The New York State CIO Council's Human Resource Committee, in partnership with the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER) and the Office for Technology (OFT), is sponsoring two surveys on IT skills. The first will ask the state's nearly 5,000 IT professionals about their existing skills and training needs. A second will ask state agency CIOs to assess their organizations' future needs for IT skills. Working collaboratively with the NYS CIO Council's Human Resources Committee, CTG is responsible for project planning and management, survey administration and analysis, and reporting of the survey results.

The voluntary employee survey will cover nearly 60 state agencies, authorities and boards and will be conducted on-line starting the week of March 13. The CIO survey will begin in the week of March 20.

For more information, please go to: www.ctg.albany.edu/projects/nysit.

CTG's toolkit, "Models for Action: Practical approaches to electronic records management and preservation," was one of six methodologies highlighted in a recent report by NARA, "Benchmarking Report on Business Process Analysis and Systems Design for Electronic Recordkeeping."

The purpose of the Business Process Analysis Benchmarking Project was to identify workable, reproducible methodologies for integrating a records management perspective into business process analysis and into the systems development lifecycle so that recordkeeping requirements are identified and met in new systems design. NARA is publicizing all the benchmarked methodologies as best practices so that other organizations can learn from the early adopters.

To view the report online, go to: http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/policy/bpa- benchmarking.html

As part of CTG's ongoing work with the U.S. Library of Congress on digital preservation, CTG launched a Web-based State Government Digital Information Preservation Survey earlier this year [see http://www.ctg.albany.edu/about/webnews_IX_01]. CTG received an excellent response, with participation from all 50 states and three territories between early January and mid-March.

The survey was developed in cooperation with an expert group of individuals representing the Council of State Archivists, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, the Society of American Archivists, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, the Library of Congress, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The report, to be available by June 2006, will summarize state government digital information preservation activities by state and across states. The report is intended to be a vehicle for states to share knowledge about state-level digital preservation issues and activities, and to identify opportunities for digital preservation partnerships.

Sign up to be notified when the survey report is available at: http://www.ctg.albany.edu/projects/lc-registration

For more information about the Library of Congress project, please go to: http://www.ctg.albany.edu/projects/lc

The University at Albany and Albany Law School announced the creation of a new financial market regulation program that addresses industry concerns about fairness and accountability in U.S. financial markets. The program combines the four disciplines of law, business, public policy and technology along with expert input from Wall Street executives and partners in international firms to prepare undergraduate and graduate students for careers in regulation and supervision of the financial markets. The program will begin accepting students for the fall semester of 2006. Full press release>> http://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/news_features.htm#fmri

The following departments at UAlbany will participate in the new program: Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy (http://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/) , the School of Business (http://www.albany.edu/business/), and the College of Computing and Information (http://www.albany.edu/cci/). Two courses offered by CTG staff, Sharon Dawes and Theresa Pardo, both faculty at Rockefeller College, are included in the curriculum of this new program.

Further information can be found at: http://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/FMRI/index.htm

Thursday, March 23, 2006, 8:30 - 9:30 a.m.

Current Issues in Social Software: Blogging, Wiki's and RSS

Tom Mackey, Assistant Professor, College of Computing and Information, Information Studies, University at Albany, SUNY

Register online: http://www.ctg.albany.edu/about/breakfasts

Wednesday, April 12, 2006, 8:30 - 9:30 a.m.

Public Accountability in an Information Age

Albert Meijer, Assistant Professor, Utrecht School of Governance, Netherlands

Register online: http://www.ctg.albany.edu/about/breakfasts2

For more information on these and other upcoming Research Discussion Breakfasts, please go to: www.ctg.albany.edu.