LINCS Federal Initiatives Toolkit (final 1.31.24).docx

The Federal Initiatives Toolkit for OCTAE National Initiatives

January 2024

PREPARED BY:

i | AIR.ORG Dr. Cherise Moore Dr. Marcela Movit Adria Katka Sudie Whalen Kevin Belcher Michelle Perry

Acknowledgments

The Federal Initiatives Toolkit (FIT) was developed as part of the management of the Literacy Information and Communication System Technical Assistance Center (LINCS TAC) project by the American Institutes for Research® (AIR®), funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education. The FIT was prepared by the following AIR staff members:

Dr. Cherise Moore, LINCS TAC project director Dr. Marcela Movit, LINCS TAC deputy project director Adria Katka, LINCS TAC project lead Sudie Whalen, director, online learning Kevin Belcher, LINCS communications and social media lead Michelle Perry, LINCS community task lead The FIT was designed to provide guidance for national activities on how to leverage LINCS during the lifecycle of its projects and to inform other national activity project teams about what is available to them through LINCS.

Development of the FIT has been a collaborative effort with the LINCS IT Technical Support Contractor, CivicActions. The authors would like to thank the following individuals from CivicActions GS-35F-337BA-919990021F0017 who contributed to the FIT:

Steve Curtis, LINCS IT Technical Support Contractor project manager Jonathan Bourland, technical lead Vanessa Luxen, LINCS support lead Nira Datta, user experience research and design lead Josh Minarick, Drupal engineering lead Kevin Moylan, Drupal engineer Kristen Jernigan, support specialist The authors extend special thanks to the staff from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education for their guidance on the creation of the FIT and their input on the draft of the FIT, especially Travis Combs, branch chief; Carolyn Lampila, LINCS TAC contracting officer’s representative (COR); and Jo Maralit, LINCS IT Technical Support Team COR.

Disclaimer

The American Institutes for Research® (AIR®), in partnership with CivicActions, completed this project with federal funds under contract award numbers AIR: 91990020A0014/91990022F0346 from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education. Carolyn Lampila serves as the contracting officer’s representative. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, and no official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education should be inferred.

i | AIR | LINCS Contents

Figure

Figure 1. Project Phases 3

Tables

Introduction

Overview of LINCS The Literacy Information and Communication System (LINCS) (https://lincs.ed.gov) is a national leadership initiative of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), to expand evidence-based practice in the field of adult education.

LINCS demonstrates OCTAE’s commitment to delivering high-quality, evidence-based, on-demand educational opportunities to practitioners of adult education, so those practitioners can help adult learners successfully transition to postsecondary education and 21st century jobs.

LINCS consists of the following components:

LINCS Resource Collection—a collection of vetted evidence and research-based resources for adult education practitioners LINCS Community—an online moderated community of practice Learning Portal—online self-paced courses for adult education practitioners State Resources—research and evidence-based professional development and technical assistance opportunities for states and information on current and past Federal Initiatives Learner Center—free online resources for adult learners from other federally funded websites or initiatives These components provide adult educators with the information, resources, professional development activities, and an online moderated learning network to enhance their professional practice and ensure their adult students receive high-quality learning opportunities.

Purpose of the Federal Initiatives Toolkit One of the main purposes of LINCS is to expand the use of evidence-based practices in the field of adult education. One way this is achieved is through OCTAE’s investments in national leadership activities that advance adult education and improve teacher quality. The LINCS team, which is inclusive of the LINCS Technical Assistance Center (LINCS TAC) and the LINCS Technical Support Contractor, seeks to provide standard guidance for how to move assets, such as those seen in the LINCS Resource Collection, the LINCS Learning Portal, and the LINCS Federal Initiatives page, to LINCS.

The Federal Initiatives Toolkit (FIT) is designed to provide guidance to OCTAE national leadership activities about how to engage with LINCS (https://lincs.ed.gov) on your project work throughout your performance period. This may include leveraging LINCS for activities including, but not limited to, creating a Federal Initiatives page, adding resources to the Resource Collection, hosting activities through the LINCS Community, developing online courses/modules, preparing project trainers to become LINCS trainers, and developing in-person or virtual facilitated training.

The LINCS team will build on the idea that LINCS “harnesses the power of collaboration and sharing to improve educational outcomes” as a central idea for the FIT. The FIT is a living document. As technology evolves, as the LINCS websites change, and as external procedures impact the guidance in the FIT, it will be updated as needed by the LINCS team. The FIT will ensure that staff on new and existing projects understand the connection and coordination needed with the LINCS team to facilitate posting project materials on LINCS.

Organization of the FIT The FIT is organized to align with the different phases of your project: starting your project, implementing your project, and wrapping up your project, followed by the appendices. Within each of these sections, you will find guidance on LINCS and dates to plan around related content and technical requirements.

Starting Your Project. This section provides information that project staff should know at the onset of their project to plan for future expectations and needs. Think of this as what needs to happen before the end of Year 1 of the project. This part is designed to set projects up with the end in mind so that the engagement, communication, and partnership with LINCS is established at the beginning. This section is where most guidance is provided, including information on who to contact on the LINCS team, scheduling a LINCS Scoping Meeting, developing your Federal Initiatives page, the LINCS Style Guide, LINCS logos, content and technical guidance on creating resources for the LINCS Resource Collection, content and technical guidance for creating courses/modules that will live in the LINCS Learning Portal, dissemination and social media guidance, and other items to consider at the start of a new project.

Implementing Your Project. This section includes LINCS support information that projects may need while implementing their project. Outreach and recruitment, announcements, and sharing the work of the project through the Resource Collection, LINCS Universal Technical Assistance (TA) webinars, and the LINCS Community are all important elements for projects while they are in the midst of implementing project tasks.

Wrapping Up Your Project. This section includes important information for project teams to consider and plan for as they wrap up the project. Some information leveraged while implementing the project will continue in this phase, such as outreach and recruitment, announcements, and sharing the work of the project through the Resource Collection, LINCS Universal TA webinars, and the LINCS Community. This section also will provide content and technical guidance on the final details needed for course development, such as the quality assurance (QA) review process, Section 508 compliance tips, loading content, communication plans for courses, creating course evaluations, and content needed to move courses from development to production before going live. These items should be considered at the start of the final project year, if not before. If the project includes training and TA that will continue beyond the life of the project, this section provides information on steps and logistics that project trainers should be aware of to become LINCS trainers.

Appendices. This section includes forms, checklists, tools, and a frequently asked questions list with the related answers.

You can find an overall LINCS Project Engagement Timeline in Appendix A to help you stay on track with each of these phases. Figure 1 shows how the content in phases of the project connects.

Figure 1. Project Phases

Starting Your Project

Congratulations! Your project has been funded; now what? This section provides information that project staff should know at the onset of their project to plan for future expectations and needs. Think of this as what needs to happen before the end of Year 1 of the project. In this phase, the working relationship between your project team and the LINCS team is established. This section is where most guidance is provided, including information on who to contact on the LINCS team, scheduling a LINCS Scoping Meeting, developing your Federal Initiatives page, content and technical guidance on creating resources for the LINCS Resource Collection, content and technical guidance for creating courses that will live in the LINCS Learning Portal, dissemination and social media guidance, and other items to consider at the start of a new project.

The LINCS Team/Who to Contact The LINCS team includes both the LINCS Technical Assistance Center (LINCS TAC, currently managed by the American Institutes for Research [AIR]) and the LINCS Technical Support Contract (currently managed by CivicActions). Following is a table sharing who to contact on the LINCS team should you have questions or need guidance. Please always copy the LINCS project contracting officer’s representative (COR) and LINCS project director on any and all communication to task leads.

Table 1. The LINCS Team

LINCS Universal Webinars and Training mmovit@air.org

In addition to the specific team members that you may need to contact above, LINCS also has a general LINCS Help Desk and a request for technical support tool for those logged in with a LINCS account, known as the Wizard. You will see references to using the LINCS Help Desk and Wizard throughout this document. Table 2 includes information to help you access and use them, including the link, audience, and purpose:

Table 2. LINCS Help Desk and LINCS Wizard Overview

https://community.lincs.ed.gov/contact/contact_us https://community.lincs.ed.gov/contact/wizard

Forgotten passwords Blocked accounts Verification issues Email changes

Adding resources/publications Broken links Minor content changes Used for:

New private group creation New course creation Copying existing course System access request (LINCS Main, reviewers, or LINCS Learning Portal) Program User Security Training is required for any backend access Adding a Federal Initiatives page Uploading a PDF Access to LINCS YouTube channel Major content changes

LINCS Team Scoping Meeting One of the first opportunities to get to know the LINCS team and discuss the parameters of LINCS is during the Scoping Meeting. This joint meeting includes, at a minimum, the project director and key members of the LINCS TAC team, the project director and key members of the national leadership activities team, and the CORs for both projects. This meeting should happen within the first 60 days of the project start date.

The focus of the meeting is to understand the new project, discuss the plans and expectations for the project, and share information about the LINCS team (both content and technical contractors) and LINCS capabilities and limitations. The meeting also will provide the project timeline and deliverables schedule so that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of what the needs for the project will be, while sharing the realities of what is feasible within the LINCS system. In addition, the LINCS team will share what options are available in LINCS with a show and tell of LINCS website components.

In preparation for the Scoping Meeting, the LINCS TAC team asks that you complete the Scoping Meeting Questionnaire (Appendix B) to share with the LINCS TAC project director 2 weeks ahead of the meeting. This questionnaire will be organized around the LINCS components most likely to support the work of the project: the Resource Collection, the Learning Portal, State Resources/Federal Initiatives, and the LINCS Community.

What’s My First Step? Schedule the Scoping Meeting. The new project should try to schedule this meeting and invite the project directors and CORs from both the LINCS TAC and LINCS Technical Support project within 60 days of the project start date. As appropriate, the project directors will forward the invite to key team members to join this meeting. The meeting should be planned for an hour, with the option to have follow-up meetings as necessary. The LINCS team will provide the agenda for the meeting based on the questionnaire responses.

Following the initial meeting, the LINCS TAC team will be available to answer any questions from the project as needed. If a subsequent meeting is needed, please coordinate with the LINCS TAC project director.

LINCS Style Guide, LINCS Logos, and U.S. Department of Education Disclaimer The LINCS Style Guide provides standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents, tools, and materials used on the LINCS website. The style guide ensures uniformity in style and formatting within a document and across multiple documents. The style guide is currently being revised and will be updated with more guidance on:

plain language and user experience writing best practices, and consistent use of design components.

Please be sure to use the LINCS Style Guide when you need it to ensure that you are following the current guidance. The LINCS logo can be used to promote the LINCS website, training, event, or resource or to acknowledge LINCS affiliation. The logo cannot be used to imply or endorse a product or service. You may not change the colors or size ratios of the LINCS logo. Please review detailed guidance on usage of the LINCS logo.

For publications, please be sure to include your vendor name, contract name, and contract number along with the U.S. Department of Education disclaimer.

Federal Initiatives Page Your project should have a presence on the LINCS Federal Initiatives landing page (https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives). The LINCS Federal Initiatives landing pages serve as repositories for training, online courses, resources, and products developed by OCTAE national leadership activities and make these resources accessible indefinitely. This landing page provides a home for past and present Federal Initiatives to share resources, tools, videos, and information about the projects with the field. The main Federal Initiatives landing page lists national leadership activities by name, grouped into topical categories. From here, visitors can follow links to the various landing pages for each project. For continuity and ease of locating key information and resources from your project, the following elements should be provided and included on your project’s landing page:

Project title Project logo Project description—a brief, high-level summary about the project in four to seven sentences, which should include the length of the project/period of performance and opportunities to engage with the project, and also may include the organization managing the project Project objectives—goals and purpose, benefits, projected outcomes, and so on Project timeline—important project dates, such as webinars, events, training dates, and recruitment deadlines Project resources—links to ancillary project pages, supporting project documents, videos, and so on Other elements that may appear on your project landing page include the following:

Project announcements—for active projects, for example, recruitment dates or project bulletins Links to related, existing LINCS components or resources (e.g., a LINCS Community group, Learning Portal course, or Resource Collection resource); note that separate processes and guidance will apply to adding new Learning Portal courses or Resource Collection resources Additional page text and organization as needed to present linked resources in context A template is provided in Appendix C to help you develop your Federal Initiatives page. Please visit existing Federal Initiatives pages for inspiration and ideas. Here are a few examples of Federal Initiatives pages: https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives/advance-iet, https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives/draw, and https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives/teaching-skills-matter-adult-education.

Your project will designate one lead person for making updates to the Federal Initiative landing page. Your Federal Initiative landing page should be published within 90 days of the project start date. Once it is published, your project will be asked to provide the LINCS TAC team with an announcement to notify the field that your project’s page has been published. Once the announcement has been reviewed and approved by your COR, please have them share the approved announcement with the LINCS TAC COR.

Technical Guidance Requests to set up new Federal Initiatives pages should be initiated with a Wizard ticket, sent by your COR to the LINCS Technical Support Contractor. In addition to the content in the body of the page, the request should include the following information:

Title of page Name of author (LINCS permits only one lead author/content creator per Federal Initiatives page) Number of pages or subpages Page URL (URLs should follow this format: /state-resources/federal-initiatives/[initiative-name]) The page author will be contacted to set up an account and arrange any details for this account; for example, if they will be acting as a course developer, uploading video to the LINCS YouTube channel, or serving as a group moderator on the LINCS Community site. They also will be instructed to take the LINCS Program User Security Training at this time.

Note that your page’s body content should use the styles and formats that are in the rich text editor in the Drupal interface, which will ensure consistency within the codebase. Do not include JavaScript or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Structure your content with headings and subheadings to improve readability, as follows:

The title of projects should be short and concise, fewer than 50 characters and spaces (use H1).

Break up the rest of the content with subheadings (H2s and H3s).

Use headings in a logical order.

Include the relevant key point in the headings.

Use simple and clear language.

Keep headings to a single sentence.

Avoid using punctuation, such as periods, commas, or semicolons, in headings.

Write in sentence case (capitalize the first word and proper nouns only).

Page content will be reviewed first by your COR or project manager and then by the LINCS Technical Support Team for compliance.

Appendix D presents a process and checklist for creating a LINCS Federal Initiative landing page for your project. It includes steps related to identifying and drafting page content, coordinating with the technical contractor to ensure that technical requirements are met and to create the page, gaining access for the project’s web developer to develop the page, and working through the review and approval process with the project COR and the LINCS IT COR.

LINCS Resources The LINCS Resource Collection (https://lincs.ed.gov/resource-collection) contains a collection of more than 800 high-quality multimedia instructional resources, informed by research, for use by adult educators. The resources in the collection are limited to items that have gone through a rigorous internal and external review process conducted by subject-matter experts and have been recommended and approved by OCTAE’s Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL). These resources have a sound theoretical framework and an application to the adult education field. They are searchable by category, keyword, year, and more.

Guidance on Content Development Please keep in mind the following requirements for the final versions of any TA and training resources developed for your project:

All resources will need to be 508 compliant. A PDF report verifying compliance is required and must be submitted to OCTAE. Please refer to the 508 Compliance section for details on steps and requirements.

Minimize, to the extent possible, the number of links within the resource because websites are often reorganized and external resources may move, leading to broken links.

Your project will need to develop and complete a LINCS Resource Collection Profile for each new resource the project intends to add to the Resource Collection so that it can be reviewed and added. The narrative of the profile can be a good place to include additional links that you want to provide but that are not in the resource itself. You will find the Resource Collection Profile Form in Appendix E. Please see Appendix F for an example of what the final profile will look like in the Resource Collection.

Following is the information you will need to provide for the profile:

Resource Title. This can include subtitles.

Related Topic. You will select this from a dropdown list and can pick more than one from the following:

Career Pathways and Postsecondary Transitions Civics Education and Citizenship Correctional and Reentry Education Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion English Language Acquisition Integrating Technology Learners With Disabilities Math and Numeracy Professional Development Program Management Reading and Writing Science Teaching and Learning Resource Type. You will select this from a dropdown list and can pick only one from the following:

Informational. Materials that provide information about adult education that are not specific to instruction, professional development, or research. These include policy briefs, videos, and programmatic materials that are intended to improve the functioning of adult education programs.

Instructional. Materials that relate to adult education instruction, including curricula, lesson plans, supplemental materials, and assessments.

Professional Development. Materials that are used for increasing the knowledge and skills of adult educators.

Research. Materials that present the results of descriptive, quasi-experimental, and experimental research.

Product Type. You will select this from a dropdown list and can pick more than one from the following:

Informational Material Annotated Bibliography Article Informational Video Journal Issue Policy Brief Programmatic Material Toolkit Website Website Evaluation Tool Instructional Material Course Outline Curriculum Instructional Video Interactive Tutorial Lesson Plan Online Course Teaching Strategy Professional Development and Research Descriptions of Practice Professional Learning Materials Descriptive Research Quasi-Experimental Research Randomized Controlled Trial Description. You will provide a short, one-sentence summary of the resource.

Resource URL. All resources must have a virtual “home.”

If the resource is hosted externally, its URL should be entered as a profile.

If the resource is internal and it has not been uploaded to the Resource Collection yet, you will need to upload the file to a project page or request to have the file uploaded to LINCS via a Wizard ticket. Once that is done, the URL will be provided to you.

Author(s). This is not a required field.

Author(s) Organizational Affiliation. This is not a required field.

Publication Year.

Keywords. These will be used as search terms.

Number of Pages. Do not include the cover, title, glossary, and appendices.

Target Audience. You will select this from a dropdown list and can pick more than one from the following:

Administrators Adult Learners Business Partners Family and Community Supporters Instructional Staff Policymakers and Implementers Researchers and Developers Student Support Staff Teacher Trainers Image. Only one file can be used for each resource. It can be a screenshot of the cover or a key graphic from the resource. The file may be a png, gif, or jpg/jpeg. The image must be larger than 450 x 1 pixels, but the file cannot be larger than 8 MB.

Alternative (Alt) Text. This short description of the image will be used by screen readers and displayed when the image is not loaded. This is important for accessibility.

Be concise: 80 to 150 characters maximum (no more than three lines).

Consider including the race/ethnicity of the person in the image. For blind users, inclusive text descriptions normalize the diverse ways that humans can see.

Consider the context of the image by looking at the content that surrounds it.

Prioritize content that is most important to the image’s meaning. Use clear and descriptive text.

Avoid repeating content that is already next to the image (i.e., title, caption, body text).

Avoid words such as “image of” or “picture of.” Screen readers announce “image” already.

Abstract. This can come from the resource itself if it already has an abstract. This should be three to four sentences.

Benefits and Uses. You will provide a paragraph or two summarizing how the resource should be used and the benefits to the field. Highlight key components of the resource that are especially useful.

Required Training. This is not a required field and is mainly for resources connected to a Federal Initiative involving training and TA. You will list any training that participants should have before using the resource; for example, “Participation in the [project name] training.”

Announcing Your Projects and LINCS Social Media

LINCS was designed to organize and promote resources within the field of adult education and serve as a central repository for information. LINCS promotes resources through sharing announcements with all LINCS Community members and through leveraging the LINCS social media channels: X (formerly Twitter) (https://twitter.com/LINCS_ED), LinkedIn (LINCS_ED https://linkedin.com/groups/4555711/), and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/LincsEd).

Your Project’s LINCS Communication Plan For the LINCS team to help your project with announcements and social media postings, your project will need to provide the LINCS team with a communication plan that includes the following:

Your COR-approved announcement and social media Any LINCS sitewide announcements you would like to post The dates you want the announcements and social media posted Alt text for any images you want included with the social media Your project communication’s plan should be sent no later than 2 weeks ahead of when you want the items disseminated. Please err on keeping the announcement and social media posts simple and to the point. Please note, as project timelines can sometimes change due to many factors, if your project has multiple important announcement events/dates, send a separate communication plan for each event/set of dates. The U.S. Department of Education blocks shortened links (such as bit.ly), so the full link must be included in announcements and social media posts. Appendix G provides an example of a social media post and an announcement from a project communication plan.

Announcing Your Project You may post communitywide announcements through the LINCS Community to share details of your project, such as links to informational webinars about the project and/or recruiting activities. Work with your project COR for approval of the announcement before sending the approved announcement to the LINCS TAC COR. Please include the following information:

Title/subject line.

Full text for the announcement. Please keep additional formatting limited to bold, italics, and bullets or numbering for lists.

Full URLs, if any, that are to be included. Please do not include shortened links, such as bit.ly.

Date by which the announcement should be posted.

Announcement requests should be sent to the LINCS TAC COR at least 2 weeks prior to the requested posting date.

Social Media Technical Requirements LINCS X (formerly known as Twitter) LINCS X/Twitter (@LINCS_ED) allows users to easily be informed about resources and training opportunities offered through LINCS and for users to share these opportunities with their network and colleagues. Great topics for social media posts include synchronous events, asynchronous discussions, newly released resources, and resources that connect to holidays or days of appreciation. The success of posts on X/Twitter can be measured by a variety of analytical tools. These measurements include the number of posts, reposts, impressions, likes, link clicks, replies, and new followers, as well as the engagement rate. Following are four key strategies that can build engagement that may be displayed in these metrics:

First, many of the best social media posts are brief. Although X/Twitter encourages a sense of brevity with a 280-character limit, some of the most effective posts contain fewer than half that amount, registering between 71 and 100 characters.

Second, be sure to have a clear call to action, such as registering for an event, submitting a resource or discussion post, or answering a question.

Third, it is great to use visuals when possible. Please note that it is vital that the image chosen obeys all copyright laws. Accordingly, sites such as Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels can be helpful, as they feature royalty-free stock images. Upon choosing an image, it is important that alt text of fewer than 1,000 characters be used to describe the visual and any text included in the image in detail.

Finally, reach your audience by using appropriate hashtags. X/Twitter Explore is a great tool for finding trending hashtags. Please note, however, that using only two or three hashtags is most effective.

LINCS LinkedIn LINCS LinkedIn (LINCS_ED) also presents opportunities for participants to stay up to date on the latest LINCS opportunities, resources, and events. Unlike X (formerly Twitter), in which users are not required to have an account to see what is posted, LINCS LinkedIn operates as a group. Individuals must send a request to be accepted and added to the group. Once the LINCS social media team vets the request and adds the individual to the group, they are able to share resources to the group page. Analytics used to measure engagement are more limited than X, but they include the numbers of new and active members, posts, post views, comments, and reactions. Unlike X, LinkedIn allows posts to be much longer, at 3,000 characters.

LINCS YouTube Channel LINCS maintains a YouTube channel, under the username LINCS_ED (https://www.youtube.com/@LINCSED), which serves as a repository and viewing platform for video content from OCTAE-funded projects. As stated on the channel’s “About” page, “Videos on the LINCS_ED Channel include webinars, live recordings, and other materials on OCTAE’s national activities such as: career pathways; reentry education; educational technology; and more!” The collection also houses video components used in project toolkits, LINCS courses, and more. Videos from your project added to the LINCS channel can be organized into one or more project-specific playlists, making it easy for users to locate all resources related to the project.

These scenarios may be further described as follows:

Featured screencasts, recorded webinars, and video-recorded seminars/conference talks; often included in a YouTube playlist (organized around a specific project or other theme) and promoted to the front of the LINCS YouTube channel (URL found above) Video content hosted via channel, but only exposed to the public via “embed code”; placed into various web resources (e.g., coursework content from the LINCS Learning Portal, special landing pages on lincs.ed.gov) Video Technical Requirements Videos included on the LINCS YouTube channel should meet the following technical requirements:

· Video should be in raw (AVI) or WMV format (preference is for uncompressed/raw format).

· If the video is a recorded webinar or meeting, please convert it to the appropriate video format before delivering the video.

· Your project also must provide a transcription file of the video for use in YouTube captioning.

Video Justification Requirements For videos to be housed on the LINCS YouTube channel, your project staff must:

Request access for one project team member to the LINCS YouTube account via the LINCS Wizard. The team member who is given access must take or have taken the most recent LINCS security training.

Include closed captions in all videos and ensure 508 compliance (please see the 508 Compliance section for guidance).

Upload the video and transcript to the LINCS YouTube channel using “private” settings so that the video will not yet be publicly viewable. Also, upload a video transcript or caption file.

Share 508 reports with your COR.

Coordinate with the LINCS Technical Support Contract COR once the video is ready to be made publicly available (i.e., playlist on channel home page versus embed code).

LINCS Community The LINCS Community (https://community.lincs.ed.gov/) is a community of practice for adult education practitioners. This professional learning space brings together adult educators worldwide to work together toward one common goal—providing high-quality, evidence-based learning opportunities to adult learners. The community is a place where practitioners can seek help from experts and peers, collaborate, network, share knowledge and resources, participate in special events, and grow professionally. The community promotes and provides activities that deepen the connections within the LINCS system for practitioners to access professional development materials, reflect on their teaching practices, and apply what they have learned in their classrooms. As your project is launching, the LINCS Community is available to help in several ways as follows:

Establish a Private Group for Your Project. A private group may be needed or wanted for your project to provide a place to keep project materials for trainers and/or training participants to access, for participants in any training or TA to gather to share learning experiences or complete tasks, or for any other number of reasons you want a private group for your project. To establish a private group, submit a request using the LINCS Wizard. Please note that you will need to be logged into the LINCS Community to access this page. Under Request Type, select “New Group Creation Request.” Then, provide the following information:

Group Type. Choose from Public Group, Micro-Group, or Private Group. Private groups are only accessible by the members of the group. Group admins may add members.

Group Name. This is the title of the group that you want displayed. Please limit your group name to 60 characters, including spaces.

Group Purpose. A short description (200 characters or fewer) outlining the purpose of this group. This information will be displayed on group list pages.

What is this group’s description? Please describe how the group will be used—the group’s purpose, target audience, and expected outcomes.

Which users should serve as the group administrator and moderator? The group administrator is responsible for managing group memberships and monitoring group activity. The group moderator serves as the subject-matter expert for the group. Both roles can be applied to the same person.

Group administrator(s): Supply the LINCS username or email address for each.

Group moderator(s): Supply the LINCS username or email address for each.

Connect With an Existing Community Group. Consider posting about your new Federal Initiative in one of the Community groups or reach out to the moderator of a Community group that most aligns with your work to share information about your project. Please note that you will need to be a member of the LINCS Community and subscribed to specific groups to post content or comment.

Guidance on Technical Requirements for Creating a Private Group To create a new private group, please submit a group creation request via the LINCS Wizard. Please note that you will need to be logged into the LINCS Community to file a group creation request. To file a request:

Visit https://community.lincs.ed.gov/wizard. (Note: You must be logged in to the LINCS Community to access the LINCS Wizard).

Complete and submit the form based on what you need.

Once a request is received by the LINCS Technical Support Contractor and approved by OCTAE, the LINCS Technical Support Contractor will create the group as requested.

If this is a private group, it is your project’s responsibility to populate the group membership and otherwise customize the group page. Group manager “how-to” documents are posted inside each group for every group manager. Private groups must be approved by the project COR and the LINCS IT Technical Support COR.

Please keep in mind that with any of the above options, project staff and project materials are required to follow the LINCS Community Code of Conduct at all times. Group managers also should monitor discussions and remove comments that violate the Code of Conduct. Please contact the LINCS Help Desk should you have any questions.

LINCS Learning Portal The LINCS Learning Portal is an open-access, web-based learning platform that enables learners, instructors, and organizations to access online learning opportunities. The courses offered on the LINCS Learning Portal are freely available to educators to further their professional development. There are nearly 40 self-paced online courses available for use anytime, anywhere. Course participants must register for each asynchronous course offered in the Learning Portal. The courses use Moodle as the learning management platform (the LINCS TAC will confirm which current version is being used during the Scoping Meeting). Certificates are provided to participants upon completion of courses. Your project may request to either (a) create a brand-new course or (b) run a new course section. Requesting a “new course” refers to the creation of a Moodle shell to build and develop new course content. Requesting a “course section” refers to the duplication of an existing course for updates or minor revisions.

Creating a New Course The steps below provide information regarding how to create a new course within the LINCS Learning Portal. The information below is specific to brand-new course development (i.e., the course does not currently exist, it is not a revision of an existing course, or it is a course revision that is extensive enough that the original course content and structure will not be used).

Your project submits a “System Access Request” Wizard ticket to request the following:

Enrollment in LINCS Program User Security Training for all course developers/designers who need access to the course development site.

Access to the course development site. Please note that your project will not have access to the course development site until security training is completed.

Once security training is complete and your project has been informed that they now have access to the development site, they can submit a “New Course Creation Request” through the LINCS Wizard. Be sure to include the primary person who will be managing all course development. This individual will be promoted to “teacher,” which gives them the ability to author the course and enroll others on the project team who have already completed the security training.

The course developer(s) build(s) the course, adhering to the guidelines as set forth by the Guidance on Technical Requirements for Course Development section below, and submits it to the project COR for review and approval prior to submitting it to the Information Technology Accessibility Program (ITAP) for review. Please see the 508 Compliance section to help prepare the course for ITAP review.

The project COR submits the course to the U.S. Department of Education’s ITAP office for 508 compliance review. Should the course not pass review, the project staff is responsible for any necessary 508 compliance remediations. The project staff should notify the project COR once revisions are complete; the project COR will then request a second review by the ITAP office. Please note that there may be several rounds of review for 508 compliance.

After the course passes 508 compliance, the project COR grants final approval to move the course into production, provides the technical COR with evidence of ITAP approval, and requests the course to be evaluated via the technical QA (this may take up to 2 weeks). Please refer to the 508 Compliance section for details on steps and requirements. If the course includes customized videos, please see the LINCS YouTube Video Upload Checklist in Appendix H.

The project must meet the technical QA requirements as outlined in Appendix I. The project team and project COR should each conduct QA to ensure that the technical requirements are met. The COR should provide an explanation of requirements not met and include screenshots, as appropriate. The project COR will share the QA checklist with the LINCS Technical Support and TAC CORs for further QA reviews. The project team is responsible for addressing all technical issues identified through the QA analyses. All issues should be resolved prior to publishing. This is a required step before courses can be published in the LINCS Learning Portal.

Once the course is ready to be published, the COR for the project should submit a Wizard ticket, confirming that 508 compliance approval has been obtained. Please submit the 508-approval report with confirmation that the course is ready to be moved into production and published by a noted specific date. Please note that a minimum of 2 weeks’ advance notice is necessary.

The project COR will be notified once the course has been moved to the LINCS Learning Portal and is ready for final review. The project will be responsible for evaluating the course again to confirm that all links and documents are intact and the course is functioning normally. Once the project team has confirmed that the course is functioning as it should, the project COR will notify the technical contractor COR that the course is ready to go live.

The technical contractor COR will notify the project COR once the course is live.

New Course Section A course section is a duplicate of an existing facilitated course with the intention of having a different group of participants enrolled. A course section also applies to revisions of an existing self-paced course in which the original content and structure are needed for the update. This is comparable to section numbers of the same course in higher education. To request a new instance of a facilitated course section:

The project team submits a “New Course Section” request through a LINCS Wizard ticket.

The project COR approves the request for the addition of a new course section.

Because a new section is an anonymized (no user data) “copy” of an already approved course, the new section is created directly on production (https://courses.lincs.ed.gov). However, the new course section is “hidden” from the public until final project COR approval.

Once the course section has been created, if modifications are needed for the new course section, the project team must:

request that the project or course facilitator be granted “teacher” account status through a LINCS Wizard request to allow course editing;

complete LINCS Program User Security Training, if needed; and edit the course per the Guidance on Technical Requirements for Course Development.

After final project COR approval, the course will be either (a) be made public or (b) allow enrollment of specific users (for private courses).

Private Versus Public Courses Private courses:

are hidden from public view, are usually facilitated courses, and may only be accessed if the user is specifically enrolled.

Public courses:

are publicly displayed on the Learning Portal’s home page (after initial login), and are typically “self-enrollment,” whereby the user may simply join the course and complete it at their own pace.

Private and public courses both have the option to be either in a topic-driven/self-paced or time-driven/week-based format.

Guidance on Technical Requirements for Course Development Courses should be built directly in the LINCS Moodle Development site. This is critical to ensure that course production goes smoothly. Course developers also may build their courses with other tools compatible with Moodle, such as Articulate Rise 360 or Vyond. Make sure the project’s course developer uses tools that support accessibility. All courses must pass the U.S. Department of Education’s ITAP 508 compliance review.

In general, the LINCS team does not recommend exporting a complete course from any course- building tool. Please break the course up into sections and export them to HTML by course unit. To facilitate this task, relatively small e-learning packages can be added to the LINCS Moodle Development site.

Course Names Courses in Moodle have a couple of different name attributes. Please keep the following in mind:

The course’s “full name” is used on the completion certificate. It is recommended to include the course category along with the title (typically fewer than 60 characters or a maximum of 67 characters).

The course’s “short name” is used in the breadcrumb. It is recommended to strive for as short a name as possible.

Course Descriptions Include a one- to two-paragraph synopsis of the course. This will be displayed when an end user is viewing all of the courses as they are filed by category and can be displayed in other areas as well (i.e., About the LINCS Learning Portal, LINCS Training Catalog, and LINCS Learning Portal Courses). The length of these descriptions is not the same; project staff should ensure that multiple descriptions are provided and can be placed on the associated pages. Please review the links above to see examples of current descriptions for the different LINCS pages. Please also include estimated hours of completion, and add the standard contract disclaimer with the contract number at the bottom of the main page.

Course Content Appearance and Fonts Although it is common practice to copy and paste content from popular word processing software, the course author should take care to audit and ensure that…