 Thank you for joining us today for our February virtual bridge meeting. My name is Ariane Ravenbach, Policy and Program Support Team Supervisor, and I'll be moderating today's event. During the event, you may enter your questions for our presenters at any time into the chat box on the right of the YouTube video. If you are unable to log into YouTube to post your questions, please use your email account and send questions to us at rm.communications.nara.gov. As a 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. This is a reminder to our viewers that if you aren't able to ask your question in the individual question-and-answer sessions following each speaker, we will have a closeout question-and-answer session with all the present presenters from today's program. Now we welcome Lawrence Muir, Chief Records Officer for the U.S. Government to take off today's presentation. Thank you, Ariane, for covering all the important administrative questions, and good morning, everyone. I hope 2021 is treating you well. I know at least to me it seems like December Bridge was half a year ago and it almost seems longer than that. A lot has happened since the holidays and the last time we got together. So we thought we would take today and this bridge meeting to bring you some updates on some very important topics and just to give you sort of a preview of the agenda. We have, first, Gordon Everett is going to join us to give us some updates on what's going on with Federal Records Center's program. And then the bulk of the program, and I think what we want to spend the most time talking about because it's such an important topic for all of us, is where we are with the Electronic Records Archives 2.0. So we have Sam McClure and David Lake with us today to tell us where we are with ERA 2.0 and what is coming up over the next year or so. And then finally, we're going to close out with something we haven't actually done in some time, a records management training program update given by our new records management training director. So I will introduce Eddie a little bit later on in the program when we get to that. And then we will have hopefully plenty of time for your questions and have some discussions before we close out. Before we do get to the main program, I did have a couple of updates I wanted to share with you. First, we have been talking many times before about the work that we are doing to issue regs with standards for digitizing permanent records. So I wanted to give you a status update on where we are with that right now. The public comment period closed on February 1st and we've actually still been taking in some comments. We had some late comments come in which we received and are compiling. So just to give you a sense of what we received through the public comment period, we have about 100 distinct comments on the standards from about 20 different commenters. So the commenters that we received comments from really cover a wide variety of perspectives. They include public policy groups, academics, vendors, historical associations, industry associations, national and international experts in digitization and of course some other federal agency employees have been in comments through that period as well. So we really have quite a bit of work to do right now in terms of compiling and getting a sense of what these 100 comments actually mean. But in general I can tell you right now that we did receive few comments about the standards themselves, the technical aspects of it. Those did vary widely but most of the comments were about how the digitization standards would be implemented and if agencies and the National Archives would have the resources needed to digitize records. So there were some very practical comments which we are going to sort through in addition to the specific comments we did receive about the standards themselves. So certainly more on that and I'm sure at the next bridge when we meet in April we can give you an even better update and maybe a deeper dive into the substance of the comments and how we're approaching adjudication of those comments and also the schedule and where we are when we think those might be final. The other thing I wanted to mention just because it is that time of year is transition. So I know we've talked about transition before but I wanted to just take this opportunity again to remind everyone of the resources that are available to support transition in your agencies. We of course have documenting your public service on our website which covers most of the things that you will want to be talking to employees, senior officials, and new say arms coming in. But we also spend some time this year producing blog posts on Records Express that highlight very specific things like management of email, social media records, entrance and exit briefings and also pointed to other resources that are available elsewhere on for example the GSA's transition website. One of the things that I've noted in the last couple of weeks is that there have been quite a few new say arms designated in agencies. So I just wanted to highlight what's available and an extended offer to all of you that we at NARA are available to meet with you and your say arms virtually to help you cover records management responsibilities for any of your say arms who may be new or other senior staff who are transitioning in. So please you know how to get in touch with us if you need some help, some support, some backup or more than happy to oblige. So with that I am going to turn things back over to Aryan so that we can get back into and then into the main program. So thanks everyone and looking forward to hearing your questions later if we go through the program. Aryan back to you. Thank you Lawrence. Now please welcome Gordon Everett, Director, Customer Relationship Management of the Federal Records Center program. Thank you Aryan. Good morning everyone. I am Gordon Everett, Director of Customer Relationship Management for the Federal Records Center program. And I wanted to just kind of bring you up to date of where we are with our facilities. Many of you may not be aware that NARA has 31 facilities, libraries and record centers or presidential libraries and record centers around the country and all of those facilities due to COVID situations are closed except for the Presidential Library in Boston, the Federal Records Center in Boston and the Federal Records Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Now we continue to monitor the county metrics of all of our facilities for safe operation and these local you know the health metrics are used along with other criteria so we can decide when we can open a facility safely. And when we do it of course as we've done before we'll do it in phases and if necessary we may have to regress in phases or close. But we also monitor the local public health conditions, movement control orders, you know stay at home orders or shelter in place. We also coordinate that with designated NARA officials at each of these facilities where we keep the skeleton operation. And finally our leadership at NARA has made additional adjustments to comply with OMBs that memo M2115, the COVID-19 Safe Federal Workplace Agency Model Principles. And so we'll continue to make reopening decisions on a facility by facility basis. We recognize that different parts of the country are experiencing the pandemic differently. But we are taking the necessary actions to protect our staff and support the local public health agencies that are working to limit the spread of COVID-19. Yeah I will say we've noticed the metrics over the last few weeks are showing some favorable trends in some areas. So it is possible that we could possibly move to a phase one or phase two in some of the facilities very, very soon. As you know any customer who has emergency reference requests we still handle those and you can go into ARCIS and put in your request if it's an emergency. We're also reviewing new transfers although you would need to talk to a specific FRC when it's time to move that transfer. So with that really not much new of where you are we still are in a closed situation in most of our facilities but I'll take any questions. I also have Chris Pinckley with me on direct of operations and we'll take any questions that you may have for us now. Thank you Gordon. We do have one question so far. What is the status of submitting new transfers to federal record centers? Well you can submit new transfers but the agency shouldn't ship those transfers. You can submit them, we will approve them but you shouldn't ship them until you have made some prior arrangements with the FRC. And that applies equally to all transfers approved either before or after the closure and our requirement to ship records within 90 days obviously we've waived that through this coronal process. Thank you for that. We do have another question. How can I submit an emergency reference request for records? Okay. We ask you to go into ARCIS, the emergency request should be submitted there with an FRC service level category of emergency versus standard. Standard is the default setting in ARCIS so routine reference request. If it has an emergency we're going to need you to click it as such so we'll know that helps identify it so we can handle it in a time sensitive manner. The request should ensure that the ship to address for this request is accurate and the point of contact information is complete and accurate so we can be sure we have that in processing the information. And I would also ask that the request to contact the FRC emergency contact directly to establish a timeline for fulfillment. We provide it to all of the records officers a list of emergency contacts by FRCs. If you don't have that, if you don't have it handy, if you can reach out to your account manager we can get that information for you on the emergency contact for each FRC. Thank you Gordon. The final question we had was very similar to what you just answered about the emergency contact information so it's to contact your local account managers I guess that's the path forward there. Yeah and they can get you a list of the emergency contacts and a phone number for a specific FRC if you have that emergency request. I'm going to ask you to put it in ARCIS but also make that phone call so we can follow the emergency request through the system. Okay I don't see any further questions at this time. Alright, thanks everyone. Thank you Gordon. Now please welcome Sam McClure, Director of Electronic Records Program who will be presenting on ERA 2.0 and David Lake, Program Manager of Electronic Records Program. Good morning. Next slide please. I'm Sam McClure, Electronic Records Program Director. David will speak in a couple of slides. We've been pleased to appear before you numerous times over the last couple of years. I think our last appearance was October 2019. In all honesty we had hoped to appear with more concrete updates before now. We'll get into why we're not have not been able to provide those updates until now. We'll give you a brief summary where we are with the system, the next steps we have underway and obviously we're happy to answer questions after our part of the program or at the end of the entire meeting. So where are we with ERA 2.0? As we mentioned in earlier presentations we do have a system up and running that allows NARA staff to upload digital files, both born digital files as part of federal accessions and also uploads of digitized files that NARA has either created when creating digital copies or that we've received from some of our digitization partners. It's in use by a number of the custodial units within the Washington DC area. A number of NARA field sites have also started uploading content and a few of our presidential libraries have started adding digital copies as well. We have deployed after a year and a half long development effort the basic capabilities for a new record schedule and a new transfer request form in the system with a basic workflow that goes with those forms. But those forms are essentially unusable until we're able to have access to the data that's currently residing in the original ERA system. So those those deployments of code have resulted in capabilities that are essentially not useful until we finish that migration. With the development we've been able to deploy, however, I will note that it features some input we received from just a small number of agency stakeholder sessions we were able to hold in person at Archives 1 in downtown DC late 2019 and roughly a year ago was our last session. Authenticated into our systems created a lot of IT security issues so we had asked for a number of a small group of people to come into the building and join us in a lab setting to work through the system. We found those meetings incredibly useful and I hope to do a number of those during the year 2020 but as so many other plans went by the wayside that went away pretty much as soon as our last session ended in February a year ago. Next slide please. So this is a word salad describing some of the capabilities we have deployed in support of the new record schedule and TR. In October 2019 we provided a number of static screen shots that showed some of the basic environment that's available in the YouTube link. We thought after a dizzying array of special effects from static shots we would just use words at this time with more information to come within the next year about the actual use of the system. But what do we have in this system? Well, for one thing we have new record schedule and transfer request forms. In many ways these reflect feedback we received from agencies over the years and simplifying some of our verbiage, streamlining some of the fields that we require on these forms. You'll see that we're referring to forms instead of business objects primarily because that was one of the most inhumane things we did from a terminology perspective at the beginning of the use of ERA many years ago. So we have these new forms that will ask for information in a more streamlined manner and we hope in a more effective manner as well. We provide a better dashboard view of the items that you have in what's in essence your work tray in the system, forms that you have under review within your agency or that you are working on yourself and then updates on the tasks that are associated with some of those forms. One of the things we've implemented is the ability to see one version of the form in your search results. Each record schedule and TR has a history tab that allows you to see all the previous changes made to that form but we only provide the most updated version of the form for search results instead of working through multiple versions of the same form with the same ID and different dates where we're trying to make that where all the relevant information for a form is in one view of the form. Another change we've made is that you will be able to access a number of the attachments that you provide in the system. We will still have NARA only attachments as part of the system but the documentation you add in support of your record schedules and TRs will be visible to you even if it's been submitted to the system. We've also developed a new bulk import tool. We have not solved our data disconnects with ARCHIS. We still have a large level of effort in preparing the TRs associated with an annual move however we hope that we've improved the environment and the use of those TRs. You'll get simplified notifications for the TRs that are provided as part of the annual move and we hope that we've at least simplified some of the level of effort on the NARA side in preparing that ARCHIS data for the TRs that will come out. We won't be using this in this year but these capabilities will be available next year once the data migration is complete. We also give you better visibility into the status of the forms. One of the things that the ARCHIS staff has been keen that we implement is the last action taken on the forms will be available dynamically in the dashboard so you don't have to rely on a monthly report. You'll see that your forms are within the NARA review process so that the other major milestones are in progress with your forms and that will be available on your dashboard at all times. We've also developed a minor workflow enhancement for your use and for our use in terms of additional reviewers. You can submit forms for concurrence within your agency. It's a not a mandatory step. It's a fairly light element of workflow but it will allow for some internal review within the system before you send any of your forms forward to NARA for consideration and we'll have a lot more information on that in future meetings. The last thing I wanted to touch on in terms of key features is that user access will be based on your organization rather than record group. If you need to have multiple organizations in your profile, bureau and department level access for instance or any other business need you have that require multiple organizations we can support that. It will be based on the organization that you belong to not to the record group of the records that you're working with. And as part of that we're hoping to have a better less brutal system notification process where the notifications associated with your forms will come to your organization and the user roles within your organization for whom that notification may be relevant. I'm not saying it's not inhumane yet but at least will be better than the broadcast notifications that everyone turned off as soon as they were made available in the current ERA. Next slide. So what are we doing in this year? I'll conclude with this slide and then David can pick up with the specifics related to data migration. We are currently in the process of moving the electronic records from the current ERA system into 2.0. That's roughly 40 terabytes, 11 million files that are moving from the what we call it now car legacy system into the current system. This is the first step in a two phase migration. The second phase will be the data from record schedules and transfer requests and some associated data within our systems that will go into ERA 2.0. But for now we're working on the migration of the records and metadata themselves, the holdings. New electronic records transfers are taking place in the ERA 2.0. So this is ending as into the ingest of records into ERA base and we've already moved into the new mode for transfers into ERA 2.0. We are continuing the use of current ERA for record schedules and transfer requests. I think we mentioned this three times in our short slides to drive home the point that we're not able to deploy 2.0 for a number of reasons. But we are still using the current system, the one you have available for your record schedules and transfer requests. In terms of other work this year, we have a small development team. It's not nearly the size of the old teams we had in developing ERA base. Nor is it as large as some of the first teams we had in developing ERA 2.0. But we do have a team available that was allowing us to continue to add enhancements and make some fixes to the forms and workflows that we have deployed. They're not in use yet, but they're in user testing with our NARA colleagues. There were a number of issues found in the record schedule form and in the workflow and we're trying to address those now. In addition, as we've mapped data from the record schedule and transfer requests and current ERA to the new system, we realize in some of the cases we need to update some of our fields in the new system to account for longer chunks of content coming out of the legacy system than we had originally anticipated. So they're working on some of these enhancements and fixes now so that when it is deployed for NARA and for agency use with the data available in the system, some of these kinks will have been ironed up already. In addition, we hope to keep a standing development team in future years so that we have a means to address issues that you and your colleagues find in use of the new system. For too many years, we've had to deal with known problems with the current ERA without any real way to address any of those issues at all. With this team, we'll be able to prioritize those defects that are found during use of the system by you and by NARA staff so that we can put in fixes, make enhancements and continue to evolve the system in response to user needs and our desire for more capabilities. So this is going to be the start of a set of capabilities, but it's not the end. We need to keep this team in place so we can both address your needs and continue to grow the system in response to NARA needs as well. The same team has multiple responsibilities. I just note here they also deal with other fixes and enhancements, particularly related to the digital repository issues with upload and transfer files, and they continue to keep our system patched and updated with all the necessary security fixes as well. So they have a busy plate, a large small plate full of many dishes. There's some image there I just botched, but they have a long list of things to do, but fixes to the record schedule to the transfer request, additional enhancements in these areas, and particularly those things identified by agency users will be prioritized for development by this team. So with that, I will turn it over to David Lake for the next slide. We'll be happy obviously to answer questions at the end of this session and again at the end of the meeting, so I welcome any and all questions that occur to you during our talk. David. Okay, thank you, Sam. First of all, good to be with you again. I know it's been a long time. So getting on to... I think what's really important to use to talk about status of converting over to ERA 2.0 for agency use, when that's going to happen, what needs to happen ahead of that. So key dependencies in front of us. One here, as you can see, is implementing PIV access to ERA 2.0. That's something that's been mandated that we need to have in the system. So we are actually starting that work right now to implement PIV authentication. We are also just, in case you're asking, or thinking if there are some rare cases out there where folks don't have PIV set up in their agency, we are looking at ways to be able to provide exceptions to that, if need be. And that's something we can talk about over the next several months. But that's something that we need to have in place before we can launch to federal agencies. And then the next thing here is phase two of the data migration. This is the key piece that has to be done before we can open up ERA 2.0 to federal agencies. And so we need to move over from ERA base, or the ERA system you work in now. We need to move over all of those record schedules, all of those transfer requests, all of the attachments to those business objects, and other related data in the system. It's a fairly large and complex effort, just given the nature of the forms, the system. And so we began in September of last year. We kicked off a project. And the initial work began on that, mapping activities, mapping the data elements in the forms from the current system to the new target system. And we ended up getting to a point where we were discovering additional work that needed to be done, complications. And we also had external dependencies, one of which was PIV, that kind of set our timelines in flux. So we kind of decided to step back, and we terminated that project in December of 2020. And we're continuing the mapping work along the way. But it really, as I said, was a time for us to step back and take stock of everything that needed to be done to work out some of the timelines on the other dependent activities so that we could be more sure about when we would finish the migration, how the migration would be done, and we'll get to that on the next slide, so that this would, you know, we ensure that we roll this out smoothly. There's a lot of communication ahead of time. There's some assurances about when this is going to happen, all of that. So we're currently developing a new approach on how we're going to do this migration, which will get us to the point where we can launch to federal agencies, and we'll talk a little bit about that on the next slide. Thank you. So part of the approach. So what do we need to do here? So our approach has to ensure that we complete some additional development work related to the forms and workflows. As Sam talked about, we have that standing development team in place, and they are just starting to get their feet wet in this part of the system, and we'll be working on capabilities related to these forms and workflows. I know just like one thing right now they're working on is how you create schedule items and schedule item groups, those hierarchies of schedule items in groups. It's kind of a little complex, little part of the system and how you do that, and we've largely completed that, but there are some hiccups with that, so we're working on that. Those are the kinds of things that affect the quality of life of users to the point where we need to fix those ahead of time. So we're working on things like that. And so we've identified what those things are that we need to do. Another key thing is that we found in that the first go around of this project starting in September of last year was the data mapping of the old source system to the new target system is pretty complex. So the forms have changed, the workflows have changed, and so there's not always a one-to-one mapping between fields that you enter data into in the ERA system that you currently use and the new one. So there's a lot of thinking that has to go into how we're going to do data translations in some cases from one to the next. So that's work that we need to take into account better. So all under the guise of reducing schedule uncertainty that I talked about on the last slide to make sure that we kind of have our ducks in a row and that we can better predict when the migration is going to end, when PIV access is going to be enabled, and when you can start to use the new system. So the approach that was being put forward in the first go around of this project had the notion surrounding it had long system adage times of several months, and we know that that cannot work. So we weren't necessarily happy with that approach. I mean, our goal is to minimize the amount of time that we would have our systems down to affect the cut over to new ERA 2.0 system. So that's something that we have to change our approach so that we can minimize that amount of time. As part of that and as part of trying to get a better idea when this can all come to fruition and to a final completion so that we can launch, we want to make sure that we have sufficient lead time and communicating with you all. This is just like one piece of that puzzle today, but as things become more clear in the coming months, we'll be communicating about when things are supposed to happen, what things you might need to be doing on some objects in the system by a certain amount of time, that kind of thing. So the bullet here that talks about minimizing impacts on users with in-progress forms. So if you have a form that's been submitted to NARA that hasn't yet been approved, those are what we call kind of in-flight or in-progress forms. There's some complications in how we're going to move them from the current ERA system to the new one because the workflows and statuses aren't exactly one-to-one. So we're going to be working hard to make sure that as much as we can, we can move those forms that are in progress to the new system in a state that makes sense and that they're assigned to the right people, right agency, that whole thing. So that's something that we felt we needed to take more time to work on to ensure that we're minimizing kind of the impact on the business operations related to the system that you're all doing. So the last thing here is minimizing impact on the annual move. We say that because the annual move involves a lot of planning up front many months ahead of the actual time that we load those transfer requests in the system for you to then push along and submit to NARA. And so we want to make sure that whatever we're doing, all that planning dovetails with the timelines for the annual move because obviously that's a heavy use, a time of use for especially the transfer side. When this approach is finalized and we have a new vendor team in place, which is something we're working on right now, we're changing the whole way that we're going to do this with vendors in addition to the actual approach to the development and migration work. But once we get that in place over the next couple of months, we'll be able to provide some better updates on timelines for when we can launch ERA 2.0 for use by all agencies. So getting kind of to the meat of all of this and I think what you've been waiting to hear is with all of this, there's no plausible way we're going to complete this migration by the end of FY21. So that means that we are not going to be launching ERA 2.0 for agency use by the end of September of this year. That's just not going to work from the timelines that we have right now. So we're going to continue, as Sam said, to use the current ERA into FY2022. How far? That we don't know yet and those are the timelines that we're going to be updating you on as we go along here in the next months. So will it be in calendar year 21? I'm guessing it's not likely. It's more likely calendar year FY22 when we would do the cut over to the new system. But again, we'll provide more information on that. One little sidebar of this is that using the current system, you'll continually have to use Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 as the preferred browser for using current ERA. Obviously Microsoft Internet Explorer is going out of support here. So we're looking into how well right now doing some testing on how well other browsers are supporting the current ERA system. And so we're going to identify what issues there might be with that. Again, we're not alone in this. I know myself just for in my work at NARA, I use systems that are completely dependent upon Internet Explorer. And if my agency was to yank Internet Explorer from our system, I would have difficulties. So I think there's a large boat of folks that are stuck with this issue and systems that heavily rely on using Internet Explorer. But as I said, we're doing testing now and seeing if there's some things that we need to do in case some of you lose access to Internet Explorer. And so that's something we'll communicate probably separately about as we go along if we see issues. And may have to do something like a survey to find out how many agencies are looking to get rid of Internet Explorer and when they might be doing that. More to come on that. So I think come to the end of our slides for this. I know I think I already saw some questions that are up for us to answer. Thank you, David. Yeah, we've got a few up that as you can imagine have come in. A couple have come in by email. So as a reminder to participants, attendees, please feel free to leave a question in the chat or email us at rm.communications.nara.gov and we'll work to get them into the program. So for Sam and David, the first question is, will ERA 2.0 be able to accept classified electronic records, including Top Secret and SCI? Sam, you want me to take that one first? Please, David. So at the current time, we are not able to accept classified records. We don't have a classified version of ERA 2.0 up and running yet. That is on our roadmap for the coming years, is to take the current ERA 2.0 system after we launch the federal agencies and create a classified version of it. Exactly how we're going to do that keeps changing as things go along, whether that could be put in a classified cloud versus just an on-prem system. We're not there yet, but that's part of our plans and we've asked for money in the out years for that. I don't see it happening in the next two to three years, but we certainly are planning to have the ability to receive classified records. So in the meantime, you'll still have to work with your accession and archivists at NARA for any classified records, because those will go into a separate legacy system for the time being. Okay, thank you. Another question. What will be the data limits for accessions of electronic records through ERA 2.0? I'll start with this one, David. So obviously scalability is something we have to build into the system from an infrastructural standpoint, especially when it comes to transfers and accessions. Our current mechanism is admittedly limited based more on network upload than anything else. We are exploring, however, with our cloud service provider, other techniques for accessioning records at scale, whether from other cloud environments, whether from a targeted storage bucket within our cloud service provider. Additional use of SFTP and other clients to move content into our buckets. So this is an area of active exploration and study right now. So there's no known limit. There are some practical limits in terms of our current capability, but when we roll this out for agency use, we have basic guidelines in place, but please know that the guidelines we set at the start are not the guidelines we're going to live with. We have to substantially beef up our transfer capabilities, even to take in our own in-house digitization products, much less the vast and growing body of federal records that are eligible for transfer. So a lot of growth yet to come in this area. David, is there anything I got wrong in that part? Nope, sounded good to me. Thank you. So I guess I kind of looped into this question. Is there a way to increase the number and total size of digital records using FTP since we are unable at this time to send CD-ROMs, portable hard drives for large files? So for the specifics of current transfer questions, I would say talk to your custodial unit contacts. We're on the system side of area 2.0, but the practicalities of current transfer mechanisms in the 2.0 are best talked about with Ted Hall and his folks within the Center for Electronic Records. I know they've been using different FTP clients currently, but I don't know the details enough to be useful in terms of a question here. Yeah. Will we be able to use our PKI certificates to log into ERH 2.0 instead of using an user ID and password? And I think you might have addressed this in the remarks. Not only do you get to, we've been mandated to make that. So we, you know, pivot the development of authentication through the pivot through that government-wide authentication piece that's in all of our badges is a mandate we have to meet this year put on us by senior leadership. You will be coming in with your PIV to authenticate into the system. Unless, as David said, someone in a commission or a small federal body that does not have PIVs deployed as part of their badging and their own access controls will work with you. And with your NARA staff, your points of contact for appraisal and transfer to work those out. But our intent is for the vast majority, if not all agency users, you will be coming in with PIV rather than a username and password. And we have a question on browsers, which I think you covered pretty well in your remarks. Another question, will ERA 2.0 be able to ingest capstone emails from federal agencies years down the road? I think the answer is definitely yes. Yes. And here's, I guess for one of our, another question has come in, maybe it's a little higher level. Just can you briefly outline the difference between ERA 2.0 and the EOPFs? So just kind of describe ERA 2.0 at a high level. Sorry, the difference between ERA 2.0 and what? The EOPF systems, electronic personnel files. Oh, so well, ERA 2.0 is just a separate system. So the EOPF, that's all just related to personnel files. ERA 2.0 is basically for all other accession federal electronic records. And in fact, it's been expanded. We're also able to take in all other types of records that might come to us like digital digitized records from within NARA. There's nothing preventing us taking it from other sources, whether it's presidential records, things like that. So I guess they're just designed to totally different things. I think another way of looking at ERA 2.0 is it takes on all of the functions of the current ERA in terms of record schedules and transfer requests eventually as well as the accessioning of federal electronic records. It also allows us to store digital copies of federal records as well as legislative materials, possibly definitely presidential materials and also donated historical materials. So it's a broader scope of the content that NARA can store in this system from digitization partners for our own in-house digitization plus those records we accession from federal agencies. But the function, the scope is largely still very similar to what was current ERA. So rather than a to-the-purpose repository like where our personal files are maintained, we're designed for both accessioning and long-term storage of electronic records and digital content that NARA needs to maintain long-term. I hope that helps, Ari. And if there's other things we can clarify related to that question, let us know. No, I think that's good. And David, did you want to try to tackle that? Because on the YouTube chat, there's been discussion about the 2022 census. And did you want to volunteer and answer there? So is this when the 1950 census will be in the opening of the 1930 census? Right. Okay. Now I was getting confused because we're planning to receive the 2020 census in 2022 or 2023. So we would have to get someone else here to talk about the 1950 census work that's going on. I mean, it's a pretty intensive effort right now to get ready for that opening. But I can't really speak to the specifics of that one. I would say our colleagues in research services in the National Archives as well as the Office of Innovation in the National Archives are working on the mechanism to provide public access to the 1950 census files when those are accessed. Our system will be the repository long-term for the digital copies that have been created in the 1950 census. With no public access to our system though, in terms of records access, we're the back end of the effort with the 1950 census. We're not involved in the public access pieces that our colleagues in research services and innovation are developing right now. Okay. We have a couple questions sort of around schedules and updating legacy record schedules and functionality in ERA 2.0. Is it easier to add legacy record schedules to ERA 2.0? I mean, easier is in the eye of the beholder right. So in hearing this, I would have to say let's put the system to the test to find out for sure. But from our perspective, it's an improved user interface, one from this century which helps compared to current ERA with more flexibility built in within NARA regulations and within policy for updating forms that have been approved. Modifying approved legacy schedules is something that we have within our scope to deploy. Also the ability to supersede items from previous schedules as part of new appraisal jobs is something that the system will support once you identify what those items are. Most of that work takes place in the system, so those items that were previously active will be marked as superseded and by what new item. So we're hoping to have more support for updating forms overall, whether it's considered easier. We hope, I mean, that's the plan is to make these things easier, but that's so subjective a term that I hate to give overly optimistic answers in that regard until people have had a chance to actually put their hands on the system. David, was that too pessimistic? No. So the kind of related to that and sort of through the scheduling piece around capstone, are we moving the capstone update functionality to ERA or how does this affect the ability to update capstone forms in ERA? So our colleagues within Lawrence's shop are currently working on the way they're doing capstone forms this year. It's not involved with ERA. However, we will be migrating capstone form content into ERA 2.0 as part of this migration, deploying the NA 1005 form for future capstone efforts in the system that will probably, we hope it's part of our initial deployment for agency use, if not it will be deployed as soon after as possible. But our intent is to both support the current data from those capstone forms in the system as part of the data migration and support future use of an NA 1005 form to get into the bureaucratic lingo in the form as soon after initial deployment as possible. Thank you. And there's one more sort of discussion around ERA 2.0 and Arcus functionality. Will there be any data exchange between ERA 2.0 and Arcus to make our lives easier? And what will happen to Arcus after ERA 2.0? So the great tragedy in data within the National Archives as it relates to agency users and to NARA users is the data disconnected between Arcus and ERA 2.0 as well as current ERA. We're not able to address any automation of the data exchange between those systems as part of our deployment right now. Our scope is to get our new system with our new forms out. As I mentioned earlier, we have an improved way to import data from Arcus for annual moves, but it isn't import. It's not through an API or other automated real-time means of exchanging data from the systems. So the answer for the first part is there is, we hope some aspects of annual move TRs based on Arcus data that will be easier to work with, easier to track for both NARA and agency users, but with no direct connection between the systems that there's no other way we can say that we're making your lives easier. That said, there's also no impact on Arcus to our deployment. That system remains separate. You continue to use that for your current functions, whether ERA 2.0 goes live tomorrow or a month or 12 months from now. I was going to say we've updated the translation of Arcus data to ERA 2.0 for the annual move to create all of those transfer requests that you have the pleasure of going in and pushing to NARA. So we've done that, but that's the extent of it. It's the Herculean task to kind of bring ERA 2.0 and Arcus data models and business processes between the federal record centers and NARA accessioning side together to fully make that happen. But our goal is to obviously make sure that the annual move still goes off without a hitch each year because that's such a huge important activity. And I will note that the exchange of data with ERA is an issue we face with other NARA-facing systems as well. The system we use for tracking our permanent hard copy archival holdings also could use an automated data exchange with ERA, especially when it comes to accessioning those textual and other traditional holdings. And we'd love to be able to exchange information better in the NARA's catalog when we make digital files and descriptions available for public access. So our inability to exchange metadata and data across our multiple systems hampers us in almost every operation we undertake and especially those that face agency users. So we recognize we have a problem. We just don't have the resources at this time to say we're working on it or give a schedule for when we'll be able to resolve those inconsistencies. Thank you, Sam and David. I think we've exhausted the queue of questions. That was a substantial list. Thank you for going through them. We'll see if any more come in. We'll circle back at the end if there are any more to come in during the next presentation. Okay. Thank you, Ari. At this point, I want to turn the program back over to Lawrence Brewer to introduce our next speaker. Thanks, Ari. And special thanks to you, Sam and David for that presentation. It was surprising to hear that it was 2019 since we really talked with everyone here about ERA. So it's a briefing that's long overdue and glad to hear that you guys are on it. The schedule is progressing perhaps more slowly than we would like to see at this point, but we understand the reasons why and are looking forward to hearing from you guys again in the next several months. So what I wanted to do before we get into our next presentation, if we can go ahead and flip the slide. Because of COVID, none of you have had the pleasure of meeting Eddie in person, but I'm hoping that you saw the Records Express blog post that we did back in September where we did some Q&A with Eddie to sort of give you some background on where he came from and what he was doing before joining NARA. So let me cover that a little bit as an introduction to Eddie before he gives you some updates on what's going on with records management training. So Eddie joined us last May. It's hard to believe that in a couple of months we're coming up on a year, but that's what 2020 did to all of us. Before joining NARA, he served as the training section chief and lead instructional system specialist at USIS, US Citizenship and Immigration Services. He was responsible for training development, design assessment and evaluations that supported the organization's digital documentation improvement and change management plan. For that, he worked for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, DFAS, as an instructional system designer for technology-based training and delivery. So at some point, and hopefully not too distant future, we hope to have an in-person meet and greet like we have traditionally done at bridge meetings so you all can get to know Eddie in a non-virtual way. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Eddie to talk just for a few minutes on recent developments of what's going on right now in records management training. Eddie? Thank you, Lawrence. I'd just like to take a few minutes to provide some updates on training content. Throughout the pandemic, the records management training program has provided instructional and training support for your records management training needs. We are in a unique position since we provide virtual content. So business as usual throughout the pandemic. Can you go to the next slide? All right, I want to really highlight our online lessons. The first point I want to say is it's accessed also. If you have internet access, you're able to access all our training material free. This includes videos we have performance support material such as job aids, keen in on our online lessons. We have over 70 modules and they range from topics such as what is a records inventory to develop records management strategic goals and plans. The online lessons is broken down into three training levels and we use instructional scaffolding where one level will build the foundational knowledge and skill set for the next level. The next slide. So one of the updates we've recently done and I'm going to go over this screen capture this is what our online lessons look like. I said 70 of them and down on the slide you would go through our lessons through archives.gov. So the first on the title so on our website itself you can select the title of what lesson you would want to look at and it actually plays on our website and at the end of the online lesson there's a certificate an individual can print out that shows that they completed the lesson itself. Now more coming as a training hub for all records management training we added another column you go over to the third column over and it would be your source files and this is almost a self-service function we added on to the website itself so we have three different versions of the training lesson or module you would want to download for your individual use one is we have a SCORM package and that would be used for your learning management system we have the source files itself for that training if individuals will want to work with their agencies training department to build and to customize the lesson their self and then we also have a web package where it's the course it's zipped up and you can be placed on your agencies our own website now if you have any additional questions on that technical questions you could always contact us and that would be RMT1 at nara.gov and we would walk through that process but we're bringing this as a self-checkout type item so you could jump in look at what courses you want and you could build your own curriculum go to the next slide please and as Lawrence covered at the beginning we know this is a year of transition so the website I wanted to highlight right now is we do have materials for senior agency officials records management say arms and the individual we have four blocks or groups of materials that could help one is we have the online lessons as the material and we highlighted key lessons that would look at strategic levels so one lesson we have highlighted here is developing records management, strategic goals and plans you can look we even have developed capstone or proso online lessons over the side we have videos these videos again capturing strategic planning that would help me talk about the guidance for social managing social media records tying it back into intro for Lawrence and also records management guidance for political appointees we will be updating pages in our resources as soon as new information and materials are available these pages will not be static so the job aids and the performance support materials what we are focusing on right now and then to highlight this resource box is again tying it back to Lawrence telling everything together is right here is the link to documenting your public service video you click right there the video plays and again this is right through the archives dot gov and our record management training website links at the bottom there so again instant access for all your training material the next slide please so the big take away right now in the future I will be providing more updates and going over content and new products design but any questions for any of your training needs for records management it's RMT1 at nara.gov we can help with building out curriculum using our material if you have questions on our material in general training questions that is the point of contact RMT1 also then you can contact me directly my name is Christopher however I do like to go by Eddie but it's Christopher dot client at nara.gov and I will take time answer any of your training needs questions and help work with you to close the gaps in any records management training that you're trying to work with your agency and then also want to cover our website there's the link again right now we're almost ahead of the curve right our material is online and it's free of charge so definitely bookmark that and that is a quick update I do want to open up to questions thank you Eddie one question sort of builds off the last comment what does nara have that agencies can use now in their records management training programs alright so you go to our website from the last slide we have the online lessons those are we have over 70 learning modules that you could right there thank you that we could go right through we could work with you to build out a curriculum that would meet your agency's specific needs we do have videos on our website you go through webinars and then you can see that we do have by roles training items to job age performance support and we do have right now the old knowledge area courses still up that you could pick from however they will be pulled down sooner than later thank you here's one I'm a new agency records officer how do I get my required credential and how long do I have to complete it alright so you'd have to be if you're we would wait for the for you to be designated as the agency record officer you would receive an email from us RMT-1 to get you enrolled in the AROC itself and from the initial enrollment date you would have one year to complete the material and you can test out through the individual levels how much does the agency records officer credential training cost great question it is free the best price free and that is free for a designated agency records officer however if you're not you can still take the same content through our online lessons those 70 modules and again free a charge does NARA have any plans to add back any certifications for records officers sort of the AROC itself would be this certification is there any kind of requirement that all political appointees go through some sort of common training their records management not that I'm through records management something like the AROC not Lawrence would you want to fill that question? yeah I can jump in on that I mean there's no specific requirements within our training program for that but there is a requirement that all federal employees and political appointees are also federal employees have records management training so how we do it obviously is different than the way we would approach it for regular staff and that's one of the reasons why as any noted earlier we're working on training for senior officials and political appointees because we recognize that kind of training has to take on a different form in terms of delivery length and approach so that is one thing that we're working on but political appointees like all of their staff that are working in agencies are federal employees and they're required to have training thank you here's one will Narra's electronic systems team be partnering with this training team in producing an online training module for IT program managers and system administrators to build in records management functionality in IT systems that would be a topic that we are exploring it wouldn't be added into like the AROC itself but it would be a standalone module and moving forward and looking forward we are looking to add different or more topics for online lessons and we have looked for the IT linked with records management as one of a future topic. Are there any program development training on how to deploy records management top down throughout the agency so you top down sets more are strategic some of that stuff is already in our online lessons with strategic plannings of record management programs do the e-modules now supersede the essential records training also can you tell me about the AROC mentor process alright so at the time supersedes it would be there are essential records in that but it wouldn't supersede I mean it was at a standalone training it would be in conjunction with you could look at that essential records training and supplementing and then for the AROC mentor process is once you're enrolled in the AROC you will be out of our training records management program you will be partnered with one of our mentors and they will walk you through the process if you have any questions on content you're having issues getting into the LMS questions with testing our assessment you would go through your mentor and they're provide one-on-one social interaction to engage through the learning content of it we don't want anyone to feel like they're alone we don't want to hand off and say go online do the material and come back to us there's always a social element to it and if you have any questions you would contact your mentor and if you're not able to get a hold of your mentor you would contact me directly and I could provide the support and guidance too thank you here's another one can we use your videos in our training I would say yes right yes if it's posted on our site you can use it just scanning to see if I've missed anything that's come in if I have we can address it in the in the general portion so thank you Eddie thank you at this time we'll go into our general question and answer session with all the available with all the presenters from today's program please again type in your questions to the YouTube chat or email them to rm.communications.nara.gov and we'll start going through those now see the bullet the first question I'm curious if there's any impact on NARA's guidance such as standards for digitizing hard copy permanent records based on the Biden's administration's freeze on regulations so I this Lawrence I guess I can start and I'm sure Lisa is reading that question with interest as well I mean right now we're not seeing any impact I mean there's it's pretty standard routine when you know there's a transition that there's a pause on regulations as the new incoming administration wants to evaluate where things are with all agencies and rule makings within those agencies fortunately for us for the big record we're working on one that I mentioned at the beginning on digitizing permanent records timing works out pretty well for us since we're getting near the tail end of it having already gone through the public process so at this point while we are still in the middle of transition we now have the time to evaluate all those comments that have come in adjudicate those comments and then begin working on the final draft of the regulations which you know probably wouldn't be coming out for several months it's going to take us some time to go through those adjudicate them and coordinate with Oira at OMB before we're able to move forward so we'll give you up to date as we work through that process and let you know certainly the next time that we meet together in Verge thank you Lawrence and here's one that comes up all the time are there anticipated changes to M19 21's goal date of December 22 for digitization yeah a good question we've gotten a lot of emails and questions from agencies about the 2022 goals and the requirements that are in M19 21 so you know where we are with that is we haven't had any discussions with OMB who was our co-author and on M19 21 we expect some of those discussions to happen hopefully soon but they're obviously busy with other things at this point but you know at this point you know I would say that the goals and the targets still remain in effect there are current processes in place that support transfer of electronic records and we can work with you and certainly how things are proceeding with the digitization regs and I would say if you are reviewing your records and your processes related to M19 21 there is that bulletin that we issued after M19 21 which has clarifying guidance and more information about exceptions to M19 21 if you think you're going to need one so I just encourage you to look through that and look across your agency and see whether you might need an exception or where you have some concerns you want to discuss with us and then we can go from there and then on a separate path we will be working on our end to see if we can engage with OMB at the right time to talk to them about this administration's views, perspectives on M19 21 and how they feel about where we are as a government with regard to the targets and the plans for the next several years so stay tuned on that one. Thank you Lawrence. We have several questions around capstone and I kind of think they're grouped together here so Hasnar provided guidance on how agencies should transfer capstone emails what are we willing to take not take how will Nar handle the sheer mountain of emails will Nar look into specific transfer guidance to agencies on transferring capstone emails Yes, so these are all good questions and what that tells me is that maybe we should look at April Bridge to maybe drill a little bit into some of the implementation issues around capstone and just throw this out there for any agency who feels like they have a handle on internal control tracking of capstone emails within your agencies let me know, maybe we could figure something out for April where we can talk about some of the best practices but I think from general for a lot of agencies this is something where I think all agencies are certainly working through it. We spent a few years making sure that we had capstone forms submitted and of course once you do that you get them approved then you have to focus on implementation so I think we are all as a government learning what those best practices are and help us to do it so I think a presentation along those lines would be excellent one thing that I will say is it is not just and the question here sort of alludes to it the challenges around implementation are not just for federal agencies but also for Nar so we have to be able to take in large bodies of emails that are coming in and David and Sam talked earlier about ERA 2.0 and it will absolutely be the system that will be preserving those capstone emails but for now we have guidance we have had transfer format guidance for email that is out there and if you have any specific questions around transfer bodies of email and certainly point you in the right direction and get you to the contacts in the archival unit within the National Archives that will be taking in electronic records and emails to get you any specific answers to specific questions you might have but I think it is a great topic and something that we are going to be focused on and you know as we go forward and we start working as a government on the implementation questions I think we will also be looking at what guidance, what best practices what things can we learn from our oversight activities as well I mean we have done some assessments on capstone implementation within agencies those reports are up on our website but I think we need to continue focusing on that kind of guidance to make sure that you have what you need and can make that implementation of the forms and the policy as straightforward as possible so thanks for those questions they were really good. Thank you Lauren here's a straggler question came in for Eddie can anyone obtain the AROC? Alright to attain the AROC the credential itself you have to be a designated agency records officer however anyone can take those modules that was on our online lessons it is the same training content however we would not be tracking completion on those courses that are on the website itself the agency itself would have to track and work with employees for that thank you Eddie I'll put out a last call for questions please you still have a few moments to get those in via the chat here's another suggestion for Eddie will the NARA training team be working with a federal legal community to produce online training for federal agency members for conducting a record search due to litigation under the federal rules of similar procedure it'll be a topic that we could explore I'll just echo that we're always looking for ideas every year on new content we can develop and deliver based on your needs as records professionals and agencies so why don't we take that back and discuss that and see what we might want to work on and there is current legal like RM their webinar on our website itself too if people wanted to check that out or need information just waiting for any further questions to come in so we're getting a question about the bulletin about M1921 section 1.3 reads that by 2022 agencies will manage all temporary records in an electronic format and store them in commercial facilities does this mean agencies can and should start preserving records electronically so I think the short answer to that is yes that's what that 1.3 is about it's about fully electronic format which obviously covers not only current records but temporary records as well the part about storing them in commercial by 2022 obviously relates to the fact that the National Archives will not be accepting transfers of any paper records whether in the FRC or into the archives after 2022 so we are encouraging and requiring in that bulletin that agencies look at electronic processes that will cover both permanent and temporary records and if there are paper records they would need to be stored in commercial facilities so the answer is yes and I think that's one of the things that we're all working on as federal agencies is how can we make fully electronic government a reality by the end of 2022. So here's another not really a question it's just a validation of your capstone approach idea can we have 3 different agencies that are having success in capstone implementation from scheduling implementations and lists updating to capturing probably presented at bridge meeting I think you would say that's a great idea I absolutely would say that's a great idea send me an email give me a call I'd love to chat do we foresee training being free of charge from now and to well into the future say over the next 10 years yes as of right now our training material and services working and helping create like curriculum instructor of instruction of records management training yes free of charge I don't know what I'm going to be doing 10 years from now but I can say foreseeable future development will be available free of charge that is our focus to expand our reach and access to the really good training that we're developing in our program okay thank you both I think there appear to be no more questions so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for viewing and participating in today's bridge meeting we'll like to remind you that our next bridge meeting will be Tuesday April 20th 2021 and if you have any questions about bridge please email rm.communications.narra.gov or visit our bridge page at the URL that's displayed right there thank you everyone hope you all have a great day