designing his presentation. Instead of saying, my goals for the year are X, Y, and Z. He would put a question on the projector that said - "My goals for the year are all of the following except one of these …" and he would list X, Y and Z and at least one funny response. I was surprised how effectively it kept everyone engaged. Most parent intentionally would get wrong answers (at least I hope), but it gave him opportunity to talk through why those were the goals or whatever.
Truly he turned something mundane into something fun. And he ended exactly on time (used a timer in his hand to track). Clearly he spent time designing this out, but the result was great. It made me think that with the advent of audience response via web solutions, this is going to make in-person presentations a lot more interesting in the future. Quite topical given: Narrowing Gap between Face-to-Face and Online Presentations and New Presenter and Learner Skills and Methods.
The only drag was the following note that we received:
Parents - I'm still missing Clicker # C14 from Back-To-School night last night...if you accidentally borrowed it after the presentation yesterday, please send it back with your student on Monday. Thank you!
Amazing that he doesn't lose them with kids, but does with parents.
Maybe if Turning Point Systems sees this post they can send him a new one. :)
Friday, 16 November 2012
This and That in Court Technology – November, 2012
More news from the web-o-sphere on Court Tech.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
CMS Data Conversion and Archiving with XML
There is an attractive alternative to converting data when replacing, updating, or archiving your court case management system.
Read more »
Saturday, 10 November 2012
Brandon Hall Free Webinars Added
Just a quick note to announce that the crew at Brandon Hall have joined up as eLearning Calendar Curators. Janet Clarey just announced it today on Workplace Learning Today. The bottom line to this is that we will all be working together to create a calendar of Free Online eLearning Events.
If you want to subscribe to be notified of upcoming events, go subscribe to the Best of from eLearning Learning.
If you want to help by becoming a calendar curator, please Leave A Comment.
If you see events that we are missing, please Leave A Comment.
If you want to subscribe to be notified of upcoming events, go subscribe to the Best of from eLearning Learning.
If you want to help by becoming a calendar curator, please Leave A Comment.
If you see events that we are missing, please Leave A Comment.
Monday, 5 November 2012
Court Case Management Systems 2012 Part 5: System Configurability and Adaptability
Friday, 2 November 2012
Keeping Authentication Simple
Courts have concerns about the use of their published electronic information. The following excellent article recommends some solutions.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Sacramento Superior Court Announces Statewide CMS RFP
Sacramento Superior Court seeks to enter into a Master Software license and Services Agreement with suitable vendors for an enterprise case management solution capable of replacing the antiquated CMS's for the Superior Courts of California.
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Illinois Supreme Court Approves Statewide E-Filing Standards
By Illinois Supreme Court press release, October 24, 2012
Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride and the Illinois Supreme Court announced new statewide standards and new and amended Supreme Court rules that will allow all courts in Illinois to begin electronic filing of court documents in civil cases.
Saturday, 27 October 2012
Digital Asset Management – LCMS, ECM and SharePoint
Interesting post by Vic Uzumeri where he responds to a question that I asked him. I'm going to also address the broader concept he raises about Work Networking. But in this post, I want to consider:
We developed CoSolvent because we couldn’t find a reliable way move rich media (typically video) to and from the individual subject matter experts (SMEs) and managers among our various corporate training clients.
Living near Hollywood and the many different production companies and studios, I've talked to and worked on several projects that were digital asset management systems. This includes working on the software the runs sites like Nasa Images. So, I'm pretty familiar with the issues of digital asset management (DAM) and having to move large and manage large media assets.
Vic provides the following list of reasons that companies use his digital asset management software for eLearning projects:
The companies that employ our target audience strongly discourage employees from putting company assets on ‘public’ sites.
Workers often didn’t want their co-workers to see their materials until they had a chance to approve them.
People often work with collections of related, but dissimilar materials.
We wanted to accommodate all types of video as input.
What's interesting is that my impression is that most corporations don't have that much of an issue with digital asset management and that these concerns are there, but not enough of an issue for people to jump on these solutions. Am I wrong on that?
Is there a need and desire for software or software as a service that provides digital asset management as part of eLearning projects? Does the LCMS already provide this for you? Does your enterprise content management solution provide this for you?
I do know of a couple of large corporations that do a good job of cataloging and organizing the digital assets – images, digital videos, documents. They have hundreds of hours of courses. And there developers are geographically dispersed. Even still, most of these companies use relatively simple organization methods and the issues are getting developers to contribute assets, catalog them and then provide effective search and browsing. In one case, they use a fairly rich enterprise content management (ECM) solution (a corporate-wide solution).
By the way, my impression is also that the digital asset management that comes with LCMS solutions is pretty limited. Theoretically, this provides this same ability to organize digital assets so they can be shared by developers. In practice, once things scale up, it becomes pretty hard to keep it organized and effectively find the assets you want.
I have heard a common lament that large files cause a little bit of an issue in that many IT departments limit network storage because of the need to provide robust back-ups and retention. But using a storage as a service model with these large assets outside the firewall doesn't make much sense in that there's also often a restriction on network traffic.
The workflow and access restrictions are there. You don't want people seeing your stuff that's still in development. There's some course content that should not be accessible outside a particular group. Again, most of this gets handled by standard network folders and permission structures.
Oh, and let's not forget that a lot of companies are Using Sharepoint for the exact purpose of organizing the efforts and assets of learning development.
Maybe it's because I have not run into these situations, but my impression is that there's not that much need for digital asset management solutions around eLearning and that you are probably already served by your LCMS, enterprise content management, or SharePoint if it is an issue.
Please share your experience and knowledge around this.
We developed CoSolvent because we couldn’t find a reliable way move rich media (typically video) to and from the individual subject matter experts (SMEs) and managers among our various corporate training clients.
Living near Hollywood and the many different production companies and studios, I've talked to and worked on several projects that were digital asset management systems. This includes working on the software the runs sites like Nasa Images. So, I'm pretty familiar with the issues of digital asset management (DAM) and having to move large and manage large media assets.
Vic provides the following list of reasons that companies use his digital asset management software for eLearning projects:
The companies that employ our target audience strongly discourage employees from putting company assets on ‘public’ sites.
Workers often didn’t want their co-workers to see their materials until they had a chance to approve them.
People often work with collections of related, but dissimilar materials.
We wanted to accommodate all types of video as input.
What's interesting is that my impression is that most corporations don't have that much of an issue with digital asset management and that these concerns are there, but not enough of an issue for people to jump on these solutions. Am I wrong on that?
Is there a need and desire for software or software as a service that provides digital asset management as part of eLearning projects? Does the LCMS already provide this for you? Does your enterprise content management solution provide this for you?
I do know of a couple of large corporations that do a good job of cataloging and organizing the digital assets – images, digital videos, documents. They have hundreds of hours of courses. And there developers are geographically dispersed. Even still, most of these companies use relatively simple organization methods and the issues are getting developers to contribute assets, catalog them and then provide effective search and browsing. In one case, they use a fairly rich enterprise content management (ECM) solution (a corporate-wide solution).
By the way, my impression is also that the digital asset management that comes with LCMS solutions is pretty limited. Theoretically, this provides this same ability to organize digital assets so they can be shared by developers. In practice, once things scale up, it becomes pretty hard to keep it organized and effectively find the assets you want.
I have heard a common lament that large files cause a little bit of an issue in that many IT departments limit network storage because of the need to provide robust back-ups and retention. But using a storage as a service model with these large assets outside the firewall doesn't make much sense in that there's also often a restriction on network traffic.
The workflow and access restrictions are there. You don't want people seeing your stuff that's still in development. There's some course content that should not be accessible outside a particular group. Again, most of this gets handled by standard network folders and permission structures.
Oh, and let's not forget that a lot of companies are Using Sharepoint for the exact purpose of organizing the efforts and assets of learning development.
Maybe it's because I have not run into these situations, but my impression is that there's not that much need for digital asset management solutions around eLearning and that you are probably already served by your LCMS, enterprise content management, or SharePoint if it is an issue.
Please share your experience and knowledge around this.
Friday, 26 October 2012
E-Filing and Online Dispute Resolution
The Canadian Forum on Court Technology generated some ideas on how E-Filing and ODR could potentially complement one another.Saturday, 20 October 2012
ePorfolios Blogs and Audience Response Systems at Back to School Night
I must say that many back-to-school nights are a bit painful. For
those of you who are not familiar with this, it's an evening where you
go to the school (without your children) and the teachers tell you a
little bit about how they will approach the year. This year, I attended
three different back-to-school nights for my three children
(elementary, middle school and high school).
Most teachers hand a sheet with all the information they plan to present (which is good because there are often lots of links and other helpful information). And then they proceed to walk through it. I'm sure most of you can relate. You are sitting there while the teacher reads what's on the sheet to you. You could have got the sheet delivered to you and then just visit the teacher another time. Of course, I'm not exactly the best audience and there's no Session Hopping available at back-to-school.
I believe that many teachers will tell you that it's equally painful going through from their side. My wife used to dread both back to school and open house nights. Not sure how my mother felt (a school teacher for 35 years). I should really have asked her before I posted this. But my guess is that she didn't really like it that much either. The nice thing about being a professor is that you never saw parents except on rare visits (shake their hand, exchange pleasantries) and at graduation. You never had to do a presentation to them.
So while I was really dreading having to do three different back-to-school nights, I must say there were two very pleasant surprises. And, just in case any of the other teachers who have my children in their class this year read this, I must say this whole year was an exceptionally good back to school night. Still there were two standouts.
ePortfolios and Blogs
My oldest daughter, a freshman in high school, has a fantastic teacher, Ms. Gerber, for Honors English. Ms. Gerber has the class creating ePorfolios and Blogging as teaching tools! I honestly almost fell out of my chair when she casually mentioned this. And I was struck by the stares of the other parents who clearly had no idea what she was saying.
Now I know that many of my fellow bloggers who come from education will be saying "no duh, Tony" this is happening all over the place. But it's a bit different when you see it really being applied.
image
As an example, the students watched the courtroom drama 12 Angry Men. Ms. Gerber asked the students to post comments in the class blog: Assignment Two. Certainly, seeing what the other students said in their responses is a great thing. There wasn't much interaction among the students as in Assignment One. But it was still good to see answers. And it was funny to see my daughter say:
I used to have a feeling I would be a good lawyer, because I have a lot of arguments with my dad, but now I'm not so sure. If that's what it's like in a courtroom, I wouldn't last very long!
Ms. Gerber also has started the students on a journey of creating an ePorfolio using Google Sites. They aren't much to look at yet, but having recently run across a few examples of ePortfolios that students have pulled together across several years – I'm sure that it's a great idea to have them starting on one now.
image
I'm quite curious what recommendations people have around how to effectively create an ePortfolio that will help you get into college. Currently, my daughter's portfolio is oriented around Years and Subjects. That doesn't seem right to me, but maybe it doesn't matter at this point. Any pointers?
Audience Response System
The other pleasant surprise was Mr. Luke Olesiuk, at the middle school. He teaches math and went through all of the normal stuff that all the teachers do. However, he made it quite enjoyable because he used an audience response system in the classroom and presented most everything that way. As we walked in, he provided each parent a clicker. It's from TurningPoint Systems – see it below:
image
Then he spent what I have to believe was a fair bit of time designing his presentation. Instead of saying, my goals for the year are X, Y, and Z. He would put a question on the projector that said - "My goals for the year are all of the following except one of these …" and he would list X, Y and Z and at least one funny response. I was surprised how effectively it kept everyone engaged. Most parent intentionally would get wrong answers (at least I hope), but it gave him opportunity to talk through why those were the goals or whatever.
Truly he turned something mundane into something fun. And he ended exactly on time (used a timer in his hand to track). Clearly he spent time designing this out, but the result was great. It made me think that with the advent of audience response via web solutions, this is going to make in-person presentations a lot more interesting in the future. Quite topical given: Narrowing Gap between Face-to-Face and Online Presentations and New Presenter and Learner Skills and Methods.
The only drag was the following note that we received:
Parents - I'm still missing Clicker # C14 from Back-To-School night last night...if you accidentally borrowed it after the presentation yesterday, please send it back with your student on Monday. Thank you!
Amazing that he doesn't lose them with kids, but does with parents.
Maybe if Turning Point Systems sees this post they can send him a new one. :)
Most teachers hand a sheet with all the information they plan to present (which is good because there are often lots of links and other helpful information). And then they proceed to walk through it. I'm sure most of you can relate. You are sitting there while the teacher reads what's on the sheet to you. You could have got the sheet delivered to you and then just visit the teacher another time. Of course, I'm not exactly the best audience and there's no Session Hopping available at back-to-school.
I believe that many teachers will tell you that it's equally painful going through from their side. My wife used to dread both back to school and open house nights. Not sure how my mother felt (a school teacher for 35 years). I should really have asked her before I posted this. But my guess is that she didn't really like it that much either. The nice thing about being a professor is that you never saw parents except on rare visits (shake their hand, exchange pleasantries) and at graduation. You never had to do a presentation to them.
So while I was really dreading having to do three different back-to-school nights, I must say there were two very pleasant surprises. And, just in case any of the other teachers who have my children in their class this year read this, I must say this whole year was an exceptionally good back to school night. Still there were two standouts.
ePortfolios and Blogs
My oldest daughter, a freshman in high school, has a fantastic teacher, Ms. Gerber, for Honors English. Ms. Gerber has the class creating ePorfolios and Blogging as teaching tools! I honestly almost fell out of my chair when she casually mentioned this. And I was struck by the stares of the other parents who clearly had no idea what she was saying.
Now I know that many of my fellow bloggers who come from education will be saying "no duh, Tony" this is happening all over the place. But it's a bit different when you see it really being applied.
image
As an example, the students watched the courtroom drama 12 Angry Men. Ms. Gerber asked the students to post comments in the class blog: Assignment Two. Certainly, seeing what the other students said in their responses is a great thing. There wasn't much interaction among the students as in Assignment One. But it was still good to see answers. And it was funny to see my daughter say:
I used to have a feeling I would be a good lawyer, because I have a lot of arguments with my dad, but now I'm not so sure. If that's what it's like in a courtroom, I wouldn't last very long!
Ms. Gerber also has started the students on a journey of creating an ePorfolio using Google Sites. They aren't much to look at yet, but having recently run across a few examples of ePortfolios that students have pulled together across several years – I'm sure that it's a great idea to have them starting on one now.
image
I'm quite curious what recommendations people have around how to effectively create an ePortfolio that will help you get into college. Currently, my daughter's portfolio is oriented around Years and Subjects. That doesn't seem right to me, but maybe it doesn't matter at this point. Any pointers?
Audience Response System
The other pleasant surprise was Mr. Luke Olesiuk, at the middle school. He teaches math and went through all of the normal stuff that all the teachers do. However, he made it quite enjoyable because he used an audience response system in the classroom and presented most everything that way. As we walked in, he provided each parent a clicker. It's from TurningPoint Systems – see it below:
image
Then he spent what I have to believe was a fair bit of time designing his presentation. Instead of saying, my goals for the year are X, Y, and Z. He would put a question on the projector that said - "My goals for the year are all of the following except one of these …" and he would list X, Y and Z and at least one funny response. I was surprised how effectively it kept everyone engaged. Most parent intentionally would get wrong answers (at least I hope), but it gave him opportunity to talk through why those were the goals or whatever.
Truly he turned something mundane into something fun. And he ended exactly on time (used a timer in his hand to track). Clearly he spent time designing this out, but the result was great. It made me think that with the advent of audience response via web solutions, this is going to make in-person presentations a lot more interesting in the future. Quite topical given: Narrowing Gap between Face-to-Face and Online Presentations and New Presenter and Learner Skills and Methods.
The only drag was the following note that we received:
Parents - I'm still missing Clicker # C14 from Back-To-School night last night...if you accidentally borrowed it after the presentation yesterday, please send it back with your student on Monday. Thank you!
Amazing that he doesn't lose them with kids, but does with parents.
Maybe if Turning Point Systems sees this post they can send him a new one. :)
Free Learning
Harold Jarche had a great post If learning was free that raises questions that need to be continually asked by learning and development around the issues of Free.
In the Business of Learning, I compared publishing and learning. Big publishers are having problems as the cost of distribution goes towards zero and as that brings along a ton of competition from the low end. Learning as a publisher of courses, content, etc. is facing the same thing. There's a lot of other content out there.
How differentiated is the content that we produce from all of the Free Learning that's otherwise available?
Is our content really that much better?
The typical response of large publishers is that their content is better. And yes, Britannica, New York Times, etc. that have paid, professional editors, writers are better quality than alternatives for the specific content that they cover. But all major publications have limitations in that because of the cost, they have to go after large audiences and they need to stay at higher level topics. They can't afford to go into depth in niche areas because the costs would be too high for the return.
image
Harold is drawing a parallel with Advertising. When you produce advertising for massive distribution on network TV, you can afford to spend a lot of time and money to produce the ads. However, when you begin to go after small, niche audiences, then low cost production becomes important. Harold tells us:
Anybody see a parallel here with instructional systems design or curriculum development? These processes take time and money and once the investment is made, nobody wants to do it again. Web media can be created quickly and, if designed in an open manner, can change according to the needs of learners and facilitators. For instance, we developed the Work Literacy site in about a week and at no cost. It was added to and modified by the participants. Everyone was an unpaid volunteer. Total cost: zero.
What Harold is raising is that there are going to be lots of free learning that is going to compete with our the more costly paid learning that learning organizations will continue to produce. Free learning can come from groups like Work Literacy that provided a large online learning experience for free, or from LearnTrends that produces amazing content like LearnTrends 2009 for free. It also comes from all the subject matter experts both inside and outside your organization that are continually producing content.
Free Learning may not be as high a quality – although I would claim that LearnTrends and WorkLiteracy filled niches. And sure if we spend time and money to produce courseware, it will be better than the stuff created by a subject matter expert with a rapid elearning tool. And there will continue to be times when the payback for better quality content will justify the cost. But …
The reality is that focusing our attention on publishing higher quality content – being at the high-end of materials – will mean that we are Marginalized. And let's not sugar coat this.
So rather than passing out clubs, we really need to embrace Free Learning:
Pull free learning together and deliver it into the organization.
Help people find free learning that you've not yet aggregated.
Teach people new learning skills.
Leverage the actions that go along with free learning to add value back into the organization.
Embrace, facilitate, support, connect, leverage free learning.
Please help - I'm looking right now for examples of organizations using open course content (e.g., OCW, OER) as part of their internal learning. If you know of examples, please contact me.
Free Learning Resources
I took a quick look on eLearning Learning to see what it has to say around Free. It was interesting to see all the different kinds of finds there are by visiting related pages like:
Free Tools
Free Webinars
Free Resources
Free Courses
Free Courseware
And one item that comes to the top a lot is ZaidLearn's post University Learning - OCW - OER - Free - worth checking out.
In the Business of Learning, I compared publishing and learning. Big publishers are having problems as the cost of distribution goes towards zero and as that brings along a ton of competition from the low end. Learning as a publisher of courses, content, etc. is facing the same thing. There's a lot of other content out there.
How differentiated is the content that we produce from all of the Free Learning that's otherwise available?
Is our content really that much better?
The typical response of large publishers is that their content is better. And yes, Britannica, New York Times, etc. that have paid, professional editors, writers are better quality than alternatives for the specific content that they cover. But all major publications have limitations in that because of the cost, they have to go after large audiences and they need to stay at higher level topics. They can't afford to go into depth in niche areas because the costs would be too high for the return.
image
Harold is drawing a parallel with Advertising. When you produce advertising for massive distribution on network TV, you can afford to spend a lot of time and money to produce the ads. However, when you begin to go after small, niche audiences, then low cost production becomes important. Harold tells us:
Anybody see a parallel here with instructional systems design or curriculum development? These processes take time and money and once the investment is made, nobody wants to do it again. Web media can be created quickly and, if designed in an open manner, can change according to the needs of learners and facilitators. For instance, we developed the Work Literacy site in about a week and at no cost. It was added to and modified by the participants. Everyone was an unpaid volunteer. Total cost: zero.
What Harold is raising is that there are going to be lots of free learning that is going to compete with our the more costly paid learning that learning organizations will continue to produce. Free learning can come from groups like Work Literacy that provided a large online learning experience for free, or from LearnTrends that produces amazing content like LearnTrends 2009 for free. It also comes from all the subject matter experts both inside and outside your organization that are continually producing content.
Free Learning may not be as high a quality – although I would claim that LearnTrends and WorkLiteracy filled niches. And sure if we spend time and money to produce courseware, it will be better than the stuff created by a subject matter expert with a rapid elearning tool. And there will continue to be times when the payback for better quality content will justify the cost. But …
The reality is that focusing our attention on publishing higher quality content – being at the high-end of materials – will mean that we are Marginalized. And let's not sugar coat this.
So rather than passing out clubs, we really need to embrace Free Learning:
Pull free learning together and deliver it into the organization.
Help people find free learning that you've not yet aggregated.
Teach people new learning skills.
Leverage the actions that go along with free learning to add value back into the organization.
Embrace, facilitate, support, connect, leverage free learning.
Please help - I'm looking right now for examples of organizations using open course content (e.g., OCW, OER) as part of their internal learning. If you know of examples, please contact me.
Free Learning Resources
I took a quick look on eLearning Learning to see what it has to say around Free. It was interesting to see all the different kinds of finds there are by visiting related pages like:
Free Tools
Free Webinars
Free Resources
Free Courses
Free Courseware
And one item that comes to the top a lot is ZaidLearn's post University Learning - OCW - OER - Free - worth checking out.
Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank
Looking at Capital City Bank from the outside, I wouldn’t have expected to find a great example of social learning inside.
They are a solid, conservative bank. They have more than 1,100 associates spread out across Florida, Georgia and Alabama. I recently had a great conversation with Becky Barch, a performance consultant at the Bank, about her smart application of discussion forum software from ElementK.
The forum is targeted to a small group – loan/lending assistants. There are roughly 22 people in that role in at Capital City Bank. Because loans can be fairly complex and unique, there were continual questions that came up. One person had become the “defacto associate help desk”. This individual ended up fielding all of the calls.
image
Becky turned around and used a discussion forum to make the situation better. The same associate who received and handled the questions before now gets the question as a discussion item and responds in the forum. They also have enlisted another associate to help field questions. And, in fact, other lending assistants will jump in with answers as well. Because the answers are stored in the discussion forum, they can be seen by everyone and can later be searched.
Questions come up on all kinds of topics. A recent topic was “Fees for Department of Motor Vehicles.” These fees vary depending on the county and there wasn’t an obvious place to find the information. So, various people contributed links and attached PDFs with the information that was needed.
They are now using the discussion forum as part of training initiatives. As they are rolling out a new escrow initiative, they’ve had webinars that were supported by Q&A in the forum. Because lending assistants are familiar with the forum, they’ve found this to be an effective pattern.
How Did They Get There?
One of the things I’ve found from doing many presentations on social/informal/eLearning 2.0 is there will be lots of activity when I get to the challenges when using this kind of approach. I spent quite a bit of time discussing how Becky made this happen . And I should point out that Becky makes all of this seem quite simple. I had to drag most of this information out of her.
First, the Bank has a bit of experience from the very top with social media. They have an internal message board used by the CEO of the Bank called “Bill’s Blog.” Anyone can ask a question and various associates would formulate an answer post. If needed an “official” or correct answer, it would be highlighted. The idea was to use this as a tool to learn and get questions answered. It has has been successful in the Bank and certainly signals openness to using social media.
However, I think the real story here is more around Becky’s background, particularly the first course that she took at Florida State University (FSU) from Professor Jeong (an expert in discussion forums for learning). Not surprisingly given Dr. Jeong’s background, this course heavily leveraged peer discussion through discussion forums. Becky said she was wondering where the professor was in all of this for a long time. She expected more involvement. However, as the course progressed and the concepts of social learning and self-reflection as part of the learning process emerged, she saw the beauty in what Dr. Jong had done. He had set up a great environment and taught them how to engage. He provided very specific instructions and guidance, and provided plenty of support. It took a while, but Becky and the other students really came to understand that kind of learning.
So, when Becky saw this situation, it was obvious that a discussion forum could work. And, certainly the subject matter expert, she was happy the work she was doing would reach more than one person at a time. She knew that much support would be needed, as the company definitely has an e-mail and phone culture. She set up sample questions with answers to provide context and initial categories for the questions. She supported the users and the subject matter expert as they began using the system. Of course, given the culture, most of the users have the system setup so they get e-mail notifications from the discussion forum.
Over time, they are beginning to establish a culture where many associates are contributing information. Initially, another lending assistant was set up with permission to post answers to help out the subject matter expert. But that changed associates’ perspectives on the site and more associates are getting comfortable posting answers, suggestions, etc. Becky ensured a safe and positive environment to make sure that people feel comfortable asking and answering questions.
I was certainly curious about how Becky overcame the obstacle of potential risk/liability in a heavily regulated field like lending. She didn’t see it as that much of an issue. Lending assistants were already familiar with sending questions via e-mail and documenting loans. These folks were knowledgeable about issues related to fair lending. It was unlikely there would be an issue and if one arose, they would follow standard procedures that would have been executed via e-mail in the past. The system actually has an advantage in that respect since users can flag potential issues in the system. But so far, this has not been the case.
Lessons Learned and Next Steps
Becky has found other groups want to adopt this same kind of approach. She’s slowly deciding on how she will tackle these.
Becky discovered how important it is to know the boundaries of the community If you want this to be a safe environment, you have to know who is in or out. Who has access to the information? They’ve had some challenges with more people have wanting access to the forums as they see value in the information. But, does that violate the safety of being able to ask anything in a safe environment?
We also had an interesting discussion about what happens when management asks for access. Obviously, you can’t say no. But how do you provide access without violating the spirit of the group? This hasn’t been a problem at the Bank, but it is an interesting issue. Becky suggested providing temporary access to those who would not normally have access so they can see how the tool is being used without violating the user’s trust.
Becky said forwarding the future she will have more up-front discussion about who will and won’t have access. In particular, asking the question, “Who else do you see who would benefit from this?”
Final Thought
One thing that really struck me about my conversations with Becky is how obvious she made all of this sound. But it was only obvious after her experience at FSU. It was obvious to her when she saw what was currently happening. It was obvious how she could support the lending assistants with detailed help / guidance. It’s obvious to Becky.
I’m pretty sure it would not have been obvious to a lot of other people. And I’m not quite sure how to make this obvious, but I’m thinking about it. Becky’s suggestion is that everyone should participate in a 100% online course with a discussion forum and someone there who knows how to moderate it.
Becky – thanks for a great conversation and sharing with me/us!
Do you have a case study for me?
I'm hoping to do a lot of case studies over the next 6-12 months looking at interesting examples of the use of social/informal/web 2.0 learning. If you have an example, please drop me an email: akarrer@techempower.com.
They are a solid, conservative bank. They have more than 1,100 associates spread out across Florida, Georgia and Alabama. I recently had a great conversation with Becky Barch, a performance consultant at the Bank, about her smart application of discussion forum software from ElementK.
The forum is targeted to a small group – loan/lending assistants. There are roughly 22 people in that role in at Capital City Bank. Because loans can be fairly complex and unique, there were continual questions that came up. One person had become the “defacto associate help desk”. This individual ended up fielding all of the calls.
image
Becky turned around and used a discussion forum to make the situation better. The same associate who received and handled the questions before now gets the question as a discussion item and responds in the forum. They also have enlisted another associate to help field questions. And, in fact, other lending assistants will jump in with answers as well. Because the answers are stored in the discussion forum, they can be seen by everyone and can later be searched.
Questions come up on all kinds of topics. A recent topic was “Fees for Department of Motor Vehicles.” These fees vary depending on the county and there wasn’t an obvious place to find the information. So, various people contributed links and attached PDFs with the information that was needed.
They are now using the discussion forum as part of training initiatives. As they are rolling out a new escrow initiative, they’ve had webinars that were supported by Q&A in the forum. Because lending assistants are familiar with the forum, they’ve found this to be an effective pattern.
How Did They Get There?
One of the things I’ve found from doing many presentations on social/informal/eLearning 2.0 is there will be lots of activity when I get to the challenges when using this kind of approach. I spent quite a bit of time discussing how Becky made this happen . And I should point out that Becky makes all of this seem quite simple. I had to drag most of this information out of her.
First, the Bank has a bit of experience from the very top with social media. They have an internal message board used by the CEO of the Bank called “Bill’s Blog.” Anyone can ask a question and various associates would formulate an answer post. If needed an “official” or correct answer, it would be highlighted. The idea was to use this as a tool to learn and get questions answered. It has has been successful in the Bank and certainly signals openness to using social media.
However, I think the real story here is more around Becky’s background, particularly the first course that she took at Florida State University (FSU) from Professor Jeong (an expert in discussion forums for learning). Not surprisingly given Dr. Jeong’s background, this course heavily leveraged peer discussion through discussion forums. Becky said she was wondering where the professor was in all of this for a long time. She expected more involvement. However, as the course progressed and the concepts of social learning and self-reflection as part of the learning process emerged, she saw the beauty in what Dr. Jong had done. He had set up a great environment and taught them how to engage. He provided very specific instructions and guidance, and provided plenty of support. It took a while, but Becky and the other students really came to understand that kind of learning.
So, when Becky saw this situation, it was obvious that a discussion forum could work. And, certainly the subject matter expert, she was happy the work she was doing would reach more than one person at a time. She knew that much support would be needed, as the company definitely has an e-mail and phone culture. She set up sample questions with answers to provide context and initial categories for the questions. She supported the users and the subject matter expert as they began using the system. Of course, given the culture, most of the users have the system setup so they get e-mail notifications from the discussion forum.
Over time, they are beginning to establish a culture where many associates are contributing information. Initially, another lending assistant was set up with permission to post answers to help out the subject matter expert. But that changed associates’ perspectives on the site and more associates are getting comfortable posting answers, suggestions, etc. Becky ensured a safe and positive environment to make sure that people feel comfortable asking and answering questions.
I was certainly curious about how Becky overcame the obstacle of potential risk/liability in a heavily regulated field like lending. She didn’t see it as that much of an issue. Lending assistants were already familiar with sending questions via e-mail and documenting loans. These folks were knowledgeable about issues related to fair lending. It was unlikely there would be an issue and if one arose, they would follow standard procedures that would have been executed via e-mail in the past. The system actually has an advantage in that respect since users can flag potential issues in the system. But so far, this has not been the case.
Lessons Learned and Next Steps
Becky has found other groups want to adopt this same kind of approach. She’s slowly deciding on how she will tackle these.
Becky discovered how important it is to know the boundaries of the community If you want this to be a safe environment, you have to know who is in or out. Who has access to the information? They’ve had some challenges with more people have wanting access to the forums as they see value in the information. But, does that violate the safety of being able to ask anything in a safe environment?
We also had an interesting discussion about what happens when management asks for access. Obviously, you can’t say no. But how do you provide access without violating the spirit of the group? This hasn’t been a problem at the Bank, but it is an interesting issue. Becky suggested providing temporary access to those who would not normally have access so they can see how the tool is being used without violating the user’s trust.
Becky said forwarding the future she will have more up-front discussion about who will and won’t have access. In particular, asking the question, “Who else do you see who would benefit from this?”
Final Thought
One thing that really struck me about my conversations with Becky is how obvious she made all of this sound. But it was only obvious after her experience at FSU. It was obvious to her when she saw what was currently happening. It was obvious how she could support the lending assistants with detailed help / guidance. It’s obvious to Becky.
I’m pretty sure it would not have been obvious to a lot of other people. And I’m not quite sure how to make this obvious, but I’m thinking about it. Becky’s suggestion is that everyone should participate in a 100% online course with a discussion forum and someone there who knows how to moderate it.
Becky – thanks for a great conversation and sharing with me/us!
Do you have a case study for me?
I'm hoping to do a lot of case studies over the next 6-12 months looking at interesting examples of the use of social/informal/web 2.0 learning. If you have an example, please drop me an email: akarrer@techempower.com.
Contest - Win a Free Copy of Digital Habitats via LearnTrends 2009
I've known Nancy White and John Smith for quite a while. Nancy has been my go to person for all things Communities and Networks and worked with me to create Communities and Networks Connection. So naturally when Nancy and John (with Etienne Wenger) put out the book Digital Habitats; Stewarding Technology for Communities I was very excited. And I've got to say that I agree with the recent comment in a post I saw:
Whenever I get stuck I’ll contact my friends at CPSquare: Etienne, Nancy and John. And while I know they all have a deep understanding of CoPs I tend to ask Etienne the theory questions, Nancy the technology questions and John the group dynamics questions. Together they are a formidable team. Sadly I think their new book, Digital Habitats, will give them strong cause to suggest I should RTFM: Read The Flipping Manual.
This is a really awesome book. I almost think it's more a performance support tool than a book. You really should get a copy and put it next to your computer. So, if you don't win the free copy, then you should go buy it.
So I'm very happy to announce to make two announcements:
1. Nancy White and John Smith will be doing a session at LearnTrends 2009 (a free online conference – you should definitely go register). And as a bonus, John will be doing another session with Jack Merklien of Xerox Global Services on communities. You can see details below on these two sessions.
2. Nancy and John have generously offered TWO FREE SIGNED copies of their book to people who help promote the conference and their sessions.
Entering the Contest
Twitter
1. Follow me - @tonykarrer on twitter.
2. Tweet and include a link back to this post.
I will use BackTweets to find people who link to this post. It handles short URLs. You can test to see if your tweet appears here.
Suggested tweets:
Twitter Contest – Free Copy of Digital Habitats – Stewarding Technology for Communities - http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Twitter Contest - LearnTrends 2009 – Free Online Conference - http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Retweet to enter contest: Free copy Digital Habitats – Stewarding Technology for Communities http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Retweet for chance to win a free copy of Digital Habitats http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Blog
Post an entry in your blog that links back to this post.
I will use IceRocket to search for your post. If you don't come up in the search, then drop a comment here to let me know about your post. Sorry if that turns out to be extra work, but I wanted a way to enter for those who don't use twitter. You can test that search here.
We would really appreciate if your blog post can also mention the conference and the innovation awards and the Digital Habitats Contest:
image
LearnTrends 2009 - Free Online Conference
image
LearnTrends Innovation Awards
Rules
1. We will accept only one entry per blog and per twitter account. If you have a blog and a twitter account, you will have two chances to win.
2. We will do our first drawing on October 21 based on all entries to the contest prior to Midnight Pacific Time on October 20.
3. We will do our second drawing on November 11 based on all entries made after the first drawing deadline and prior to Midnight Pacific Time on November 10.
Yes, that means that you will need to blog and/or tweet again on or after October 21 to be entered for the second book.
Feedback? Questions?
This is the first time we've ever tried something like this. I know that most of you have been nice enough to promote the conference even without any kind of a reward. So, I hope this is fun and seems like a good possible reward for helping get the word out. I'm certainly open to feedback on the idea, how we could do it better, etc.
And, of course, happy to answer any questions.
Session Descriptions
Below are the descriptions of the sessions that Nancy and John will be involved with at LearnTrends 2009. There will be a bunch of other sessions that should be announced by October 15.
E-learning outside the training box with Nancy White and John Smith
Once you've mastered enough of the new social media tools, training and development professionals are figuring out that technologies can change the boundaries around training itself, just as they can interrupt organizational boundaries. We offer two cases that illustrate the benefits and opportunities of these changed boundaries. In one, Nancy White talks about triangulating internal training and capacity building with external actors who part of the training and who validate it; that leads to more connections between people and has gained manager support. In the other, John Smith talks about a workshop that brings social activities into the center of the training experience, investing time in making the social connections a lasting and practical resource. We use the polarities that are developed in Digital Habitats to tie these examples together and give you design ideas for program development.
Nancy White, Full Circle Associates (http://www.fullcirc.com)nancy white
Nancy brings over 25 years of communications, technology and leadership skills in her work supporting collaboration, learning and communications in the NGO, non profit and business sectors. Grounded in community leadership and recognized expertise in online communities and networks, Nancy works with people to leverage their strengths and assets towards tangible goals and meaningful process. Nancy’s blog and Twitter stream are regularly recognized as leading sources on online communities and networks, knowledge management and knowledge sharing. Nancy is a respected speaker and workshop leader. She is a chocoholic and lives with her family in Seattle, Washington, USA.
John David Smith, Learning Alliances (http://learningalliances.net)
John brings over 25 years of experience to bear on the technology and learning problems faced by communities, their leaders and their sponsors. He coaches and consults on issues ranging from event design and community facilitation, to community design and evaluaJohn Smithtion, and technology selection and configuration. He has worked in the communities of practice area for the past 10 years and is the community steward for CPsquare, the international community of practice on communities of practice. He's the host of com-prac, the longest-running conversation about communities of practice on the 'Net. He is a regular workshop leader in CPsquare and elsewhere. He grew up in Humacao, Puerto Rico and now lives in Portland, Oregon.
Common tools for diverse communities at Xerox Global Services, with Jack Merklein and John Smith
Communities of practice are a well-established part of Xerox Global Services' knowledge strategy. Over the years, the tools that Xerox communities use has evolved through experimentation, innovation, and technology stewardship. All Xerox communities have access to a common set of tools: standardizing on that set of tools helps reduce the learning curve as staff move from one community to another. But communities choose a subset, evolve their own conventions and habits, and individual preferences determine what communities actually do. The current the mix of tools that are available includes blogs, wikis, document repositories, live meeting software and a calendar. Using the community orientations framework from Digital Habitats, we'll talk about some of the different communities at Xerox and how they use the standard tools in ways to fit their individual styles and needs. We'll also talk about how the different tools work together (for example, about community vs personal MS-Outlook calendars or how a wiki and a document repository overlap in some ways but serve different purposes at the same time).
Jack Merklein is with Xerox Global Services where his responsibilities include the development and care of communities of practice, internal knowledge management training and knowledge sharing initiatives. He also consults privately, and his client list covers both the public and private sector. Previous assignments include being the Director of Knowledge and Learning for Xerox Global Services. He is also a retired Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, with degrees from West Point and Golden Gate University. His service assignments included Director of Knowledge Management and Distance Learning while assigned as a senior faculty member at one of the Army's schools. He has served as a board member and chair of the Knowledge Management Certification Board, was a founder and first president of the Knowledge Management Professional Society, and was one of the original members of the U.S. federal government's Knowledge Management Standards Committee under the federal CIO's council. He has written articles for several magazines concerning how knowledge sharing initiatives can impact learning.
John David Smith, Learning Alliances (http://learningalliances.net)
John brings over 25 years of experience to bear on the technology and learning problems faced by communities, their leaders and their sponsors. He coaches and consults on issues ranging from event design and community facilitation, to community design and evaluation, and technology selection and configuration. He has worked in the communities of practice area for the past 10 years and is the community steward for CPsquare, the international community of practice on communities of practice. He's the host of com-prac, the longest-running conversation about communities of practice on the 'Net. He is a regular workshop leader in CPsquare and elsewhere. He grew up in Humacao, Puerto Rico and now lives in Portland, Oregon.
Whenever I get stuck I’ll contact my friends at CPSquare: Etienne, Nancy and John. And while I know they all have a deep understanding of CoPs I tend to ask Etienne the theory questions, Nancy the technology questions and John the group dynamics questions. Together they are a formidable team. Sadly I think their new book, Digital Habitats, will give them strong cause to suggest I should RTFM: Read The Flipping Manual.
This is a really awesome book. I almost think it's more a performance support tool than a book. You really should get a copy and put it next to your computer. So, if you don't win the free copy, then you should go buy it.
So I'm very happy to announce to make two announcements:
1. Nancy White and John Smith will be doing a session at LearnTrends 2009 (a free online conference – you should definitely go register). And as a bonus, John will be doing another session with Jack Merklien of Xerox Global Services on communities. You can see details below on these two sessions.
2. Nancy and John have generously offered TWO FREE SIGNED copies of their book to people who help promote the conference and their sessions.
Entering the Contest
1. Follow me - @tonykarrer on twitter.
2. Tweet and include a link back to this post.
I will use BackTweets to find people who link to this post. It handles short URLs. You can test to see if your tweet appears here.
Suggested tweets:
Twitter Contest – Free Copy of Digital Habitats – Stewarding Technology for Communities - http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Twitter Contest - LearnTrends 2009 – Free Online Conference - http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Retweet to enter contest: Free copy Digital Habitats – Stewarding Technology for Communities http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Retweet for chance to win a free copy of Digital Habitats http://bit.ly/MYIw #learntrends
Blog
Post an entry in your blog that links back to this post.
I will use IceRocket to search for your post. If you don't come up in the search, then drop a comment here to let me know about your post. Sorry if that turns out to be extra work, but I wanted a way to enter for those who don't use twitter. You can test that search here.
We would really appreciate if your blog post can also mention the conference and the innovation awards and the Digital Habitats Contest:
image
LearnTrends 2009 - Free Online Conference
image
LearnTrends Innovation Awards
Rules
1. We will accept only one entry per blog and per twitter account. If you have a blog and a twitter account, you will have two chances to win.
2. We will do our first drawing on October 21 based on all entries to the contest prior to Midnight Pacific Time on October 20.
3. We will do our second drawing on November 11 based on all entries made after the first drawing deadline and prior to Midnight Pacific Time on November 10.
Yes, that means that you will need to blog and/or tweet again on or after October 21 to be entered for the second book.
Feedback? Questions?
This is the first time we've ever tried something like this. I know that most of you have been nice enough to promote the conference even without any kind of a reward. So, I hope this is fun and seems like a good possible reward for helping get the word out. I'm certainly open to feedback on the idea, how we could do it better, etc.
And, of course, happy to answer any questions.
Session Descriptions
Below are the descriptions of the sessions that Nancy and John will be involved with at LearnTrends 2009. There will be a bunch of other sessions that should be announced by October 15.
E-learning outside the training box with Nancy White and John Smith
Once you've mastered enough of the new social media tools, training and development professionals are figuring out that technologies can change the boundaries around training itself, just as they can interrupt organizational boundaries. We offer two cases that illustrate the benefits and opportunities of these changed boundaries. In one, Nancy White talks about triangulating internal training and capacity building with external actors who part of the training and who validate it; that leads to more connections between people and has gained manager support. In the other, John Smith talks about a workshop that brings social activities into the center of the training experience, investing time in making the social connections a lasting and practical resource. We use the polarities that are developed in Digital Habitats to tie these examples together and give you design ideas for program development.
Nancy White, Full Circle Associates (http://www.fullcirc.com)nancy white
Nancy brings over 25 years of communications, technology and leadership skills in her work supporting collaboration, learning and communications in the NGO, non profit and business sectors. Grounded in community leadership and recognized expertise in online communities and networks, Nancy works with people to leverage their strengths and assets towards tangible goals and meaningful process. Nancy’s blog and Twitter stream are regularly recognized as leading sources on online communities and networks, knowledge management and knowledge sharing. Nancy is a respected speaker and workshop leader. She is a chocoholic and lives with her family in Seattle, Washington, USA.
John David Smith, Learning Alliances (http://learningalliances.net)
John brings over 25 years of experience to bear on the technology and learning problems faced by communities, their leaders and their sponsors. He coaches and consults on issues ranging from event design and community facilitation, to community design and evaluaJohn Smithtion, and technology selection and configuration. He has worked in the communities of practice area for the past 10 years and is the community steward for CPsquare, the international community of practice on communities of practice. He's the host of com-prac, the longest-running conversation about communities of practice on the 'Net. He is a regular workshop leader in CPsquare and elsewhere. He grew up in Humacao, Puerto Rico and now lives in Portland, Oregon.
Common tools for diverse communities at Xerox Global Services, with Jack Merklein and John Smith
Communities of practice are a well-established part of Xerox Global Services' knowledge strategy. Over the years, the tools that Xerox communities use has evolved through experimentation, innovation, and technology stewardship. All Xerox communities have access to a common set of tools: standardizing on that set of tools helps reduce the learning curve as staff move from one community to another. But communities choose a subset, evolve their own conventions and habits, and individual preferences determine what communities actually do. The current the mix of tools that are available includes blogs, wikis, document repositories, live meeting software and a calendar. Using the community orientations framework from Digital Habitats, we'll talk about some of the different communities at Xerox and how they use the standard tools in ways to fit their individual styles and needs. We'll also talk about how the different tools work together (for example, about community vs personal MS-Outlook calendars or how a wiki and a document repository overlap in some ways but serve different purposes at the same time).
Jack Merklein is with Xerox Global Services where his responsibilities include the development and care of communities of practice, internal knowledge management training and knowledge sharing initiatives. He also consults privately, and his client list covers both the public and private sector. Previous assignments include being the Director of Knowledge and Learning for Xerox Global Services. He is also a retired Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, with degrees from West Point and Golden Gate University. His service assignments included Director of Knowledge Management and Distance Learning while assigned as a senior faculty member at one of the Army's schools. He has served as a board member and chair of the Knowledge Management Certification Board, was a founder and first president of the Knowledge Management Professional Society, and was one of the original members of the U.S. federal government's Knowledge Management Standards Committee under the federal CIO's council. He has written articles for several magazines concerning how knowledge sharing initiatives can impact learning.
John David Smith, Learning Alliances (http://learningalliances.net)
John brings over 25 years of experience to bear on the technology and learning problems faced by communities, their leaders and their sponsors. He coaches and consults on issues ranging from event design and community facilitation, to community design and evaluation, and technology selection and configuration. He has worked in the communities of practice area for the past 10 years and is the community steward for CPsquare, the international community of practice on communities of practice. He's the host of com-prac, the longest-running conversation about communities of practice on the 'Net. He is a regular workshop leader in CPsquare and elsewhere. He grew up in Humacao, Puerto Rico and now lives in Portland, Oregon.
Thursday, 18 October 2012
Pennsylvania Courts Announce Online Forms
A press release from the Pennsylvania Courts on October 18, 2012 describes their new Internet forms are designed to "break down language barriers for families".
NIEM 3.0 “Coming Soon” Website Announced
The National Information Exchange Model program has posted a new website for practitioners to track the progress of the new version 3.0 development.
Friday, 12 October 2012
More PDF/A News
A couple of announcements regarding the international PDF/A standard that courts should know. - Updated with link to the ISO draft standard.
Thursday, 11 October 2012
New Hampshire Issues Jury System RFP
The New Hampshire Judicial Branch has issued an RFP for a jury management system.
Read more »
Monday, 8 October 2012
Florida Bar Presentation on Mandatory Service by E-Mail & E-Filing
 |
| Florida Oranges |
The Florida Bar Association has prepared a slide show, E-Things version 5.2 on Florida’s new mandatory Service by E-mail and E-Filing rules.
Friday, 5 October 2012
Court Technology Forecast: Cloudy
The E-Courts 2012 conference will have a session on Cloud Computing in the courts. But the subject is not a simple one.
Monday, 1 October 2012
LearnTrends Innovation Awards
George Siemens, Jay Cross and Tony Karrer are pleased to announce the first ever LearnTrends 2009 Innovation Awards.
award-468x60
These awards are designed to recognize the products, projects and companies that represent interesting innovations in use of technology for Corporate / Workplace Learning and Performance.
Winners will be announced and will be asked to do short presentations during the conference.
Deadline for submission is: October 30.
You can see details of what we are asking for in the form below.
To apply for an award, please fill out the:
Submission Form
If you have questions, feel free to Leave a Comment or drop me an email: akarrer@techempower.com
Please Help
We very much want to get nominations from all corners. If you can help us spread the word about these awards, that would be greatly appreciated. Think something is innovative – please let them know about this. Post about this on your blog. Tweet about it. Any help would be appreciated.
Here are some graphics you can use:
award-468x60
award-234x60
award-250x250
award-468x60
These awards are designed to recognize the products, projects and companies that represent interesting innovations in use of technology for Corporate / Workplace Learning and Performance.
Winners will be announced and will be asked to do short presentations during the conference.
Deadline for submission is: October 30.
You can see details of what we are asking for in the form below.
To apply for an award, please fill out the:
Submission Form
If you have questions, feel free to Leave a Comment or drop me an email: akarrer@techempower.com
Please Help
We very much want to get nominations from all corners. If you can help us spread the word about these awards, that would be greatly appreciated. Think something is innovative – please let them know about this. Post about this on your blog. Tweet about it. Any help would be appreciated.
Here are some graphics you can use:
award-468x60
award-234x60
award-250x250
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
CITOC Announces Innovation Awards Competition
The Court Information Technology Officers Consortium (CITOC) is pleased to present the inaugural CITOC Innovation Awards.
Monday, 24 September 2012
Court Case Management Systems 2012 Part 4: Relationships and Groups
This installment in the court case management series explores the concept of groups and relationships.Wednesday, 19 September 2012
This and That in Court Tech – September, 2012
News from and about the NCSC, Virginia Electronic Notary Statute, IJIS Institute, E-Paper, the Legal Information Institute, and the Canadian Forum on Court Technology.
Friday, 14 September 2012
All-in-One Desktop PC’s and Virtualization in the Courtroom
Articles on All-in-One computers often used as part of the judge’s electronic bench and virtual desktop software in the courtroom are discussed.
American Probation and Parole Association Issues Procurement Guide
APPA has issued a procurement guide for automated case management systems that provides structure and advise that the courts can use as well.
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
The Last Mile - Tyler “Judge Edition” Report
One of the leading commercial court automation companies, Tyler Technologies reports on their “SessionWorks Judge Edition” program.
 |
| Courtesy of the Oregon eCourt The QUARTERLY newsletter |
Friday, 31 August 2012
A Lot of This and That in Court Tech – End of August, 2012
There is a lot of court tech news including the E-Courts 2012 program, US Federal Courts revise jury instructions regarding social media, Navigating the Hazards of E-Discovery manual, E-Notarization in Virginia, location based verification, another court website hacked, two good articles from IJCA Journal, and an award for a CMS in the Catalonia, Spain courts.
Thursday, 23 August 2012
Microsoft and Open Document Format (ODF) and Why You Should Care
Electronic document formats matter for courts. This article discusses a recent Microsoft announcement.
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Court Case Management Systems 2012 Part 3: The Court Organization, Users, and Roles
Court Case Management Systems must have the ability to define and capture the court’s organizational structure and user work roles in the basic design.
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Canadian Court Tech Forum 2012 and CLCT Court Audio Visual Certification Training Announced
Two court technology events are announced.
Monday, 6 August 2012
This and That in Court Tech – August, 2012
News about US Federal Court Cameras Pilot, CITOC E-Filing Webinar, Why Jurors Go Online, Courts and Big Data, and some resources for planning for Microsoft Windows 8
Thursday, 2 August 2012
NJ Governor vetoes bill to help pay for court technology & indigent defense; becomes 2nd state governor to veto court technology bills this year
Cross-posted to Gavel to Gavel
Earlier this week NJ Governor Chris Christie's veto of AB 763, a bill that would among other things raise various court fees to help pay for court technology, was delivered to the Assembly. The governor's veto occurred in late June but wasn't filed until July 30. The bill, as approved by the legislature, is similar to one vetoed by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley earlier this year and later overridden.
AB 763 provides the Supreme Court may, subject to limitations provided in the bill, adopt Rules of Court to revise or supplement filing fees and other statutory fees payable to the court for the sole purpose of funding: (1) the development, maintenance, and administration of a “Statewide digital e-court information system,” that incorporates electronic filing, service of process, document and case management, financial management, and public access to digital court records; and (2) Legal Services of New Jersey.
The veto now goes back to the Assembly. Its prospects are unclear: the original version passed the Assembly on March 2012 on a 64-14 vote. The Senate passed its version 24-11, shy of the 27 votes needed to override. The Assembly then re-passed the Senate amended version, but on a 48-30 vote; it would have 52 votes in the Assembly to override.
Earlier this week NJ Governor Chris Christie's veto of AB 763, a bill that would among other things raise various court fees to help pay for court technology, was delivered to the Assembly. The governor's veto occurred in late June but wasn't filed until July 30. The bill, as approved by the legislature, is similar to one vetoed by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley earlier this year and later overridden.
AB 763 provides the Supreme Court may, subject to limitations provided in the bill, adopt Rules of Court to revise or supplement filing fees and other statutory fees payable to the court for the sole purpose of funding: (1) the development, maintenance, and administration of a “Statewide digital e-court information system,” that incorporates electronic filing, service of process, document and case management, financial management, and public access to digital court records; and (2) Legal Services of New Jersey.
The veto now goes back to the Assembly. Its prospects are unclear: the original version passed the Assembly on March 2012 on a 64-14 vote. The Senate passed its version 24-11, shy of the 27 votes needed to override. The Assembly then re-passed the Senate amended version, but on a 48-30 vote; it would have 52 votes in the Assembly to override.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
State Court Case Management System Acquisition Strategies
By Tom C. Clarke, National Center for State Courts
It is a truism of American courts that no state is exactly like another. This is one of many reasons why state court systems have a difficult time comparing themselves to ostensible peer states. Publications like NCSC’s State Court Organization try to compare apples to apples along multiple dimensions, but it remains a mostly intractable problem.
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Court Case Management Systems 2012 Part 2: Does it help you do your work?
The second in a series of articles on court case management systems.
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Video: Texas State Court Administrator testifies before House committee on e-filing in the state
Cross-posted at Gavel to Gavel
At this point, at least some courts in nearly every U.S. state have some form of e-filing of court documents (details can be found at the National Center for State Court's e-filing Resource Guide), including Texas. That state's system was the subject of an interim meeting of the House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence.
Read more »
At this point, at least some courts in nearly every U.S. state have some form of e-filing of court documents (details can be found at the National Center for State Court's e-filing Resource Guide), including Texas. That state's system was the subject of an interim meeting of the House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence.
Read more »
Monday, 16 July 2012
More on PDF
The PDF document file format is confusing to many because it can do so much. This post provides a list of resources that may help.
Monday, 9 July 2012
The "Flavors" of PDF
PDF has many different capabilities that can be confusing. This article explains some of them.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
This and That in Court Tech - July 2012
E-courts education program, Canadian court tech conference, SJI assists Minnesota self-represented E-filing, mandatory E-filing in Utah and Florida, and Pennsylvania tweets court rules.
Monday, 25 June 2012
South Carolina legislature overrides governor, allows CJ to set e-filing fees to pay for court technology
Cross-posted at Gavel to Gavel
I mentioned two weeks ago the e-filing fees situation in South Carolina. In sum, the legislature unanimously adopted HB 4821, which would have allowed the state's chief justice to set an e-filing fee to pay for court technology
I mentioned two weeks ago the e-filing fees situation in South Carolina. In sum, the legislature unanimously adopted HB 4821, which would have allowed the state's chief justice to set an e-filing fee to pay for court technology
for filing court documents by electronic means from an integrated electronic filing (e-filing) system owned and operated by the South Carolina Judicial Department in an amount set by the Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court and all fees must be remitted to the South Carolina Judicial Department to be dedicated to the support of court technologyDespite the legislature's unanimity, the governor vetoed the bill, arguing no "branch of government should be provided with such comprehensive, unilateral authority to impose fees without regulatory or other comparable review." The South Carolina legislature has now voted to override the governor's veto: 93-14 in the House and 39-3 in the Senate.
Friday, 22 June 2012
Michigan legislature set to officially kill off its cyber court?
Cross-posted at Gavel to Gavel
Back in 2001 amid another recession, Michigan's legislature made an attempt to address the issue of technology-related litigation by authorizing the creation of a "Cyber Court", the purpose of which was (MCL 600.8001(2)) to:
Read more »
Back in 2001 amid another recession, Michigan's legislature made an attempt to address the issue of technology-related litigation by authorizing the creation of a "Cyber Court", the purpose of which was (MCL 600.8001(2)) to:
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Court Case Management Systems 2012 Part 1: It’s About Change
It’s all about change. The technology has changed. The expectations have changed. Therefore, court case management has changed.
Friday, 15 June 2012
Third Annual Social Media and Courts Survey
The NCSC announced the third annual social media and the courts survey.
Read more »
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
This and That in Court Tech - June, 2012
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Court Case Management 2012
Some of my colleagues and I are planning on writing a series of articles on Court Case Management Systems over the next year (or two).
Friday, 1 June 2012
Courts Go Mobile
Recently I've been looking at various court's efforts to provide information via mobile devices (Smart Phones and Pad/Tablet Computers) and there is some very nice work out there.
Thursday, 24 May 2012
More This and That in Court Tech - May 2012
We have more court technology news to share for the month of May, 2012. Notes include a radio interview for a CMS upgrade in Ohio, a Washington state courts report, podcasts from the Center for Court Innovation, NIEM Technical Training course announcement, and the LexUM Decisia cloud service.
Thursday, 17 May 2012
All Federal Courts Now Accepting Electronic Filing
Via Press Release - The DC-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has begun accepting electronic filings via the judiciary’s Case Management-Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system, joining every other federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy court in doing so.
CM/ECF provides courts enhanced and updated docket management. It allows courts to maintain case documents in electronic form. And it gives each court the option of permitting case documents – pleadings, motions, petitions – to be filed with the court over the Internet. Implementation of that option began a decade ago, and now is complete.
You can learn more about CM/ECF here.
The Benefits of Automating Your Employee Performance Reviews
By Sean Conrad*
Public sector organizations face ongoing pressures to be transparent, efficient and accountable. Employee performance reviews are a critical tool for ensuring staff know what is expected of them, and are accountable for their results and performance. Yet many public sector organizations struggle to do employee reviews.
Friday, 11 May 2012
This and That in Court Tech – May 2012
News about E-filing in five states, courtroom tweeting, the NAJIS annual conference, Peoria’s new CMS, and a history of the establishment of West Publishing.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Missouri Court CIO Job Opening
We at the NCSC are very sorry to learn that our good friend, Jim Roggero, the CIO for the Missouri Office of State Courts Administrator has decided to retire. However, his and his staff's good work continues, and so the job opening has been posted (PDF) at: http://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=5600
Also please note that there are several other technical staff job opportunities at the OSCA listed at: http://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=3191
We will post more about Jim and his significant legacy at a later date.
Also please note that there are several other technical staff job opportunities at the OSCA listed at: http://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=3191
We will post more about Jim and his significant legacy at a later date.
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Montana Issues Statewide E-Filing RFP
The Montana Supreme Court, Office of the Court Administrator has issued an RFP for E-filing.
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
An Electronic Signature Maxim
Summary: An E-signature Deployment Maxim: 1. Replaces the handwritten signature; 2. Legally permissible; 3. Evidence of intent; 4. False identification avoided/minimized; 5. Easy to use, affordable and widely compatible.
(Maxim: A brief expression of a general truth, principle, or rule of conduct http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Maxim )
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Internet Bar Organization Offers Webinar and Research
By Mr. Jeff Aresty, Internet Bar Organization
As we all know, government’s everywhere are confronted with limited budgets and court systems are suffering. Therefore, many courts are using technology creatively to increase the throughput of their caseloads.
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Federal Courts Update CM/ECF Case Management System Plans
US Federal Courts sends news of several automation related efforts including case management, discovery practice recommendations for electronically stored evidence, kiosk use in US Federal Probation offices, and videoconferencing.
Monday, 23 April 2012
The Need for Court E-Forms Identification (Meta-Data) Standards - Part 2
In Part 1 of this series we looked at the ability to create XML meta-data identifiers in commonly used word processing and PDF applications. In this part we will explore the benefits of electronic forms identification.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
The Need for Court E-Forms Identification (Meta-Data) Standards - Part 1
Monday, 16 April 2012
What Education Programs Would You Like to See at e-Courts 2012?
Take the e-Courts Survey!
Registration is now open and planning is underway for the e-Courts 2012 Conference. The strength and relevance of e-Courts' education program is vital to the conference's success and to your professional development. To ensure the program meets your needs, please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey at:
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
This and That in Court Tech - April 2012
News from California, New York, Pennsylvania, and notes on web site development with SharePoint and a new draft URN:LEX standard.
Read more »
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Michigan State Courts Release E-Filing RFP and RFI
The Michigan Supreme Court, State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) is seeking proposals and information for two initiatives. The first is a Request for Proposal for a statewide Electronic Filing Manager (EFM) and Electronic Document Management System (EDMS). The SCAO is also requesting information from potential vendors who can serve as Electronic Filing Service Providers (EFSP).
Monday, 2 April 2012
Child Welfare Data Privacy Webinar Offered
The National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology will be hosting a free, open webinar on April 12, 2012 to discuss the privacy aspects of data exchange for juvenile data.
Friday, 30 March 2012
Register Now for e-Courts 2012 — It's a Win-Win Situation
Booking e-Courts 2012 is Now Open!
December 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of e-Courts in Las Vegas. This year's e-Courts will deliver two-and-a-half days of real-world solutions to the technology challenges facing today's courts.
e-Courts education sessions feature the most in-depth and current information that address the technology needs of judges, court managers, technologists, and other court professionals. e-Courts also has earned a reputation for hosting one of the most effective exhibit shows available -- it's smaller, offering opportunity for one-on-one discussion with vendors about your court's needs.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
CITOC Offers Member Webinars
The Court Information Technology Officer Consortium(CITOC) Education Sub-Committee will be offering a series of webinars for its members. The announcement is shown below.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
This and That in Court Tech, March 2012 Edition
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Pennsylvania Issues One Millionth E-Citation
A press release from the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts and the Pennsylvania State Police on March 14, 2012:
One Million State Police Traffic Citations Issued Electronically
Supreme Court, PA State Police E-filing Initiative Improves Safety, Court Efficiency
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Ten Tips for Buying Technology
The following article on technology purchasing was originally published in The Court Manager, a publication of the National Association for Court Management, many years ago by Curt DeClue and James McMillan.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Best Court Websites?
How about it readers.
What are your nominations for the best court websites?
Please share in the comments section below.
What are your nominations for the best court websites?
Please share in the comments section below.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Going Green with E-filing
This article was originally published in the Winter, 2008 edition of the Texas Paralegal Journal and is posted here with their permission. It provides additional arguments for savings via E-filing as discussed in our earlier post: Calculating an E-Court Return on Investment (ROI)
Read more »
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Submissions for Adaptive Case Management Award Announced
A call for nominations for the Adaptive Case Management Global Excellence Awards 2012 has been released. The deadline for submitting a 250 word abstract, which answers the following three questions, is February 28, 2012.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Calculating an E-Court Return on Investment (ROI)
By James E. McMillan, NCSC; Carole D. Pettijohn, Ph.D., Director of Technology Services for R.B. "Chips" Shore, Manatee County Clerk of Court; Jennifer K. Berg, Esq., Sustainable Practice Leader, Northgate Environmental Management.
As it is legislative budget season for the USA state courts, it is a good time to look at the excellent work that Manatee County, Florida has done in calculating the return on investment of converting from a physical paper-based to an electronic-based organization. In addition, this article will also discuss the environmental cost savings benefits of going “E”.
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Glass World
Today all of us techies here at the NCSC were marveling at this video posted by Corning Glass titled "A Day Made of Glass" that shows various scenarios how glass displays are used now (photovoltaic and handheld display glass) and will be used in the future.
Friday, 10 February 2012
Smartphone Forms
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| Example from doFORMS |
The recent Super Bowl television commercial by Samsung for their new smartphone that showed a pen interface was derided by the Apple acolytes (probably because it made fun of them).
Friday, 3 February 2012
Attorney Technology Motivations?
I don't know if it is just me or if others have noticed this but when dealing with some attorneys, particularly on the subject of E-filing there is often very strange push-back...as in, why would I want E-filing, online access, etc.?
The "3 Geeks and a Law Blog" (thanks Rob) has posted a very interesting article titled "Staying Relevant - Part 4: Technology and the Bottom-line".
They attribute some attorney resistance to technological change as "Cost-plus thinking" explaining:
"In a cost-plus world, firms react by draining the company of capital every December 31st. This mind-set does not view technology as an investment, but instead as a necessary expense. Worse yet, technology negatively impacts the number of hours and respective revenue generated by them. So why would a firm invest in it?"The article continues with some excellent examples and counter-arguments to this worldview. But I would also suggest that this "argument" should both inform and temper the court's response to criticisms of their technology initiatives.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Federal Judicial Center Reports on Juror Social Media Issues
NetworkWorld Blogger/Attorney, Michael Cooney posted an article on January 25, 2012 about the release of a US Federal Judicial Center report titled "Juror's Use of Social Media During Trials and Deliberations" (PDF).
Friday, 20 January 2012
This and That in Court Tech - January, 2012
During the past month we have found quite a few interesting bits of information that we would like to share with our readers below.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Federal Bankruptcy Courts Provide Online Chat Help
I have often told acquaintances that one goal of court automation is to allow court staff to be able to have enough time to answer the telephone. But now the courts have another option. The December, 2011 edition of the US Federal Court newsletter, The Third Branch has an article on Bankruptcy courts describing their implementation of online chat titled "Chat Live Now!"
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Data Visualization
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| Graphic from Wikipedia.org |
One excellent example was posted by the authors at Computational Legal Studies that presents "The Development of Structure in the Citation Network of the United States Supreme Court". This two minute online video of a growing "network diagram" representing the early relationship of cases is fascinating.
Friday, 6 January 2012
Maricopa County ICJIS Director Job Announcement
We received the following message yesterday to pass along to our community:
Maricopa County (located in Phoenix, AZ) has an outstanding career opportunity for ICJIS (Integrated Criminal Justice Information System) Director. The successful candidate will establish and oversee a project management agency to coordinate the planning, development, implementation and maintenance of and ICJIS system for Maricopa County. Salary range: $101,296 - $157,019/Yr.
Job Posting/Online Application - http://agency.governmentjobs.com/maricopa/default.cfm?action=viewJob&jobID=400409
Benefits Overview - http://www.maricopa.gov/benefits/pdf/benefitsoverview.pdf
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