 day for our third 100% virtual bridge meeting. I'm Ari and Rafa Bach, policy and program support team supervisor and the moderator for today's event. We are hosting this bridge meeting today using Google Meet, which we will be live streaming to YouTube. You can download the slides from today's presentation by clicking on the link displayed under the YouTube video. You may enter your questions for our presenters at any time into the chat box to the right of the YouTube video. If you're unable to log into YouTube for any reason to post your questions, please use your email to send us questions at rm.communications.nara.gov. As a friendly reminder, please keep the questions polite, professional, and relevant to today's discussions. If at any point you experience technical difficulties, please email that same email address rm.communications.nara.gov. And a member of our production team will be happy to assist you. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce our first presenter, Lawrence Brewer, Chief Records Officer for the US government. Thank you, Ari. So good morning, everyone, from the home recording studio. I hope you guys are all staying safe and healthy and enjoying this great fall weather, especially here on the East Coast. So it's been a crazy year, very challenging. And it's about to get even more challenging as we head into the holidays. So while I have your attention, if anyone has any ideas on how to do a COVID Thanksgiving with a large family, let me know offline. So before we get to the agenda and flip the slide, I have a few quick announcements I want to share with all of you. First, staying on the COVID theme, this morning we posted an update to our COVID and RM FAQs that we initially posted in April. We made some recent changes to it to note that we are looking at the GRS to cover some of the records agencies are now creating that are COVID specific. So some minor changes to the language in there. So I encourage you to take a look at it. And if you have any questions about the details of what's in the communication, please get in touch with the GRS team. Second, also related to COVID, I wanted to give you a heads up on the communication that we are going to be sending out tomorrow. We have been getting questions from some agencies asking us to do onsite appraisal work. And at this point with NARA and most agencies in the early stages of reopening, we are not scheduling any in-person agency visits. So our focus right now is on doing this work safely, using the tools at our disposal to conduct this work virtually. So in tomorrow's communication, you'll find further details on our approach. And we also are including some tips on how you can prepare for virtual meetings, for appraisal, and as we continue to work through this together. So if you have any questions about that communication, I encourage you to get in touch with your appraisal archivist, and then we will be happy to discuss where we are. Finally, just a quick update with some reporting news so I'm sure you're aware last month at the end of September, we published our annual records management report. I particularly wanna thank all of you for collecting the data and sending your reports in on time at really a time that was, I'm sure, inconvenient for all of us. So thank you for doing that and getting us the data. But as you know, and I'm sure it's the same in your agencies as well, the work continues. So right now, we are already working on the templates and the questions that we're gonna be using for the reporting period next year. At this point, we expect the reporting window to run from January through March. And we'll talk a lot more about that and the plans for reporting at our next bridge meeting in December. So if you have any questions on any of this, please send them in at any time in the chat and we'll discuss in the general Q and A at the end of the meeting. So let's keep things moving and take a look at the agenda. So we have a really good program and you can see from the agenda we have quite a bit to cover. So we could go back one slide. Thank you. So just wanna do a quick run through. First we have Gordon and Jeff who are going to talk a little bit about what's going on with the FRCP. Then I will be back to talk to you about two bulletins and then turn it over to Lisa who will talk about transition which is a big topic right now. And then we'll close the meeting with a presentation on our cognitive technologies white paper which we posted yesterday. So it's very timely. We'll have a chance to give you an overview of content of that white paper and then hopefully after that we'll still have some time for some general Q and A and we can handle any questions that come in via chat. So with that, I will turn it back over to Aaron. Thank you Lawrence. This is a reminder to our viewers that if you're not able to ask your question in an individual Q and A session we will have a closeout Q and A session with all the presenters from today's program. Now please welcome Gordon Everett and Jefferson Lunsford who will be presenting an update on the FRCP program. Thank you, Aaron. Good morning. I'm Gordon Everett, Director of the Customer Relationship Management for the Federal Records Center program. And I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe in our current environment. But as we continue to gradually and safely open the 18 federal records centers around the country you are able to get some real time info if you were to go to FRCP.gov and you click on operating status and it advises all of our agency customers what phase each of the records centers are in. As of this morning, we have eight centers in phase one, nine in phase two and one center is currently closed due to the COVID metrics in that county in Illinois. So please keep in mind that 10 to 20% of our staff are working during limited hours in phase one and 25 to 50% of the staff are in those buildings doing phase two. So, and also customers before you send any records to any of those centers, please make sure you communicate with that record center to see if they are able to accept records and what amount of records they're able to accept safely. I know we have many in the records management community on the line today, but for our federal records officers in a recent letter from our acting director of the federal records center program Stephanie Hutchins you received a letter from her with your interagency agreements for 2021. And you noted in that letter is where we're establishing a new rate structure and billing timing to ensure the federal records center program recovers all costs as required by law. So this morning with me is Jeff Lunsford who is the financial analyst from the federal records center program who will speak more about this. Yeah. Thanks Gordon, good morning to everybody on the call. As Gordon mentioned in late September the interagency agreements were distributed to each of you. It does reveal and does include news about the new fee structure for the record center program. It's a major reorganization of our fees and we believe it will simplify and expedite the interagency agreement process as well as billing. So under the new structure the fees for most standard services including transfers, most types of dispositions, reference and refiles are included as baseline services within the storage fee. Set another way and to amplify that there will not be a separate charge for reference, refiles, transfers and most disposition. The fees that will remain in effect and will be billed separately from storage include but aren't limited to truck service, labor rates permanent withdrawals and special projects like scanning and some consulting work. So the fee structure is in effect beginning October 1st and you should have a copy of those 2021 rates that were attached to your interagency agreement. We do wanna point out and highlight that there is not a separate fee that's being charged for the disposal of records and we hope that that will encourage the timely disposition of eligible records which will elevate the entire records management records lifecycle process. We have gotten a few questions and what I did wanna cover today sort of the legal framework under which we can make these changes. And I wanna draw your attention to the enabling legislation for the record center program for the revolving fund. It was included in public law 106-58 that was passed September 29th, 1999. That law actually is just the omnibus appropriation for FY2000 but it included a little section that established the record center revolving fund and it's codified actually in 44 USC section 2901. But in paragraph C, let me look it up. In paragraph C, there's a section about user charges and it actually was sort of it's foundational legislation for us and it was really written in a very coherent and cognizant way in terms of how we would come to deliver records in a reimbursable basis to each of you. So the legislation indicates that we as a program and the revolving fund shall be credited with user charges from other federal accounts to cover our costs. The payments can be made in advance or by way of reimbursement and the rates charge will return the full expense of the operation. That's actually a really key sentence right there. There is a law out there on the books that require us to charge rates to cover the full expenses of our program. That includes not just salaries and rent but it also includes accrued annual leave, depreciation, workers comp, shelving, depreciation of IT systems and software. So truly we are required by law to recover all of our costs through our fees. Which is no small feat. I do believe that as we combine our federal funding into a single consolidated program that delivers value for all of the entire government because we are able to focus on our mission and relieve the responsibility of storing and servicing your own records. Another key component of this legislation is in section D in paragraph one under section D. It does require slash allow. It allows the records center program to retain up to 4% of our revenue in excess of our expenses as an operating reserve or to replace or acquire capital equipment. The quick read you might think that that sounds like profit. We're not actually allowed to make a profit. All we can do is sort of create a budget so that we can maintain our equipment and keep our systems modern so that we can deliver high class services to you. So that in essence means we are an at cost operation. There's no profit involved. So those two sort of paragraphs within our enabling legislation require us to be exceptionally efficient. We have to cover all of our costs but we can't charge you more than 4% over our operational costs. So the new fee structure, I say all this to say, the new fee structure is quite consistent with our enabling legislation and our practice for the last 20, 21 years, around the time of 20 years. It's our 21st year. So I guess we're legal now. So we're very careful when we took a look at restructuring the rates to ensure that, again, the rates only cover our costs and we don't charge you any more than our costs. So the other change you'll notice, which hopefully is just sort of an accounting change that won't sort of shake anybody's world, is that we changed the timing of our billing cycle so that our bills will be billing in advance as opposed to in a years. So the October bill that you receive, you'll receive one bill in October that will close out September. So that's all prior fiscal year. But beginning in October of FY21, the bill you receive in October will be for October. So we'll be billing within the month that our services are being delivered. And that advanced billing, if that's what you want to call it, advanced billing will continue throughout the course of FY21 and one. So those are the two major changes that we've introduced with this interagency agreement cycle. And with that, I think we can turn it back to Gordon and maybe open up for questions. Okay, Arion, do we have any questions coming in? Yes, we have two questions from the audience. The first question is, since the new rate structure is related to the COVID-19 pandemic, will the rates go back to the old structure once the pandemic is over? Yep, I'd like to take that. Okay. We do anticipate that this will be a permanent change to our rate structure. That is our intention. It does offer a lot more freedom and flexibility in terms of not only our billing processes, but also it removes sort of any financial dynamic when it comes to making decisions about disposal or transfer or that sort of thing. It allows records managers to manage records without sort of the weight of finances. So we believe it's going to be a good thing for everybody. It will be as we anticipate a permanent change. And it's actually, in looking back through our history, it's consistent with the way the funds started. Back in 2000, we only had one rate actually, and it was just sort of a box rate that included everything. So this sort of tickles the back of my brain a little bit in terms of coming full circle with the way we structure our rates. And one of the other things too is we also believe this will allow us to get our agreement information out to you much earlier than we historically have. So we think this will help. Okay, thank you, Gordon. The second question is, if most of the basic services are no longer being billed for, will we still be able to track the volume of requests? Yes, there's a plan. When the customer sees their invoice, they still will see the number of requests and widgets on the invoice. There'll just be a zero dollar amount to that. So that information will still be captured. Okay, we have an additional question that's come in just asking for clarification. Did I hear correctly that no separate charges for destruction will be charged this year, formerly the D1 charge? That is correct. Effective as of October 1st, all destruction, October 1st moving forward is covered under the storage charge now. So there will be no, there is no fee for destruction. It's covered in the storage costs. Thank you, Gordon. I don't see any further questions from the audience, but a reminder, if you have any, please drop them in during the meeting and we'll answer them at the general portion at the end. And Erin, I would also ask if any customers that have any particular questions around that also, they can get to their account managers or myself and we'll gladly follow up on those questions around the agreement and the rates. Thank you. Thank you, Erin. Thank you. Thank you again guys. Now please welcome Lawrence Brewer back to the presentation as he will be presenting an update on NAR bulletins, 2020-02 and 2020-01. Thanks, Erin. And thanks, Karen. I already got an email on suggestions for how to do Thanksgiving. And Karen, I see what we're thinking alike. I see that you're planning on doing it in the garage with outdoor space theaters. And we may be going down that path as well. So if anybody has any other original ideas on how to get through the holidays safely, send them on in. So at this point though, let's not talk about COVID and the holidays and focus on two bulletins that we issued at the end of September. So we were working very hard to try and get both of these bulletins out before the end of the fiscal year. So we could start the new year fresh with new guidance. So really happy to be able to talk to you about both of these today. So the first one we're gonna talk about is NAR bulletin 2020-02. Next slide please. So you can see a few bullet points on the slide about what is covered in guidance on scheduling the early and late transfer of permanent records. This should look familiar to all of you as it supersedes what we used to call the 15 year bulletin that was covering early transfer. So that requirement still stands. However, what we've done in this bulletin is now included provisions for late transfer. So it's essentially we've got the bookends in place 15 for early, 30 years for late. And the provisions for classified are still in place. So instead of 15 for classified, it would be 25. And we have kept those provisions as well. One of the things that we also have kept in place are the checklist for early transfer. And then we've added a checklist for you to fill out for a proposed late transfer. So it's a pretty straightforward bulletin. It includes our rationale for why we are providing this guidance around both early and late transfer. And again, the checklist are there for you to review the cases where you think an exception may be needed and then you can get in touch with us via your appraisal archivist and review those specific situations. So again, fairly straightforward. Glad to get this out. I mean, this is one of the things that we wanted to make sure that we covered because while we had the early transfer, we didn't really have anything in place for late transfer. So we wanted to make sure we covered both ends. Next slide, please. So this is one that I know we've been promising for some time and I wanna spend quite a bit more time on this bulletin as we've had many questions about it. So next slide. As you can see, questions, questions, questions. And really what this gets to is when the Memorandum came out in 1921, back in June, 2019, there was language in the memo that said that NAR would provide further guidance. So we've been working on it and it's taken us some time to do the coordination, not only internally, but also with OMB, but one of the benefits in the time that it's taken us to get this out is that it really allowed us to hear more from you about what your questions are. So we were able to fold those questions into this guidance that we issued last month just to make it that much more responsive to the questions and concerns that you have. So really what we're trying to do, if we can go to the next slide, is cover a number of things in the bulletin. We have separated it out into four general categories, some general questions that we received, some clarifications that agencies have requested. And then we focus quite a bit on the exception process and not only what those exceptions must include, but the process for how to submit them. And then we address some questions that we've been hearing around, storage facilities and scheduling and transport. Next slide. Okay, so I wanna start with some of the general categories that are covered in the new guidance. As I said, while the clarifications and the general questions are important, much of what is in the bulletin covers the exceptions that were identified as something that we would work on with this guidance related to M1921. So there are a lot of specifics in the bulletin, which I'll get to in a second, but going back to the M1921 memo, there were three general categories where agencies should first evaluate the impact of the memo on their compliance. And these three categories are here, whether or not complying with the bulletin and going fully electronic would impose a burden on the public, on whether the cost of doing so would exceed the benefit, or if there was some statute regulation that would prohibit that transition from analog to fully electronic. So those are general categories. And then we start there and then move on to the specifics. So we should be on slide 12, other considerations. Thank you. So in addition to the general categories that were in the memo, we added to the new bulletin some more specific categories. One of the things that we felt was important and wasn't highlighted in the memo is that records with potentially intrinsic value is something that we wanted to have the ability to discuss with agencies. So we wouldn't want an agency to digitize and dispose of historically valuable analog records without getting in touch with us. There's also more information in this bulletin about classified records. And obviously we're gonna need to deal with some of those issues on a case by case, but there's a general placeholder in question that just calls that out and highlights it as an issue that's something we're gonna have to work through in some cases. And then fragile records where digitization is cost-prohibited. We heard that as a question where agencies may have some older records or records on fragile media that would not be appropriate for scanning or cost-prohibitive to scan. So there are other areas where we've heard those questions and we know there's gonna be a need to have a conversation about how to move forward in those circumstances. Next slide, please. So let's talk process a little bit. There's quite a bit in the bulletin that does get to what agencies need to do and how they should submit exceptions. One of the things that we are asking agencies to do to the fullest extent possible is to develop a single comprehensive request. So we know that there are gonna be a number of requests coming in from agencies and we wanna try and work through those as expeditiously as possible. And I think it will be helpful not only for us but for you if agencies take the time to sort of pull them all together and submit them as one request. So it's partly a reason to try and keep things sort of focused and moving along but we also don't wanna have to deal with onesies and twosies as we go through the next couple of years. So we understand there's always gonna be exceptions to that and situations are going to arise that you may not anticipate. We understand that but to the greatest extent possible we do want agencies to do one comprehensive request if possible. So one of the things that we also want agencies to sort of connect in these requests is how does the specific request and the records that they relate to relate to sort of the strategic plan that the agency has in place for moving fully electronic. So we wanna try and connect the operational to the strategic and hopefully that will be borne out in the reasons that agencies need to tell us about as they submit their request. And it should cover things like and I'll get into a little bit more detail on this but it should cover things like how long they need the exception for and then any plans that an agency would need to come into full compliance. So in terms of submitting we are saying in the bulletin that the request should be signed and submitted by the agency senior agency official records management and then we have set up a dedicated email box where you can submit your request to us. Next slide. So in how you were thinking about submitting your request I mean we encourage you to think about how you would build a business case to support the exceptions that you need. So we said we wanted to be comprehensive we said we wanted to be strategic but we wanted to have all of the factors that sort of underline the business needs for why you need to have this exception so that we can very clearly see and evaluate why it's important for you to get an exception to M1921. So there are a lot of elements that I'm sure are going to go into your business case. We expect you to identify all of those elements and be able to connect them. And some of those things are on the slide that we will be looking to see in any request that you send us. Descriptive information including the approved disposition authority for the records in question, the volume of the records that are affected, the costs that you are going to incur to digitize or provide reference. And of course if there are legal issues around ownership or access, we will want to know that as well. And then the last one is an important point too, time estimates on how long an exception would be needed. And this is where we sort of get into that distinction between an exception and an extension. We have heard from a number of agencies where they have a plan to go fully electronic, but they can't get there by 2022. So they are telling us that well, we can do what the memo requires, but we cannot get into full compliance until 2024, for example. So that's a situation where we just need to understand and know the circumstances, the plan, the project plan that you have in place to make this transition. And then reviewing across that extension is in my view a little bit more straightforward than reviewing an exception where something may be needed indefinitely. So if that is the case for a particular record series, please let us know, give us your project plan, let us know when you can be in full compliance. Next slide. So I didn't want to close before talking a little bit about what NARA is gonna do once we receive your request for an exception or an extension to the requirements in M1921. So there is a process involved. Obviously we are going to review it internally. It is going to be through internal NARA stakeholder units for their comment and their feedback, the custodial units who have a lot of information and knowledge about records. And then we also do need to coordinate externally with OMB. We haven't done this process before, so there's a lot of unknowns in terms of how this will play out. As I noted, we are going to work through requests as we receive them as expeditiously as we can. But at this point, we're not setting a timeframe for how long it's gonna take to resolve the requests because all the requests are going to be different. They're going to have their own levels of complexity. And we can't really predict how the coordination is going to go with OMB and how streamlined that process is going to work. So there's a number of factors that we need to figure out and work through the process a couple of times and then we'll be able to provide more input and feedback back to agencies after we receive requests on how long we expect it to take. So at this point, we're kind of leaving it open and working through it a bit, a few times and see how it goes, and then we should have a better handle on how this is gonna go going forward. One thing that I did want to note is the recommendations on whether to approve or deny submitted exception ultimately comes down to not only OMB and the feedback that we provide to OMB, but also to the Archivist of the United States who from NAR's side of things will be the final decider on the ultimate disposition of an agency's exception request. So it is a rigorous process where we are going to be working through this not only internally with OMB, but also with all of you and you should expect that we may have some questions and wanna get back in touch with you to get further information and details as we review each request that we receive. So with that, I will pause and see if anyone has questions about either of the bulletins. Thank you, Lawrence. We do have a couple of questions that have come in. The first one, have there been any discussions in regards to having the 2022 deadline be extended? So there have not been any discussions yet and we did address this in the new bulletin. One of the things that we have been saying all along is that right now we are all focused on COVID, making sure everybody is safe and healthy and in developing our agency plans on how to reopen and get people back in the buildings. And that really has taken the time and really the bandwidth of the senior managers in our agency and I'm sure in yours as well. So we have not yet because of that and our focus on that issue been able to have any discussions with OMB at this point. I can assure you that we will get there and we will have those discussions but at this point with the deadline still two years away we feel like we have some time to sort through it and get through the pressing need to keep people safe and reopen our buildings now and then we can have those discussions. So I think as you go forward you should consider that as you developing your request and assume that the targets are not going to be changed and then we can work with you on your request and if they do get changed then perhaps if all you're requesting is a short extension could be OVE at that point. So I would say just stay tuned. We will get there. We will have those discussions. We're just not at that point right now. And thank you. The other question sort of dovetails off your response there shouldn't COVID-19 pandemic be an exception? So the memo is about going fully electronic and that goal that target hasn't changed. We still in spite of the pandemic need to continue to the best ability that we have to work on moving fully electronic. Yeah, sure COVID is going to affect that and it may impact in certain circumstances our ability to digitize records or do the work that we need to do. So in those cases that may be true that COVID may be a reason why an agency needs an extension. So I think that is where I think agencies need to evaluate the difference between an exception and an extension. And I think in those cases I could certainly see that as being a reason for needing more time to get the work done. But still in order to request an extension because we need to get through COVID we still need to understand the plan the series of records that are gonna be affected by this extension and the details underlying it. So I think that is probably the best way to approach it. I think if you're looking for an exception it's really immaterial from COVID. If it's the kind of general exception that we discussed earlier COVID is not gonna have that kind of impact but for an extension it may be something that we need to talk to us about first and then we can work together on what you would need to submit to us for review. Any other questions, Ari? I don't see any coming in at this moment as a reminder to our participants you can ask your questions in the YouTube chat or you can email them to rm.communications.nara.gov. Okay, well then I will say you can certainly send in a chat and if we have time at the end of the meeting you can certainly take up your question then or send an email to rm.communications as you're seeing on the slide and we'll be sure to get an answer back to you. With that I'll turn it back to you, Ari. Thank you, Lawrence. Now please welcome Lisa Herrilampus the Director of Records Management Policy and Outreach who will be presenting on transition and federal records management. Hi, thank you very much. So welcome everybody to this my portion of today's bridge meeting. I'd like to talk a little bit about transition and federal records management. So if we can go to the next slide we will start at the beginning. So I always, I know that there are many members of our federal records management community that have been through transitions before and they sort of know the ropes but I thought that for those of you who are new who may be new to federal service and new to federal records management we can start at the beginning and just cover a few basic things. So bear with me if this is a repetition for you. So first I wanna talk about what is a presidential transition? It's words that may have been thrown around quite frequently or you hear them in the news and we talk about transition. What I'd like to point out and talk about what it is specifically it's the process for planning for a new presidential term. You'll also hear me use the words presidential transition or administration transition the administration and presidential are synonyms because what we're talking about is the process of preparing for a new president to enter the office or for a president to start a second term. It really doesn't matter who wins the election because as far as we're thinking about it from a federal records management perspective there's always a transition. Every four years there's a transition and it's something that we need to plan for and prepare for. I've also put on this slide for those of you who want to look at a little bit more information I'm calling it my legal footnotes on the bottom. There are laws that govern how a transition works. It's not something that we make up every four years. There's a process, there are steps in place and I could think that I would say from my 30 years of federal experience that I've watched each transition sort of get a little better and the reasonable, good, effective and efficient government part of this process is always looking at ways to do transition a little bit better. And that is why you can see the laws have been updated from 2000 to 2010, 2015 and even 2019. One of the changes that happened in the past 10 years is that to support transition there is a bylaw, a Center for Presidential Transition that is being run by the Partnership for Public Service or PPS. And for those of you in the federal space, PPS might be ringing a bell. That is the same organization that runs the Employee Viewpoint Survey, the EBS and the best places to work in government. They're a nonpartisan nonprofit organization and what their role is in transition is creating a Center for Presidential Transition and pulling together all sorts of sources of information and resources and being a place that can communicate and can focus on transition without having either of the parties or administrations having to focus on that from the perspective of their running campaigns. So you don't wanna run for a campaign and perhaps focus on the administrative parts of a presidential transition. I'll also highlight, as I said, we're starting at the beginning. So if anybody is new to transition and they wanted to learn more about what the transitions are like, I recommend going to their website. They have a wealth of resources. And in fact, on the next slide, slide 19, I've put a screenshot up of their website. As you can see, they're focused on information and resources for campaign teams, for transition teams, for Congress and the media. And I would say, if you're new, this is a good resource to use to learn. And one of my favorites is not only do they have a blog, but they have a podcast. And I too have been listening to the podcast and just in general thinking about how transition works. So that's a resource for you. On the next slide, I'd like to talk about the legal requirements for agencies. So if you delve into the center's work or you delve into those laws, there are certain legal requirements that each agency and the White House need to do for transition. The first is that each agency must designate a senior career official in charge of transition, planning, briefing and succession planning. On September 4th, OMB issued a memo, which we all love our OMB memos. This is in 2033. And it directs agencies to designate those career officials as the law requires. It says that every agency must have this designation, this person in place, and that includes every component agency for a department and even major sub-components that they all need to have their transition officials by now. There also are two councils that are formed by law and supported by the center. One is the White House Transition Coordinating Council and the other is the Agency Transition Directors Council. And as I said, if you're interested in these councils or you're interested in more, there's resources for you to go look. Well, what I wanted to point out from this perspective for our federal community is that there are groups and there are people who have been working on transition. They've been actively developing the succession plans and the briefing books and thinking about how to do transition. And as part of their roles, they have been thinking about records management. How do I know they've been thinking about records management? If we could go to the next slide, please. We'll come back to, I'll answer that question in a minute because what I wanted to talk about was not only the legal requirements that the PPS helped set up, but also NARA's responsibilities. So as an agency, we have three major responsibilities that come that are related to transition. The first one, which is really interesting and I'm always excited and interested to see what our colleagues are doing on the other in another part of NARA is that we're responsible for transferring presidential records from the White House before a new president is inaugurated. As you may know, NARA runs the presidential libraries, the presidential centers. And so like I said, that is a huge part of NARA's mission and very interesting, exciting. And unfortunately for you, not what I'm talking about today. I'm also not gonna be talking about item number three because we also are an agency and we have to prepare for transition just like every other agency does. We have our coordinator and we put together our plans. Although we are a very, as you know, NARA is a medium-sized to small agency and we actually only have one political appointee. So we're in good shape as far as that goes. We have a little bit of an easier path when it comes to preparation as an agency. And what I wanna focus on today for this bridge session is talking about that second point that we have a responsibility to provide guidance and support to help ensure that incoming and outgoing officials follow federal records management requirements. We at the National Archives are one of the four support agencies that help support transition. There are three other agencies as well. And those agencies are OPM, the Office of Personnel Management, which helps focus on hiring and getting people in place. It also is the Office of Government Ethics, OGE. OGE is responsible for helping incoming officials get through the ethics review and get through the vetting to be confirmed in their appointments. And then the fourth agency, so OPM, OGE, NARA, and the fourth agency is GSA. And GSA, I would say, is the lead federal agency that helps work with the center and work with these councils and is supporting transition. They also have the role that GSA always has of sort of finding places and finding things. So they are GSA. They help agency transition teams find space in agencies. They help make sure they have equipment that's necessary for transition support. So if we could go to the next page, or the next slide, please. So I wanted to highlight and go GSA's role and answer the question I just posed to ourselves a minute ago. How do agencies transition teams know that there are records management requirements? Well, GSA has put together a transition directory. Once again, this is a picture of screenshot of a website so you can go look at the center's webpage or you can go look at the GSA transition directory. When you get there, you'll see again a wealth of information relating to what federal agencies and transition teams need to know about transition. And you'll see that I have expanded their left-hand navigation to point out that in the directory, there are specific records management guidelines where we talk about federal records and presidential records and have resources available. So we know that agencies who are using the directory and the councils and the ATD directors are referred to this directory. And we know that we've sort of linked from the center site to the GSA site to the NARA site to provide resources. So if we could go to slide 23 please. I'm gonna talk about what those resources are. And I wanted, I'm sorry, I did want to also share we have made these resources available and we have, and I and my team, we have both briefed the agency transition directors and we've been working with the partnership. So we know that the agency transition directors and those career officials who are supporting transition are getting their awareness of records management requirements. And we know we've been making this awareness available for agencies as well. We have had on our webpage for a long time, a webpage we call Documenting Your Public Service. When we first developed this information, and I think we've been doing versions of this for the past 20 years, we had a guide that we would hand out for incoming officials that said or made available for other agencies to hand out as a publication. Here's what you need to know about documenting your public service. So he's always left that on our webpage. And what is here is a series of resources to help agency records officers and federal records management staff be prepared and think about the things they need to cover for federal records management requirements during the transition. So there's always areas of emphasis we wanna focus on. I'll also point out on this page that we have a short, I think it's about a five or six minute video that we created in 2016. And it has the archivist talking about the importance of records management during transition. That's available if you wanna use that in a transition briefing. We have a video that we wanna share. And if I were to give a short two sentence summary of why we're doing this work and what the video is about, it's that every time there's a transition, we're making history. It's just the nature of transition. Something is happening within the federal government. You're a one-term or a two-term president that makes history. And what do we do with the National Archives? We preserve history. So we are looking to work with agency records officers and transition staff to make sure that we have good, efficient and effective government structures in place so that the history that's made is captured and eventually comes to NARA. Okay, let's talk about the next, move on to the next slide, please. So while there are traditional records management activities that happen during transitions, I wanted to bring up four areas of focus that we've sort of noticed trending over time. And hopefully we have resources available that will help with those of these areas. So the first area of focus I wanna say is email. Email, email, email. I was going to say it takes about 100% of agency officials that are impacted by a transition are capstone officials. But there's always one little exception that brings the rules. So I'll just say 99.9% of the times when you're talking about transition, you're talking about capstone officials being impacted or affected. And this is important for good records management so that when they're incoming officials coming into federal service or outgoing officials as they're getting their entrance and exit briefings but they be clearly informed that their emails either are or will be preserved. Depending on how the agency's policy and practices are going for implementing capstone policy within their agency. And I think the idea that email is historical, the idea that their email needs to be done on official business systems that you can, if you end up for whatever reason using a personal account to conduct official business, the policy does not forbid it, it strongly discourages. And the law says officials have 20 days to forward that to their official business accounts. So when would these incoming officials learn about capstone? Hopefully they'll learn about that during the entrance and exit briefings. The other area of focus for us are entrance and exit briefings. We do have a resource, of course, on our webpage. We have some model checklists. We have found it's really important to brief incoming and it's really important to brief outgoing officials as soon as possible. Because sometimes officials who are leaving will think that I'm going to take series of records with us, you know, I need this for my future career. And of course, as we all know, there are rules about records and record keeping. You can't take records, but you might be able to take some copies of some records if they are appropriate for release. So there's often a review period that has to happen through legal and through records to make sure that there's any outgoing records being taken by an outgoing official or either their personal papers, which they kept in the government offices and systems, or they are copies of non-records that are releasable under our records and FOIL rules. I'm also gonna highlight the last two areas that are new areas of focus. And by new, I mean, we've really started focusing on them in the past 10 years, which is social media records and web records. I just wanna point out that, you know, many social media accounts, they are considered to be federal records, especially they may be copies or their social media accounts are used to amplify other records management or other briefing information. And we wanna point out that social media accounts generally are used by agencies or stay with the agency. So outgoing officials, they lose their followers when they have to go back to setting up a new Twitter account or a new social media running a new blog that's related to their work once they leave federal service. And I'll also highlight that web records is an area that we're starting to pay more attention to when it comes to transitions, because often when there's a transition of an administration and new officials come in, there will be a new emphasis on the webpage. Maybe there's something that reflects a new organization or a new focus for that new term. And I just wanna highlight that if web records are, if web records are scheduled, they need to be managed and maintained for the, as according to record schedules, which often could mean replacing information as it's needed, but then knowing that as an agency that you know what you had on the website recently and making sure you've got web content in place so that you can know what was said in the past as well as what you're saying currently. And I'll mention these four areas are something that we're focusing on. And I'd like to highlight our Records Express blog. In our Records Express blog, we're doing a series of blog posts to go into these four areas a little more. Two of them have been sent out, two more may be coming over the next week or two. As fast as Ari and I can get them written and get them out. And so if you're looking for resources, you not only have the center's page, the transition directory page from GSA, NARA is documenting your public service page. You might also find the Records Express blog is just written in a way to help focus on these areas and provide some more context for you. So with that, I'm gonna close on my final slide because this is where I'm gonna say, for those of you who said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've tuned out a little bit because I don't really need to pay too much attention to transition until there is a election result. And then we'll figure out what we really have to focus on. I wanted to share this slide which comes from the partnership for public service. It comes from the center. One of the resources they made available was data on turnover rates for when a president goes into a two term, a second term. And here you can see the data for Clinton, Bush, and Obama. And you'll see that once there was the election, they divided this up over a nine month period. How many cabinet officials resigned and transitioned between election day and inauguration day? How many left between inauguration of the first three months? And then again, how much turnover there was between the three to six month term? So I'd like to say that records management, records management never sleeps. Records management never stops. We are working to make sure that we're prepared to save and preserve permanent records created by senior executives. We're making sure that they know their responsibilities as they transition in or out of a position. And regardless of who wins the election, there's going to be turnover and there's going to be transition. So I hope these resources will be available and help you as you are thinking through the ways to prepare or perhaps have already been preparing and are familiar with our work here. So with that, I'll ask if there are any other questions related to transition, anything I can help with. Sure, thank you, Alisa. We do have at least one question. The first question is, my agency currently does not have a agency records officer. How can our management office know the process for helping our political appointees get their records handled before their departure? Would NARA give us some assistance since we are short staffed? Well, for assistance we'll do what we can. I'd like to ask that person to send an email to me directly or I'll follow up from the records communications email if you asked it that way, because we'd have to find out who is acting as records officer and I could see if we could make some connections to the transition team that's in place at your component and maybe we can make the right connections and make sure that the information, the briefings, are getting to the right person at the right place. That's a great question, but one I don't have a general answer for. And I know we always have a little bit of a lag, so I will let the dog out of the office while we're thinking if there are any other questions. That's how you know this event is live and during COVID. Thank you, Alisa. He appreciated that. At this point, we have no further questions. All right, well then thank you. I know if you have any other specific issues or questions about transition and you don't find an answer in any of those resources, please feel free to reach out to our office and we'll be happy to help you anyway we can. Thank you. Thank you, Alisa. Now please welcome Marcus Most, an archive specialist who will be discussing our new cognitive technologies white paper that we posted yesterday on Records Express. Thank you, Arjen. Wanted to take a couple of minutes this morning to talk to you about a cognitive technologies white paper that just went up yesterday. Next slide, please. This paper covers these four technologies and for purposes of this paper, we collectively refer to these four technologies as cognitive technologies. We cover not only the definitions of the technology, but also some of the supporting infrastructure that these technologies rely on. And we also take a look at some of the cultural and society implications with a focus on biases and ethics within the artificial intelligence field. The audience for the white paper includes records managers, appraisal archivists and folks interested in the intersection of new technology and records. The records management analysis focuses obviously on records and data management policy and standards and really what the implications of these technologies are for appraisal, scheduling and transfer. Next slide, please. Here's a quick snapshot of the definitions to perhaps entice you into reading the paper. IoT is really any device that has a microprocessor and can communicate wirelessly. We have RPA and machine learning and artificial intelligence ends up being more of an umbrella term that covers algorithms, methods or technologies that are employed to make a system behave like a human. Next slide, please. So you can find the white paper here. The paper was written by Charmelo Batia and myself and we also wrote it with Kyle Douglas who's now over at the National Science Foundation. And in this same section of the website there's also a white paper about the records management implications of blockchain in case you're interested in that also. So that's really the quick snapshot of what we had. Arian, are there any questions? Thank you, Marcus. We have not yet received any questions from the audience but if you have, again, if you have them please leave them in the chat or you can email them to rm.communications at narra.gov. So at this point, we'll just move on to our general Q&A sessions with all the presenters from today's program. We do have a few questions that have come in and we will circle around and get to those now. I'd like to start with Gordon, please. We have a couple of questions about the FRC and the FRC rates. So first, where can we get a copy of the notice about FRC changes that was sent out in September? That was sent to records officers with their interagency agreement packages. I want to say September 29th, but they can reach out to their account manager and if they for some reason didn't receive it, lost in the mail, if they'll reach out to their account manager, we'll get it reset to them. Okay, thank you. We have another question. If and or when NARS 4% is exceeded, how or does NARS return the excess to agencies? So, oh, thank you Gordon. So the enabling legislation actually requires us if we do exceed that 4% revenue over expenses, we are required to return any excess to the Treasury, the sort of the United States Treasury, not the Treasury Department, but the big pot of money in the sky, which serves to offset the national debt, which I think is in the 28 to $25 trillion range. I haven't, it's been a while since I checked. So if, you know, if we go over 4%, 4% right now is about $8 million. So if we hit 5%, that means we have an extra half a million dollars we're required to send that half a million dollars to offset the $25 trillion debt. So it kind of vanishes into thin air, but unfortunately there isn't a process by which we sort of divvy up the money and send it back to customers. Okay, thank you both. I think we'll move to Lawrence and some questions around the, the know our bulletins. The first one is must the exception requests come from the department level SAORM or can it come from a bureau's ARO? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, we spent a lot of time thinking about the process and how it should work. And one of the things that we're trying to do with the bulletin is really try and make that connection tighter between the records officer and the SAORM. And in this particular case, we feel it is appropriate for exception requests to come from the senior agency official for records management because it relates to very important strategic initiatives and requirements that agencies are working on to transition to fully electronic government. So we understand that bureaucratically this does present some additional challenges. And I think this is also an area where I think if you do spend the time at the operational level within the records management program, pulling together that comprehensive request, sending it to the SAORM for a review and sign off. That should hopefully streamline things on your end. But at this point, we put it in the bulletin that way because we want to make sure that these discussions are elevated within agencies because they are most certainly going to be elevated within our agency and within. So we wanted to make sure that connection is leveled in parallel. Okay, thank you. Another question that had come in. Does the exception process shown on your slides apply for agencies seeking an exception for closing their federal agencies record storage facility? So short answer is yes. The guidance that we issued should cover and is expected to cover any type of exception to M1921 that agencies would be requesting. And obviously there are requirements in M1921 that relate to record storage, agency operated record centers, and a number of other things. So the process should work the same way and it should cover those issues as well as other issues related to digitization of analog and so on. So short answer, yes. So thank you. And I think these are paired questions. So does the December 31st deadline, does the December 31st, 2022 deadline for NAR no longer accepting transfers of permanent or temporary records and analog formats also apply to analog personnel records sent to the National Personnel Records Center? If not, will there be a similar digital modernization effort for personnel records in the near future? So that is a good question. And not sure how we are working internally and with agencies around those records. I think there's certainly some very specific complex issues around personnel records that we're gonna work through. So we may need to issue some further guidance or have some discussions about those records as well. And I guess this is a semi, it sounds like a related, well, here's another question. What are the plans for accepting direct offers after the 2022 deadline in paper from an agency that has already housed them at the FRC? So if this is, so obviously if records are in the FRC system and they're permanent, they would come to us through the annual moves, through normal processes. And if they're in our custody, there's no impact. If they are outside our physical custody and within an agency and legal transfers being made outside of the normal process for the annual moves, then that would be affected by N1921 and in exception would be needed. Okay, thank you. Lisa, this is another question that has come in that is putting on your other hat, I guess. When does NARA anticipate releasing the final digitization standards? Well, thank you for asking. I was wondering, I probably should have brought that up in the beginning and asked myself that question. Our current status with the digitization standards in regulation for permanent records is that we sent it back to OMB last week. So OMB has had it for one week. We are waiting to see whether OMB would like us to do a third round of agency comment or if they will approve us moving forward and posting those regulations on the federal register for public comment. So I can't quite answer the when because there's still that key decision. But once we get those regulations posted on the federal register, you'll know two things. One, we're begun the 45 day comment period. And two, there'll be a chance to sort of see publicly for the first time, which direction we've been going and talking about those digitization regulations. So not knowing the answer to the first question, not knowing how long it will take for the regulations to get posted in the federal register because you may be aware, those of you who come from the regulations world that when there, if there's a transition of administration, if it's a one-term president and not a two-term president, there's traditionally a hold put on regulations until the new administration takes place. So my answer to the question, when do you anticipate final would be first, a second quarter, FY 21. So I'm thinking we would hopefully get them posted, get comments out, and then between January and March we'll be able to resolve those comments and get a final. I hope it will be faster if we can move faster and if we don't, then that's the time. Thank you for asking and thank you for letting me explain again our process and the steps. Okay, thank you, Lisa. I think this one, I'll direct to Gordon and Jeff. Let's have our C question. The FY 21 cost structure represented a 38% increase for our agency, 52% increase for one center. Did NARA consider going to Congress to explain the COVID impacts and ask for relief, forgiveness of the shortfall, rather than springing in agencies on agencies such an overnight cost increase in a year for which we submitted a budget over a year ago? Thank you for that question. There was a request that went to Congress for relief for the record center program. It was not acted on. I don't know if it's still being considered. The impact of COVID on our revenue is it basically cut our revenue in half and did not cut any of our expenses at all. So we struggled with that internally and in developing the rate structure we did take a look at the impact of our FY 21 estimates for each of our customers and we made an attempt to balance that understanding that some customers' invoices would go down and some customers' invoices would go up. It was a challenge because we don't like the idea bringing that kind of major financial change on anybody and it's disheartening to hear that your agency was impacted that much. What I can offer to you is to please contact your customer service representative on Gordon's team and I don't know what we can do but I know we have had some conversations with other customers who are expressing the same confront. So we are working offline on individual cases. In the very least, if what needs to happen is a supplemental budget request to OMB and Congress we can certainly provide the data and the support that you would need to justify that request. But I would encourage you to go through Gordon's team first to see if there's anything that we can do internally. I'm waiting to see if any more questions show up. Here's one that has come in around annual reporting. What or when was the opening date and the closing date for the 2020 annual reporting? RMSA email and SAORM reports. So it's interesting, I'm gonna answer that question as best I can because it says when was the 2020 reporting? As you know, we do our data call and then we look back. So for the year 2020, when we do our annual reporting we will release that report and we're still planning on running that report from January to mid-January to mid-March. So we expect to have the reporting window open the way we traditionally have. If you're asking what did we do for the 2019 report in 2020 we issued it in, we opened the reporting period mid-January and then due to COVID we gave two extensions so it went through, it didn't close until May. So I hope that answers both questions and what I think you're asking about so I'll just reframe it again is if you're asking will there be a delay for the RMSA reporting period due to COVID in 2020 we are still planning to have a regular reporting cycle with the RMSA, the SAO report, the SAO for records management reports and the email and electronic permanent records report out in January. And I hope we'll be able to talk about what's coming a little bit more at our December bridge. So stay tuned, follow the blog, follow the ACMEMOs that we send out and we'll provide more information soon. Thank you. I'm gonna start the back to Marcus. How about one of the interesting facts that you learned as part of the research into cognitive technologies? Thanks, Aryan. Yeah, I think the fact that my refrigerator talks to my phone got me thinking that there were gonna be some records management implications for federal agencies around this. And I think what blew me away is just the volume of connected devices and the volume of data that's being generated. You know, there was an estimate that there were gonna be 75 billion devices connected to the internet in just four years and that, for example, some airplane engine manufacturers now track something like 70 trillion data points per year for their engines. And that kind of volume was just kind of a, it's just a different scope than I've kind of traditionally thought about records management. So that was one of the neat things that really came out for me. Thanks. And I'll just point out that you've got a fan already on the YouTube who's gonna go read the paper. So thank you. Oh, that's great. This is probably at least a question. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic relative to the agency continuity and thereby essential records management, does NARA plan any revised 2020 annual reporting to expand it or new RMSA questions or separate essential records report similar to the e-records and email report? Thank you for the question. And I will admit I was chatting with Don Rosen, our director for oversight reporting to make sure I had the correct information to give you. And in light of COVID, and again, that's kind of what I wondered if the earlier question was referring to as well, for the 2020 RMSA in the non-scored questions, we were planning to ask some questions related to COVID and records management. Again, the RMSA is such an important part of feedback for federal records management because it's the data that we learned in the RMSA and these reports help us make determinations on what new training is needed, what new policies are needed. So yes, we are planning to include some COVID questions in the non-scored RMSA port. We also will probably be asking about COVID impact to agency strategic plans for records management as we know in some areas for analog and digitization, if you're not physically present, that's had a harmful effect on what agencies are able to do with records management. And on the other hand, for agencies that have been trying to transition to electronic records, the pandemic ended up being a spur and some plans were put in place to move to electronic faster than the agencies had. So we're sort of gonna use the 2020 reporting period to learn about the stories and learn about the impact of COVID. So we do plan on doing that. And again, to reiterate, we are still planning to have the same reporting period. So we'll be asking from January to mid-January to mid-March. And I'd also wanna share, for those of you who are interested, I neglected to mention that we did just release the 2019 annual report. Our federal agency's records management report was put online, and I believe that was just two weeks ago. So you'll be able to read what we learned last year and that will also help inform the questions that we'll be asking next year or this upcoming year. So, and again, if you have any questions about reporting that I wasn't able to answer or you had something more specific, please send them to me and I will get the right people to send you the right answer. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Lisa. Sorry for jumping around, but we've got a very active vibrance community on chat today. This is a question for Gordon and the FRC folks. Will NARA terminate the COVID-19 surcharge either as a separate charge or baked into a bundled fee once the pandemic ends? Make sure it came off of mute. I am off of mute. The COVID charge was through September 30th. We have now, as of October 1st, all of the rates for 2021 are out or have been distributed to customers. So there's no COVID surcharge baked in. These are the rates for 2021, right? For physical 2021 right now. And I hope I answered that pretty clearly for them. But again, the surcharge ended on September 30th and now on October 1st, you have new rates which are for and are new structure for physical 2021. Okay, thank you. I think that's, oh, I have a question on technology. What examples, and maybe this is for Marcus or you can leave the discussion here. What examples of records management processes does NARA see as being amiable to robotics, robotic process automation? So a lot of what we teased out is that there is a pretty good records management and data management infrastructure, statutes, regulations, policies that agencies can fall back on as they're thinking about what to do with the volume of data and kind of how it impacts their business processes. So I'm not sure specifically about RPA and the connection with the records management systems. Marcus, this is Lisa. As someone who both read the paper and had the wonderful opportunity to edit, I'm not the researcher. So Marcus will have to back me up here. But I'd like to answer the question that RPA robotic processing automation refers to software. So it's what software tools can be put in place to handle administrative or support the humans who are doing the work of trying to manage records management. So we didn't find too many use cases or examples of RPA being used in agencies for records management. But we think that we saw some cases of RPA being used for broader information management. So answering questions, right? That might be canned questions to an agency records office that every time somebody sent you a question, there was an automated reply potentially with more information or examples of like these are the types of questions I'm getting as an agency records officer records program. There might be ways for RPA to help us do better at managing incoming requests. And then we're still looking at ways that RPA might help us do better work relating to other areas of records management from creation maintenance and disposal. So the widely repetitive tools that can be automated with software is something we're looking forward to seeing and hopefully we'll have another bridge topic on as agencies come forward. So Marcus, and if you want to riff on that but that's where I would add. No, that's great. I mean, yeah, it would be great if we could create a chatbot for records management where people could put in their questions and they could get a chatbot response. So something like that is what I was thinking. Thank you. Yeah, just didn't that, Marcus, I don't know if you got that RPA chat question off the YouTube, but it's there. So we've captured that. At this point, I'll do a sort of a last call for questions. Reminder, if you can still email them or drop them in the chat, we'll take a few moments to see if any come in. So I think we've cut ones. I think we'll move it to, I'll start wrapping it up. Since there are no more questions, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for viewing and your active participation in today's bridge meeting. We'll also like to remind you that our next bridge meeting is Wednesday, December 16th, 2020. If you still have questions, please still use that email, rm.communications.nara.gov or visit our bridge page at the URL. Thank you, everyone, and have a great day.