Minutes May 6, 2008

CPACE Meeting Minutes Date: May 6, 2008                               Time: 10:30 p.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Location: Michigan State University,East Lansing MI

Participants listed by group:

  • Michigan State University (MSU): Mark Urban-Lurain, Neeraj Buch, Daina Briedis, Tom Wolff, Claudia Vergara.
  • Lansing Community College (LCC): Louise Paquette
  • Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW): Cindee Dresen, Tammy Coxen.
  • SAMPI: Mark Jenness

Agenda

IRB Status

  • Mark explained our status with the IRB process. It is important to have the protocols ready to send to IRB as part of the process.
  • Cindee asked if we needed the IRB approval to do the pilot and the answer is no because we are not going to use the results as a source of data.
  • Mark J raised the issue of interviewing students and weather that would change the IRB exempt status.
  • We discussed the consent form and Neeraj will send me a draft consent to prepare ours Cindee: With the employee survey questions we only have the open ended questions we have not taken the next step of building the close ended responses.

Mark: Yes. I think we can go with this for IRB purposes but we need to turn these into close ended items. We will send the two pieces to IRB and get the approval and them we can finalize the surveys.

Review minutes from the Advisory Board meeting (April 24, 2008) staff version

Daina: What is the best way for the input?

Mark: The comments remain in the wiki and are associated with the person and the date and the particular version of the document. I want to encourage the use of the wiki because this is part of the process to try and see if we can implement this sort of web techniques to do the collaboration.

Claudia walked us through the minutes document in the wiki.

Daina: I like that it is distinguishing the board members from the project staff.

  • We went through the follow up items in the staff minutes from the Advisory Board meeting (April 24, 2008).
  • MSU employment Meeting in Dearborn MI (Garth and McDonald)

Mark: We might ID people who are potentially willing to participate

Cindee: I took that as a connection to potential companies that might participate in the interview/ survey process

Claudia: We talked about a set of summary points about the project for the Ad Board to talk about at meetings.

Mark: Talking points are things like why should your company participate and such Cindee: It is an extraction of what we have at the end of the advisory Board meeting presentation. Kysha can put that together. In terms of considering having a protocol that somebody else could use it got merged with Jeannine's idea (Ad Board Meeting minutes). CSW is the primary resource in doing the interviews the idea is to how to leverage the Ad B members to help or be a resource and that could be another way to do the interviews. If we are opening the interview process to others beyond CSW folks then they all need to go through the IRB process.

Mark: Because of the IRB process I am inclined to not open the process.

Claudia: When taking to Kara (IRB person) she mentioned that it was important to mention who will be at the interview process.

Mark: we need to leverage people to give us the entry.

Mark J: Are these one on one interviews?

Mark: One on two if the company is big enough

Mark J: Having more that one interviewee would change the nature of the interview it would be more like focus groups.
Mark: I am also worried as to who is doing the interviews.

Cindee: There are two different models that CSW has used before. One is two people for example one from MSU the other from CSW or we could have only the CSW person.

Tammy: Having two people is useful from the note-taking perspective but we will be recording this.

Mark J: I raised the question of minority representation and it seemed to me that that was an issue with the Ad Board we know NSF is very demanding about this. How can we show that there's as many input from underrepresented groups.

Mark: I am wondering if through the professional societies/associations we can get a hold of underrepresented employees and also Cindee what is the situation with MMIT and Hollister are there underrepresented employers special focuses that we could get

Cindee: I am not clear about that, especially on the makeup of the companies participating on the WIRED initiative. I would have to follow up with Lisa on that to see if there is an angle within the context of that work that we can use as leverage.

Mark J: Seems that the Dearborn meeting could be a good starting place to find out who is who in that respect without being to intrusive.

Mark: I am going to a MSU Michigan meeting in Detroit and this is specifically for technology outreach and it is perfect fit for this project. This is part of MSU outreach. In terms of the Ad Board minority representation we have women. We could also go to our Ad Board and ask them for suggestions about this issue.

Neeraj: One person that could help is J. Polasek because MDOT awards contracts exclusively to minority based enterprises there are several civil firms that are minority based and there are contracts that are opened only to minorities

Tom: TACOM might have something as well. I will follow up with R. Smith from the eng. Society of Detroit and he will have information about underrepresented groups as well.

Daina: I have one minority contact he is in the Ad Board for mechanical eng. and I have to remember the name.

Claudia: I will e-mail you.

Mark: Are you thinking of him as a point of contact or Ad B. member?

Summary comments from Ad Board members about interviews and survey instruments.

  • The table contains a summary of the comments from each Ad Board member.

Tom: Are we going to discuss this around the table? My concern is that if we do the edits on our own the discussion would be disconnected and it would be better to comment between us here at the table.

Mark: My question is, are there particular points that Ad B members have raised that are not just grammatical changes?

Cindee: We could focus on particular areas. We are still waiting for more responses but we can make the edits and incorporate the Ad Board suggestions.

  • We walked through the document focusing on the comments from the AdB. Claudia edited as we went along so the changes that were accepted are recorded on the wiki (the date is in parenthesis).
  • We need the ethnicity and gender in the interview/survey protocols. 

Schedule for Summer Meetings (from May to August 15, 2008).

  • We agreed on having the meetings on Thursdays from 10:30 am to 12 pm. We will schedule weekly meetings and if there is enough people we will meet if not we will not meet.
  • Claudia will post a sign up calendar on the wiki.

Flip chart summary on the wiki. 

Cindee walked us through it.

Ad Board space on the Wiki.

  • Claudia walked us through the space.
  • Change to do list to action items.
  • Remove names and dates of completion from to do list.

Cindee: We need to discuss how to keep the Ad B members engaged in between meetings.

 Mark: Personal contact with AB members is important.

Claudia: I want to add news or status of the project.

Summary        

  •  To submit the necessary paper work to IRB we will send the protocols (survey and interview) as they are.
  •   MSU employment Meeting in Dearborn MI(Garth and McDonald). Good venue to ID people who are potentially willing to participate in the interview/survey process.
  •      Important to have talking points for the Ad Board.
  •       Because of the IRB process we will not open the interview/survey process to people outside the project staff.
  •      Minority representation at the ad Board level and at the company level is still an issue that we need to address.
  •       J. Polasek could be helpful because MDOT awards contracts exclusively to minority based enterprises.
  •       We need the ethnicity and gender in the interview/survey protocols.

Action Items

 
CSW: 

  •       Talking points for AB members.
  •        Cindee to follow up with Lisa to see if there is an angle within the context of the WIRED initiative that we can use as leverage regarding minority representation.

MSU:

  •       Neeraj to send an IRB draft of the consent form to prepare ours.
  •        Daina to check on her minority contact (he is in the Ad Board for mechanical eng.)
  •       Tom to follow up with R. Smith from the eng. Society of Detroit. He will have information about underrepresented groups.
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