Barrett: (00:03)
Okay. Welcome to today's webcast, Sustaining Campus Safety in the Digital Age. My name is Barrett. I'm with Vivid Learning Systems. We're your sponsor for today's session. I'll be serving as your host today.

Barrett: (00:15)
For those of you not yet familiar with our company, Vivid is an online safety training provider. We like to think of our business as really more about making life easier for safety professionals. It's our rallying cry, here. Please check out on-demand safety training at learnatvivid.com.

Barrett: (00:33)
Now, folks, I ask for your attention as we take just a minute to get acquainted with our interactive tools. At the bottom of the screen, you'll find the dashboard with a series of options for participation. Please just take a moment to toggle through each icon and get familiar with the tools. Notice especially that, when you click on each of the icons, a window pops up. It's all pretty simple.

Barrett: (00:56)
Please pay special attention to the Q&A icon. It's easy to operate. Submit your questions here any time throughout the session. We want to answer your questions and we'll be doing so throughout the webcast, so do not hesitate to ask one, okay? We will have time to cover those at the end of our presentation during the live Q&A segment with our special guest and our expert.

Barrett: (01:23)
Reminder here, folks, if your participation is interrupted or you feel we're moving too fast, don't worry; this session will be made available to you after the event on demand so you can link in and revisit this whole discussion.

Barrett: (01:35)
Now, then, we've got a great session planned today. First, I'm going to introduce Jill James, Vivid's chief safety officer. Guys, Jill truly knows her stuff. Jill, why don't you take it away now by providing some context for today's discussion and introducing our special guest speaker, Mr. Eric Kloss?

Jill James: (01:56)
Thank you, Barrett. Like Barrett said, my name is Jill. I'm a chief safety officer here, at Vivid Learning Systems, and I'm excited to have with us today a special guest: Eric Kloss, a certified safety professional and the interim director of risk management and safety at the University of Notre Dame.

Jill James: (02:16)
Together, Eric and I have been in the field of safety for 40 years combined. I started my post graduate work with OSHA as an investigator for just about 12 years and followed that by a reality check in the private sector, specifically, working in healthcare, bio and life sciences, agriculture, and a short stint in education at a community college.

Jill James: (02:41)
I guess you could say I cut my teeth unwinding early on in interpreting and enforcing OSHA regulations and then faced the challenge that all of you face: applying and living them out in the second half of my career. Eric, how about you? How has your 20 years in this field looked?

Eric Kloss: (03:05)
Thank you, Jill. As Jill said, my name's Eric Kloss. I'm the interim director here at Notre Dame for our risk management and safety department. I've been here about two and a half years but just recently was named interim director. Prior to that, I was responsible for our research or lab safety programs here.

Eric Kloss: (03:22)
But before I came to Notre Dame, I had most of my time spent in the chemical industry. I've done a lot with manufacturing chemicals and research and development stuff. I've also had some experience with heavy manufacturing and corporate world, so I'm really excited to be here with you today. I hope this webinar is beneficial for you and I look forward to talking to you. Jill?

Jill James: (03:49)
Very good. Thanks, Eric. This past July, Eric and I partnered at the 2015 Campus Safety Health & Environmental Management Association, or CSHEMA Conference, in Washington, DC, where we presented the information you're about to hear.

Jill James: (04:06)
It was really well-received there. The presentation portion of what we're sharing today is relatively short, which means it leaves a lot of time for questions during and throughout the presentation and at the end. In fact, when we did this in Washington, DC, we went over time because there were so many questions at the end, so we really encourage you to use the Q&A icon as Barrett suggested today.

Jill James: (04:34)
Now, our goal is to give you tools on how to gain consensus on your campuses with regard to employee safety training and to give you a deployable tool at the end of our conversation today, but before we get to that, let's start with a look back at where safety training has been. I'd like to invite you all, now, to consider where your campus is today and if the student learning experience and the employee learning experience are, perhaps, in different centuries.

Jill James: (05:07)
If we look at the past 65 years, we can see that, prior to 1970, when the OSHA laws were enacted, there really wasn't much of anything going on for safety training. Then, between the 1970s and 90s, the choices were very limited for workplace safety training.

Jill James: (05:26)
In fact, training looked something like this. A cafeteria or public work area where employees gathered for training done by an instructor. Then, with the advent of video tape recording, the instructor was replaced in some instances by the VHS tape and that was it. You could either sit in a classroom setting, listening to a live instructor for hours, or watch a video tape.

Jill James: (05:49)
Then we moved into the 19902. By now, we had computers, but they weren't part of workplace training until the mass distribution of the CD-ROM. This gave the option to employees to take safety training individually. A classroom setting was no longer needed for basic safety training. However, the experience during the early days was pretty much the same as a video tape. Later, the concept of interactivity began, which was really nothing more at that time than a quiz or a true or false testing mechanism.

Jill James: (06:23)
Then, something revolutionary took place that changed the lives of everyone listening: the internet. The internet gave employees online training, which created virtual classrooms where employees from multiple locations could participate in a live class with an instructor or could take their training on their own at their own pace.

Jill James: (06:43)
The internet fuels the productivity of today's business, as we all know, and it has done so for safety training as well. Online training can reduce training time up to 60%, but the internet evolves at a rapid speed, so let's take a closer look at online training technology.

Jill James: (07:02)
Now, 10 years ago, in 2004, internet technology developments gave way to learning objectives and scalable vector graphics. Now, what is that? Well, a learning object is a module or a lesson within a course along with a quiz, and a scalable vector graphic allows for audio and visual files, such as images and audio clips. This experience was mostly delivered offline, running from a computer, but not the internet right away.

Jill James: (07:34)
Then, in 2006, podcasting, or personal broadcasting, came into the picture, along with phones in our pockets, because of increased access to wireless, and the idea of educational gaming. In 2008, the year cloud e-mail came into our everyday lives, it's the same year when online video and virtual classroom technology was introduced to the workplace.

Jill James: (08:01)
Then, 2011. Well, that was the year of mobile, plain and simple. We have smartphones, and tablets, and they reached mass-market accessibility, however, the concept of a mobile workforce training had slow adaptation, as the technology was readily available back in 2009.

Jill James: (08:22)
Then, you have all heard of the term "big data." Well, 2014 was that year of data for training, and the internet made it easier to track and report training activities as well as provide more interactivity through games. Not only do employers have the ability to secure training records more efficiently, they also have the ability to know who took training, who didn't take training, as well as how long it took one person versus another. The ability for better interactivity made safety training more enjoyable for employees.

Jill James: (08:56)
So, can you see where your campus rests on this evolution? Is it perhaps different than your students' experience? Now, Eric is here to share where Notre Dame has been, where they are now and how they got there. Eric, take it away.

Eric Kloss: (09:18)
Thank you, Jill. So, as Jill described the evolution of safety training, the University of Notre Dame has been on its own journey. For the next few minutes, as Jill said, I'll give you just a really quick, brief overview of where we've been, where we are today and where my plan is to take our program here in the future.

Eric Kloss: (09:38)
One thing you'll note, though, when we talk about the training programs, it's really tied closely to how Notre Dame is managing our EHS programs. They're overlapping. As we move the training program forward, we're moving the whole EHS program forward as well. Then I'll give you some overview of how we gain some support and one of our key mechanisms we used to get the whole program moving forward.

Eric Kloss: (10:02)
But, prior to getting into this, I do wanna recognize folks on my staff. It's not just one person doing stuff here. I have a staff. Specifically, her name's Lisa Phillips and done great work. She's been here a long time doing all the training stuff before I arrived, and without her input, we probably wouldn't be where we are today. Again, it takes a team to build this stuff; it wasn't just me.

Eric Kloss: (10:24)
As I mentioned when I introduced myself, I've been here about two and a half years. When I came on board, I went out and introduced myself to all of our stakeholders, the faculty and the department chairs. When I talked to 'em, I asked 'em how things were going and they're giving me their general feedback on the program, and boy, I got an earful. They really talked to me about the status of our training programs.

Eric Kloss: (10:44)
In essence, they were very unhappy. There were many, many reasons, but one of the major things that we heard at that time was that our overall training program just really hasn't progressed and moved forward with the times. At that point, we were still, as a university, providing just instructional training or classroom-based training.

Eric Kloss: (11:01)
Which is fine, there's nothing wrong with it; it's a great tool to have in your toolkit. But, our staff being as small as it was, we're only given a couple of the required sessions each month and we had researchers that were required to take this training and weren't be able to get the research done because they either missed a session or they started the day after the training was offered and they had to wait a week or two, and then if they missed the next session, they're waiting a month out to get in to their labs.

Eric Kloss: (11:30)
So, we got a lot of feedback on what we could do better. Our training, tracking at that time was basically the people that took the training keep the records in their lab so that's how they maintain the records. Our validation of understanding for the actual training, the quizzes weren't graded or they weren't even given, so we didn't have a good understanding of whether or not the training was getting through to our folks.

Eric Kloss: (11:58)
We had to talk with our folks, figure out what they wanted to do. As we listened to them, we thought the best thing to do for the university at that time is implement some online or computer-based training. The tool that we chose was very well-received. It was a 24/7-based type program, which made our researchers very, very happy. Now, if we had a researcher that was coming from, let's say, London, they could take the training before they even arrived at the campus and hit the ground running. So, instead of missing or slowing down their research, we were enabling them to get in the labs a lot quicker.

Eric Kloss: (12:39)
Again, at that time, when we implemented this computer-based training, we started up using a learning management system, which is just a web-based platform where we could offer the training courses. This platform was nice and it could track the training, but it also could track the quizzes and it would give us, from the safety department, assurances that what we were giving people or telling people, they were understanding.

Eric Kloss: (13:08)
One of the neat things that this tool that we could do was if someone wasn't successful in a number of times in taking the quizzes, let's say three times, we would lock 'em out. That would send us a note or send us an e-mail that would say, "Hey, so-and-so took the course three times and they weren't successful." We were able then to work with the supervisor to figure out why.

Eric Kloss: (13:31)
Initially, when we first rolled this out, a lot of it was that people were going through it pretty quickly. They were used to the past where the training wasn't graded and they just figured that was status quo. But now, since it was graded quizzes, they actually had to pay attention. Once that message got out, the lockouts went down some.

Eric Kloss: (13:50)
However, we still had some people failing and wanted to figure out why, and it turned out to be a language barrier. Some folks just came from different parts of the world, weren't very fluent in English, and it slowed them down and they had to get some help. We would work with the supervisors and they would work with the employee that might need some help, but that assured us that at least the information was getting to them.

Eric Kloss: (14:13)
Finally, one of the major nice things about this tool that we implemented from the online standpoint was it assured us compliance with regulatory standards and it also gave us an ability to, when we were doing audits and labs, show that people had been trained. Instead of people pulling out a folder of all these loose-leaf certificates that we gave, we could actually go online now and show who is required to take the training and did they get it. From an overall picture, where we went in those couple years was pretty astounding.

Eric Kloss: (14:49)
So, where are we taking the program? Now that we have the fundamentals in place, we got a good tool and we're training folks, we wanted to give the overall picture of how training is supposed to work here, at the university, so we're developing a documented management system. It's looking at the big picture, the whole plan-do-check-act cycle of our training program.

Eric Kloss: (15:11)
One of the things you really wanna start off with, which I'll share with you here at the end, is a training needs assessment, or a tool that we're giving our supervisors and our PIs to say, "What training is needed for them in the labs?" That was one thing that we were really missing when we started this a couple years ago. We gave a handful of training topics, but we didn't even know whether or not we were giving everything folks needed.

Eric Kloss: (15:35)
So, we developed a tool and we're requiring everybody to do it which will identify the training needs for an individual working in the lab. And it could be different; you could have one person working with live electrical and one person not, but this will give the supervisor or PI an ability to say, "Yeah, this individual needs that type of training," and then it can either identify if it's an online training or a course that my department will give, so that'll be a part of our documented training management system.

Eric Kloss: (16:04)
Additionally, what we're doing, part of this whole training needs assessment is we're building a library on training topics and we're identifying the tools, how we wanna deliver that. Is it a computer-based or online-type training, or is it a classroom-based type training? This is all what we're building into our documented process.

Eric Kloss: (16:24)
Then, finally, the university as a whole, we're looking at a whole new learning management system web-based. This tool that we're using that we're migrating to now will not only house the training, it'll send out reminders to folks if people don't take their training, their supervisor will get an e-mail, it'll track all that good stuff.

Eric Kloss: (16:46)
But additionally, this tool will track all of our training and our inspections that we do in the labs. When we come out and we do an assessment or an inspection, we'll put it in this tool, it'll get scored based on the parameters we set, and it'll actually track the findings or actions to closure. Our lab folks now will be required to go into this tool, say that they did it and they did it on this day, and they can even upload documentation like a picture or something that shows that it's been completed.

Eric Kloss: (17:16)
So, we have a pretty good plan going forward. Again, we've got a long way to go, but where we came from in the last couple years has been pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to working with the ...

Barrett: (17:29)
Eric, mind if I interject, here? I was just thinking it might be worthwhile if you could give our audience members some examples of when you were looking to move and implement a system, selected one ... What was in your ROI analysis? What sort of things were you looking at that you thought, "If it can do this for us and solve some of our training problems here," what's in that package that ultimately made it worth your while?

Eric Kloss: (17:58)
Okay, cool. Yeah, so, one of the things I did to get some buy into this process, I developed a return on investment for ... We put out a cost outline for, "The online training's gonna cost X amount," but what was the return for the university?

Eric Kloss: (18:15)
I calculated that and it only came out to be 18 months, which isn't a great return. When you look at returns or ROIs, you want a year or less. Some of the inputs we used, we really wanted to make them repeatable and I didn't wanna argue with the leaders of any soft-type cost, so what we looked at was people's times and who was giving the training. I had identified all the instructors, which included folks on my staff, and we had some folks outside of our department giving the training, and we tallied that up to give us that 18-month ROI.

Eric Kloss: (18:46)
But what really sold this to other members and the leadership in the university was all this intangible, and soft costs, and benefits that we would receive by implementing it. Those things included things like I already mentioned. The researchers were not getting slowed down on their research activities. Again, they could take this training, like I said, in London, come here and just hit the ground running. It also maintained our regulatory compliance from all of our records. It provided an opportunity for the people in the labs to not have to maintain all these loose-leaf stuff; they could just keep it all online.

Eric Kloss: (19:25)
So, all those intangible stuff and the customer satisfaction is what really sold this to our leadership and opened them up to be willing to invest in this type of platform, so, again, I did present that return on investment type of stuff, but the overall selling point, I think, was the overall customer satisfaction and regulatory compliance I was gonna get from it. But thanks for that question, I appreciate that.

Barrett: (19:49)
No, thank you, Eric. Please continue.

Eric Kloss: (19:56)
When we look at ... One of the most astounding things that we did here, at the university, to help move not only this training program forward but the whole environmental health and safety program was we implemented an EHS steering committee.

Eric Kloss: (20:10)
This steering committee that we actually called our Lab Safety Advisory Committee is not a committee that's from my department or the risk management and safety department. It's actually from the office of research, and our vice president of research appoints the members and appoints the person that chairs it. The person that chairs it is a very well-respected faculty member, and the faculty members that are on it are senior individuals who have been around a long time and, again, have a lot of respect throughout our organization.

Eric Kloss: (20:43)
This committee, we also have some ad hoc members that work with all the academic folks, such as our maintenance people or our campus services folks that housekeepers report up through. All these people sit on this committee. I facilitate it, I set the agenda, but it's the committee that's actually working on all the stuff.

Eric Kloss: (21:05)
They have done everything from a strategic view down to tactical stuff, but overall, it's their committee and they are actually starting to manage the safety program. It's been one of the best things I think that this university has done, where you start changing that culture and getting buy-in through your programs, getting the collaboration with our faculty members.

Barrett: (21:30)
Eric, another question, here, if you don't mind. How did you get support to even inform the committee? I suspect for maybe some of the folks out there, depending on organizational dynamics, that, alone, may seem like moving mountains, depending on the bureaucracy there in higher ed. Sometimes that's a bigger problem for others. So, how did your colleagues even respond to the concept?

Eric Kloss: (21:57)
That's a great question. I was really fortunate. When I started here, a committee similar to this was already in place and they were here to look to one thing and one thing only. They were looking at how we were doing our lab assessment program.

Eric Kloss: (22:13)
Well, when that process finished and that committee was just about ready to disband, I went to the vice president of research and I talked to him about keeping this committee up and running and selling to him the reasons why. One of the major points that we talked about when I was in that meeting with him was to get the collaboration not only from this committee, but what it does is it gives the faculty members outside of this committee out in the campus a platform where they can talk and feel that they have a voice in their future when it comes to look at EHS.

Eric Kloss: (22:55)
This committee has opened the doors for people to give them an opportunity to talk, and it's no longer that it's a top-down driven program. It's more of a shared responsibility. To get something going like this, you really need to get the pulse of where your organization is and talk with them about getting that voice of the customer and having people have a mechanism to talk.

Eric Kloss: (23:21)
So, our vice president of research was very open to this, and thankfully, there was already something going that I convinced him to keep moving. All the members that were originally on it wanted to stay on it. It's been a blessing for me over here.

Barrett: (23:38)
Thanks, Eric.

Eric Kloss: (23:41)
Some of the things that this committee does, you're looking at two big buckets. The first they do is, again, they give us help with our strategic approach to the lab safety program. We look at one year, two years, three years, four years out as where we wanna be from a lab safety program standpoint.

Eric Kloss: (24:04)
Again, as they're looking at it, they're keeping in mind not only the safety elements of regulatory requirements, but they're also looking at how it effects the university and the researchers, themselves, 'cause they're tied really close with their colleagues. They take this information back to them so they get some feedback, so there's active discussions going on behind the scenes. This committee's able to come back to us and say, "Hey, I talked to so-and-so about this plan. This is what you're talking about doing, but this is what it means to them." Strategically, they really help us plan out where we're going.

Eric Kloss: (24:39)
But tactfully, they do a lot of really neat things for us. They provide feedback at anything that we publish out to the academy. If we're putting out a new procedure, let's say, on lab personal protective equipment, they'll look at it, they'll queue it up and they'll say, "Hey, this might not come across this well. Change this word or present it this way." And, again, they go out and talk to their colleagues and say, "Hey, we're talking about doing this level of, let's say, PPE in the labs. What does that mean for you?" Then we'll take that back as a committee and talk about it.

Eric Kloss: (25:15)
So, the tactical stuff that they've been doing for me has been very, very positive. They'll even review things like safety alerts for us. Anything that goes out broad scope to our academic folks they take a look at and they give us their feedback. It's really been helping to pave the way of getting by in a collaboration from not only the committee but from the broad scope of our researchers across campus.

Eric Kloss: (25:43)
Some of the things that we've really accomplished over the times that we've been with this group is not only that training program that we talked about, but they've helped with fairly big things like our chemical hygiene program. We've changing the culture and we've migrated into a higher level of PPE in our lab, so they have been a very, very strong group at Notre Dame.

Eric Kloss: (26:07)
As we move over to the last slide, the results that we've been getting has been, like I said, very, very positive. The culture has now been shifting where we're getting acceptance of some of the stuff that we've been rolling out, and again, I believe it's really because the academic group feels that they have a voice in the program and it's not so much a top-driven program. If they have some concerns, I can go to a member of this committee and talk about it.

Eric Kloss: (26:49)
If we look at the training programs that I opened up with, we got feedback from members of the faculty. They say, "Hey, the training's too long. Can we tailor it down to PIs?" The committee talked about that and we have a plan to do that, so we wanna make sure that their voices have been heard.

Eric Kloss: (27:07)
But ultimately, now, this committee, when I started with them a couple years ago, it was more me leading the group, facilitating it, and leading the discussions. Now, we're at a point where I can go in and state a problem statement, give some ideas and the committee jumps on it and really works the problem. It's been really cool. It's now more of a shared approach than it is a RMS responsibility.

Eric Kloss: (27:31)
One of the huge takeaways I got from a faculty member, he was at a meeting I was in speaking to upper leadership here at the university, the comment was that this safety program is light years from where we were a few years ago. It really has to do with this group. This group is what has made it where we are today, not only from a training standpoint, migrating to the online type training, but also from an EHS standpoint. So, it's been really cool to watch.

Eric Kloss: (27:59)
One of the takeaways I'd leave with you guys is, as you're looking at your organizations, if you don't have a group that's collaborative like this, give it some thought. It's been really beneficial for us. It's helping move our program forward in this digital age up into where we need to be.

Barrett: (28:17)
Eric, quick question, here, from the audience, and that's, "When do you feel this process will be completed? What's the projected timeline where you feel like, 'All right, we're settled. We've got a stellar safety program, got a new system in place, got the committee ramped up and working in a very responsive function'?" I guess, when do you reach the satisfaction point?

Eric Kloss: (28:41)
Gosh, that's a good question. I don't know if you ever will. We, as safety professionals, I think we're always in that continual improvement mode, especially when you look at the safety-measuring system philosophy, that we're always trying to make the program better, understanding our risks, putting in the controls, and going through that PDCA cycle.

Eric Kloss: (29:00)
There's some basic stuff you need to get in place, getting the culture to start thinking about that. I've been working on it for a couple of years, here, but one of the things I've always said when I started here, "It's gonna take at least three to five years," and I'm thinking it's gonna be five years before I really get into the place where we get into a really safety management system cycle of looking at our risks and controlling those risks.

Eric Kloss: (29:26)
But we've gotta get that fundamental base built, and that's where we're at now. But, again, I don't think there will ever be a point where we'll be comfortable, but we still are in the beginning phases and it'll be a few more years before we get out of that.

Barrett: (29:41)
Curious. I've got a follow-up question for you, Eric. How does that compare with your experience in the private sector before you came to Notre Dame, getting this safety culture started and really planting those seeds, that evolution? Was it always a three- to five-year timeline then, or ... Maybe speak to that a little bit.

Eric Kloss: (30:05)
Oh, sure. I think the difference that I've noticed here in my short time in the university is that this is a lot more of a collaborative approach where the industry's pretty top-driven down, at least, the ones I was used to. When you say that, "Three to five years," I think it depends on where you're at in your evolution. But some of the places I was at in my past life in the industry would be that three to five years. Other ones would be quicker just because they were further along.

Eric Kloss: (30:36)
But I think the major difference, here, is you really have to be more collaborative and work with these committees that we set up here to get the buy-in or there will be more push than you'll be able to move forward with. We're in the industry I don't think we didn't necessarily have to have that, where we have a top-down corporate group saying, "You have to do this," but we'd be facilitating it. Here, it's more of a collaborative approach. Did that answer that question for you?

Barrett: (31:07)
It does, Eric. Thanks for allowing me to interject. Please continue.

Eric Kloss: (31:14)
One of the things I talked about early on was when we look at the documented training management system that we're trying to put together. One of the very first things that you need to do when you look at training is, "What do you actually need to give folks?"

Eric Kloss: (31:26)
We put together a tool that I believe we'll share with you later, but the tool's very simple. There's many, many different ways to do a training needs assessment, but I'll show you what we've done here and explain it for you, yeah. On the screen, there, you'll see that it's broken down in columns and rows and it's very simple. Up at the top is the name of the course.

Eric Kloss: (31:50)
The idea behind this whole tool is it's done by the supervisor, or the PI, or the manager, whomever is overseeing employees, and they need to understand what work they're doing and link that back to the training. Each of these training topics are defined and it provides guidance for the supervisor or manager on a different sheet, so a manager could say, "What is aerial lift platform training all about," and they could go read a little paragraph that would hopefully stimulate their thoughts to say, "Oh, my person uses a scissor lift and they need to take this training."

Eric Kloss: (32:24)
Then what we do is you go down to the next row, there, and it gives the supervisor or manager an idea of how frequently the training is needed. We do this in years, one to three years, unless it's a one-time-only type training, you'll see an R there for "refresher." The columns that are shaded in gray, that's our indications for the supervisor/manager that we recommend that everybody regardless of what they're doing take this training. For example, I think you'll see accident reporting there highlighted, and that's a training that we wanna make sure everyone gets.

Eric Kloss: (32:57)
The last two rows below that just give the idea of where this requirement is coming from. I picked up on that, that here, at the university, people ask "why" a lot. "Why do I need to take aerial lift platform training?" We wanted to show the regulatory driver if there was one put in the citation down there of why they needed to take it. Below that, we have if there's a university-level document that talks about that type of training, we'll put that number there. So, it just gives them a flavor to say, "Hey, I'm gonna go look this up and see what it means" if they wanted to do that.

Eric Kloss: (33:37)
Then, finally, we offer them an idea of where that training is coming from, whether it's online web-based or whether it's classroom, given from my department or some other person that's giving that training; they'll be able to more readily find that training. As we move forward in our program, the trainees will have a specific name tied to this new learning management system that we're developing and we'll include that information on this document so they can more easily find that course on that web-based.

Eric Kloss: (34:07)
Below this yellow line, you'll see lab person by name. We're recommending that each of the supervisors or managers or PIs list their people that are working for them by name. All they simply need to do is put a check mark next to that person's name under the course that they're required to take based on their risks or the tasks that they're doing in their lab or area.

Eric Kloss: (34:29)
Some folks have decided to do it by job title. That's fine, they can do it that way, but when they're assigning training through our new online thing, we're recommending they do it by name. It'll just be easier for them to assign courses. But, if they wanna do it the other way, that's fine as well.

Eric Kloss: (34:42)
So, this is a multi Excel document, have some tabs on it. We've broken it down not only for the labs, but from an operational standpoint, so we're trying to migrate this across the campus so we have some different training needs for people in big buckets. We have folks in the [inaudible 00:34:59] and people in the [inaudible 00:35:00].

Eric Kloss: (35:01)
Some of the feedback that we have since we rolled this out has been really outstanding. I was just talking with some folks in our campus services group who said, "Oh, thank you. It's about time. It's gonna really help our supervisors understand what training people are needing," and they can build their 12-month training calendars and get everybody the training that they're required. The feedback's been pretty good, but we're just starting to roll it out, so give me a call in six months. I'll let you know how it really works then.

Eric Kloss: (35:33)
Like I said, I believe you guys will get a copy of this. I think that's right, Jill?

Jill James: (35:38)
Right, Eric. Barrett will cover that at the end as to, everyone who's listening, how you'll be able to get a copy of Eric's assessment, but I just wanted to make sure to thank you, Eric, for being so gracious to share that assessment and the directions that go with it. I know the people that you shared it with when we were in Washington, DC found it remarkably helpful, so stay tuned for how you can get that at the end.

Jill James: (36:07)
Barrett, I think we might be ready for some questions.

Barrett: (36:11)
Fantastic. All right, folks, we'll now commence with the live Q&A portion of our webcast to get your questions answered. Just another call, here, and a reminder that you still have time to ask your questions. Please send them in using the Q&A icon and we'll answer as many here today as possible. We've got plenty of time to do that now from where I'm sitting.

Barrett: (36:34)
Right now, I'll get to our first question. Eric and Jill, are you guys ready?

Eric Kloss: (36:41)
Yup.

Jill James: (36:47)
Go.

Barrett: (36:47)
Okay then. Our first question is, "Are there changes to the committee or are members the same individuals? Is there a time period for how long someone sits on the committee?" Eric, this is related to your functioning committee at Notre Dame. Take it away.

Eric Kloss: (37:11)
Are there changes to committee members? If I interpret that as, "Are they the same members from the original committee that came when I started," the answer to that one is, "Mostly, yes." Almost all the people that were originally on the initial committee are still on it today.

Eric Kloss: (37:27)
However, some people have changed out based on ... I think a couple people left the university or a couple people changed roles or something. How that gets back filled is is that the vice president of research reaches out to that department that lost that representation and then asks for a person to sit back on the committee.

Eric Kloss: (37:48)
Currently, there are no time limits; we leave it up to the members as to how long they wanna sit or be a part of this group. Again, we're still pretty fresh into this. We've only been doing it for two and a half years, and so far, we've only had one person remove themself voluntarily and ask to be reassigned. We had another person drop because they changed roles or left the university. But other than that, we've had pretty consistent attendance and membership.

Eric Kloss: (38:19)
But overall, I would imagine that this committee will probably go through some cycles. We changed our chairperson in the last year, so I think that's the only position on the committee that has a time to it. We're looking at keeping those folks around for about a year and cycling through the members that are on the committee.

Barrett: (38:37)
Thanks, Eric. I'm wondering if maybe you had some rules and bylaws as something you might be willing to share with some of our audience members just to give them some groundwork or the materials to go ahead if they're considering forming their own committee, how to get that done effectively, some tips. Perhaps we can follow up with them after the webcast.

Barrett: (39:07)
But now, on to our next question, and that question is, "How does Notre Dame handle students being trained in the lab? Is the training available to all lab members, staff employees and students?"

Eric Kloss: (39:23)
Yes, but with a qualifier. Anybody who's working in a lab, actually conducting work, not taking a course, this training is open to them. This new learning management system actually includes all of our student population.

Eric Kloss: (39:43)
All of our staff, all of our faculty get loaded into the learning management system, and then if a student is working for a faculty member as a part-time job, or working as a research assistant, or something like that, yes, they have to go through all the required training as any staff. If a student is taking Chemistry 101 and that's just sitting in the course, the answer to that is, "No." But if they're doing anything beyond that, yes, they have to take the training and they get loaded in.

Eric Kloss: (40:16)
Now, we do the same for our visiting faculty members or any other type of visitor. If they're coming and working in the labs, they're required to take all that training as well. Those people, we have to go in, they have to get a Notre Dame net ID, which will give them an e-mail address, et cetera. That's how we get them enrolled into courses here at the university. But, yes, anybody working in a lab has to take that training.

Barrett: (40:47)
Okay, thank you, Eric. Another question, here. "You mentioned on your assessment that you cite why someone has to take training that you've assigned. OSHA and internal policy was mentioned. Are there other regulatory agencies or entities that you found play a role in campus safety overall or lab safety, specifically, chemical safety?" What other regulatory entities are out there that maybe our audience members might not know about or have already been working to reconcile with, perhaps, in some cases?

Eric Kloss: (41:27)
Yeah, OSHA was just an example. There's a bunch of 'em that we identified as we were building our matrix. Some of 'em may not regulatory-driven but they might be more recommendation-type stuff. We've done group stuff like the NRC, 'cause we have the radiation sources that's regulatory, DOT. We have some lab people shipping stuff. We have bio safety, so, NIH.

Eric Kloss: (41:55)
There's all kinds of other organizations that we've looked at to make sure that we've included in it. It's one thing that we've learned, that we always learn stuff. We didn't know somebody was doing something, so, "Oh, my gosh, we need to add this." But, yeah, we try to look beyond just OSHA or EPA and look at the other stuff as well.