Running head: RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 1

NARA Records Management Promotion Training: Design Project Report

Carrie Consalvi, Giovanna Rodriguez Uribe, Mohammad Arif, Alynn Hoffman,

Irfanullah Jan

California State University, Monterey Bay

IST626 Advanced Instructional Design

Dr. Jeanne Farrington

August 6, 2019

NARA Records Management Promotion Training: Design Project Report

RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 2

The project team is tasked with designing an e-learning module for the National

Archives and Records Administration (NARA) with the target audience being the

employees of federal agencies who are responsible for managing records. Established in

1934, NARA is in charge of organizing billions of records for the government ranging

from documents, maps, pictures, sounds, and videos, to many terabytes of electronic data.

Preserving these materials is important to government works and provides value to U.S.

citizens.

The team will provide instructional design services with the goal of creating a

storyboard for a module that will train records officers on how to promote the records

management program within their agencies. This project will include analyzing and

updating existing content, then redesigning that content for self-paced online learning.

The storyboard will include a number of squares with illustrations or pictures

representing each step of the training, with detailed notes about the scene and also what is

being said in the script during that step. The e-learning module will focus on inclusion of

practice activities, which allow participants to create a motivational message to share

with others through selected media. The module will be designed to be one hour in length

and the actual course will later be developed by NARA developers based on the delivered

storyboard.
RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 3

Client and Organizational Goals

The primary organizational goal is to ensure compliance with NARA’s National

Records Management Training Program instructions and policies to improve the record-

keeping practices in Federal agencies.

Learner Analysis

The target audience for this training includes federal employees and contractors who are

in charge of record-keeping at federal agencies. The learners are senior employees and

managers who likely hold college degrees. They are considered e-learning capable since

much of the work that they do requires this type of online training. In addition, some

modifications to the modules may be required due to the varying audience which the

module was designed for. For example:

● Many of the larger federal agencies create their own training modules

● Smaller agencies have less resources allocated towards records management

For this reason, the content provided will be more generic in nature as opposed to specific

to any one particular audience. In addition, if an agency chooses to make their own

training module, the training will be based upon the end-product e-learning created by

NARA.

Project Description

The training targets learners who will be planning and designing promotional

messages on records management. The content incorporates information on why records

RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 4

management is important to the employee, things to consider when developing a

campaign, and potential media options for the campaign. The major content covered is:

Key considerations for records management promotion (principles)

Determining a target audience (concepts)

Types of promotional materials/outlets (declarative knowledge)

Describing and designing a product or campaign (procedures)

Engaging the audience (problem-solving)

The material will be presented chronologically in order to lead the learner through

the process of anticipating, designing, and implementing a records management

promotional campaign. Key design elements include:

1. Narrative Scenario: Learners will be introduced to a scenario that will guide them

through the process of developing a promotional campaign. The initial

introduction to the e-learning module will describe an authentic problem scenario

regarding records management promotion. The module will cover the content

while leading the learner to potential solutions and strategies for creating

promotional campaigns in similar scenarios. This scenario will be revisited at the

end of each lesson with an activity that leads them to make decisions to solve the

scenario problem through strategies and solutions learned in the lesson. The

learner will be provided with choices and feedback.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 5

2. Knowledge Checks: Each lesson will provide knowledge checks including

multiple-choice, true or false, and scenario matching exercises to reinforce the

content throughout the presentation of the content.

3. Final Assessment: A ten-question assessment will be designed for the conclusion

of the e-learning module. This will be presented as an optional quiz for the learner

to gauge whether they are ready and confident to proceed with a promotional

campaign. Questions will review content from all lessons with feedback at the

time of answer submission.

Design Decisions

A few minor changes were made to the design of the module both by the team

itself after discussion and also after feedback from the client. The major changes made by

the design team after the project was started was that the agenda was modified slightly. In

the design document, the team had initially identified five total lessons to be included in

the module. However, during the content development phase of creation the team

determined that lessons four and five on implementing the solution and evaluating the

results could be combined because there was a minimal amount of content to cover in

each lesson.

Another significant change to the design was the addition of another learning

objective per client feedback. Because one of the lessons is on evaluating the results of

the promotional campaign, there should also be an objective tied to it. As a result, the

final learning objective, identify methods to evaluate the impact of your promotional
RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 6

campaign, was added. The client also suggested a modification to the lesson titles of

lesson two and three. In the initial design, the titles selected were:

Lesson 1: Define the Audience and Promotional Needs

Lesson 2: Define the Problem

The client suggested the following format:

Lesson 1: Define the Audience

Lesson 2: Define the Promotional Needs

This suggestion was helpful as the problem in this module is defining the promotional

needs of the respective agency, so the modification to the wording made the lesson titles

and content within them flow much more efficiently because defining the audience and

defining the promotional needs of that audience were separated.

Other minor changes were made to the overall look of the project such as font

type, size, and color to improve the look of the design.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 7

Evaluation

Throughout the project development, designer and client met online to discuss the

vision of the project with the intention of creating materials aligned with the client’s

objectives. Designers communicate several times weekly (Zoom and Google Hangouts)

to discuss ideas, roles, and major changes to the design.

Learners will be tested after each module by participating in knowledge check

activities to help them remember the main ideas and promote auto learning reflection.

They will also take the final assessment which has the option to be graded.

Final storyboard was shared with a DLI instructor for feedback. She wrote a

written report answering specific questions about the design. Some of her suggestions are

related to the addition of freedom through the navigation such as: “Will an external

navigation menu be provided to allow the learner to freely navigate between or within

lessons?” and also suggested the idea of allowing the participants the opportunity to

challenge the training by going straight to the assessment which is totally up to NARA to

give that opportunity to participants. She also suggested to add a page with external

resources: “I would provide external instructional resources, such as links, to complement

Slides 48-51”. The evaluator also stated content was clear and easy to understand: “Even

for a person like me, with no previous knowledge of the context, everything was pretty

much straightforward.” Finally, she suggested to add more videos to attract participants

attention and external instructional resources to help learners confirm or expand their

knowledge.

For follow-up transfer, NARA can do a face to face, a Zoom session or a forum

with their stakeholders to share initiatives applying the skills gained in the training to
RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 8

their jobs. NARA can also request information for supervisors about the transfer to

knowledge to their daily practices. Participants could also fill in a survey after the

training to report the successful transfer to their jobs.

Teamwork

Our team collaborated throughout the design of the storyboard with

professionalism and adaptability. We shared the responsibility of generating ideas while

mutually agreeing on each component before moving forward. Three of the team

members, Giovanna, Mohammad and Irfan shared the role of designers, although Carrie

and Aly contributed to this as well. Carrie served as the Project Manager, organizing

meetings, delegating tasks, and looking ahead to assignment deadlines. She also served as

the communicator with the client, sending documents and relaying information. Aly used

her strengths as the team editor, ensuring that we were complying with assignment

requirements as well as checking for content flow and errors before submitting the work

for course credit.

To communicate with the client, we primarily used email and Zoom. Our client

was excellent with getting us response and feedback quickly, so email was reliable for

exchanging information. Scheduling meetings was very difficult as we worked with three

different time zones, but we had at least three team members at every client meeting and

recorded the sessions through Zoom to send to those who were absent.

Our strengths as a team rested primarily on time management. We were able to

stay ahead of the assignments and respect our self-imposed deadlines. We decided as a

team to make all assignments due two days in advance so that our team editor could have
RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 9

a sufficient amount of time to review our work. Another advantage was the flexibility of

our team members. All were quick to contribute design work to cover any unforeseen

needs or weak points. Lastly, we decided early on to have a rule that there must be active

communication every day, which included checking email or chat. Google chat was

instrumental in helping us navigate the assignment, since we rarely had opportunities to

meet face-to-face as a team. This resulted in strong teamwork.

Challenges

Multiple challenges were facing the team during this project. The following

were the top three:

1. Communication among the team members was a challenge since one of the team

members was geographically distant from the rest of the team. This created a time

zone issue for the distant member as well as the rest of the team. To overcome

this issue, the design team tried to accommodate for the time difference and make

the team's meeting and discussion flexible and open. Another attempt to

overcome the issue was by recording the meetings on Zoom and post it, later on,

to be available for everyone to stay connected and see what was discussed during

the meeting.

2. During the project, the design team members sensed a role-uncertainty sometimes

because of the project’s fast pace and parallelled assignments during the course.

The team members managed this issue by asking the team leader and the rest of

the members to clarify roles and answer any question or concern that surfaced

during the production time.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 10

3. Talent differences was an issue at the beginning of the project. Roles and required

production were distributed equally among the team members. This issue was

because of unclear knowledge of what everyone is capable of doing. Maybe,

because the team members did not know each other and this was the first time

they worked together. This issue took care of itself automatically once the

members became acquainted with each other and were aware of the talent

differences among the members.

Advice for Future Students

1. The actual development of your design will take much longer than you think

it will. All of the little minor adjustments to make the training look professional,

to organize the content, and make each of the individual team members unique

writing and design styles flow together takes a lot of editing time. A lot more time

than we even anticipated.

2. Set up communication expectations early. Making sure everyone is on the same

page for meetings, email, and chat will ensure smoother progress for deliverables.

Our team scrambled with this for a while until we determined that checking daily

was the best option to keep up to date.

3. Help the team in understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Invest in applying these strengths in the right location to create a powerful team

and subsequently, a great product.

4. Research as much as you can. It is extremely important to get to know your

client, the audience and the language used by them. Try to find out as much
RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROMOTION 11

information by reading your client site online if there is such and also by asking

questions to your point of contact for the project. Ask him/her as many technical

questions as you can. It is difficult to imagine scenarios or create questions and

answers without using the jargon required by the company.