College of Engineering
The Center for Energy Research and Technology
Task 1: Continuing Education
Because of the need to immediately develop educational material that is relevant and reflects the state of the art the continuing education portion of the project is divided into three phases.
The objective of Phase I is to develop educational materials based on the best information currently available.
The objective of Phase II is to update these educational materials with the interim results of the NHSRC Safe Building Program.
The objective of Phase III is to further update the educational materials with the final results of the Safe Building Program.
Phase I. Develop, Conduct and Evaluate a One-Day Continuing Education Workshop
1.1 Conduct a critical review and assessment of the currently available guidelines, practices and tools available for building owners, operators, and designers for dealing with terrorist CB attacks. The review shall include analysis of the information on dealing with accidental releases of hazardous materials and information from the Department of Defense's programs on community response to accidental release of hazardous materials from military bases. This review shall include an assessment of the tools available to building professionals for assessing and identifying the vulnerabilities and risks of specific buildings. The strengths and weaknesses of the available guidelines, practices and tools shall be evaluated. The purpose of the review is to identify the important homeland security issues that building professionals must deal with to reduce vulnerability to CB attack. The review is not intended to produce new guidance or to develop a consensus guidance statement, it will simply provide a review and critique of the most commonly accepted information and tools, and include guidance offered for dealing with both indoor and outdoor attacks. An analysis of the impacts of the guidance on building operation, occupant safety, dispersion of attack agents, practicality of guidance, and consistency of guidance with fire codes, building codes, etc will also be conducted and will include analysis of the types of building modifications necessary to implement the guidance. For example, what modifications are necessary to the control system for the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system for various common commercial buildings will be addressed. NC A & T SU/CERT shall convene a small stakeholder group (up to 30) of building professionals, code developers, owners, and operators to participate in this critical review. NC A & T SU/CERT shall determine the meeting location/arrangements and provide travel, teleconference costs and/or honorariums for stakeholders, if required. At the conclusion of the review, NC A & T SU/CERT shall prepare a report detailing the results of the review. This document shall allow building professionals to evaluate usefulness of various guidance document for particular situations.
1.2 NC A & T SU/CERT shall prepare an outline for a one day workshop to inform building professionals, owners, and operators of the issues involved in dealing with possible CB attack. The objective of this workshop is to present the results of the critical review to building professionals, owners, and operators and code developers. This outline will assume that the workshop will be in the form of 5 to 7 modules offered in a one day format.
1.3 After the Project Officer has reviewed and approved the workshop outline, NC A & T SU/CERT shall use the results of the critical review and the outline to develop a one day continuing education workshop for building professionals about the need for dealing with potential terrorist CB attack, the options for dealing with the attack, and the various issues and interrelated factors that must be considered. The workshop shall be organized in five to seven modules, with each module covering a specific topic. Possible module topics are: HVAC system modifications, filtration, control system modifications, building modifications, building code issues, response planning, and occupant training and drills. NC A & T SU/CERT shall prepare written material for each module. The material shall be in loose leaf format that can be updated as new information becomes available. .
1.4 NC A & T SU/CERT will use the modules developed in task 1.3 to conduct two short (one-day) courses. One short course will be conducted at a site near NC A & T SU/CERT, and one at a remote site. If possible, the short course at the remote site will be offered in conjunction with a major meeting of one of the professional associations representing building professionals, for example ASHRAE. For each short course NC A & T SU/CERT will obtain evaluation forms from the attendees. NC A & T SU/CERT will recruit workshop attendees (a minimum of 10), provide facilities for the workshop, reproduce course materials, obtain speakers and conduct workshop evaluations.
1.5 After each short course, NC A & T SU/CERT shall evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of the educational materials, and prepare a report detailing the results of the evaluation. This report will include recommendations for improving the course materials and delivery.
1.6 A report on the results of Phase I of the program shall be prepared. The report will cover all Phase I activities and will contain recommendations for improving the materials and presentations.
Phase II. Revise Modules and Develop New Modules
1.7 NC A & T SU/CERT shall revise the workshop developed under Phase I to incorporate the results of NHSRC and the published results for research sponsored by other organizations. The revisions to the course materials shall include revision to the modules used in Phase I and the development of new modules.
1.8 NC A & T SU/CERT shall develop a module (1 to 2 hours) based on the results of the NHSRC lessons learned from decontamination of anthrax contaminated buildings project shall be prepared. A second module (1 to 2 hours) based on the results of NHSRC research on use of filtration systems will also be prepared or incorporated into an existing filtration module. The EPA Project Officer will provide NC A & T SU/CERT with the reports and tools from the lessons learned project and the filtration systems research for use in developing these two modules. NC A & T SU/CERT will convene a meeting of the stakeholder group to review the course materials, evaluations, and two addition modules to solicit this groups input before the second offering of the materials.
1.9 NC A & T SU/CERT shall use the revised modules to present two one-day courses during Phase II of the contract. One short course shall be conducted at a site near NC A & T SU/CERT, and one at a remote site. If possible, the short course at the remote site will be offered in conjunction with a major meeting of one of the professional associations representing building professionals, for example ASHRAE. For each short course NC A & T SU/CERT shall obtain evaluation forms from the attendees.
1.10 a. After each short course, NC A & T SU/CERT shall evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of the educational materials, and prepare a report detailing the results of the evaluation. This report shall include recommendations for improving the materials.
1.10b. After short courses have been completed, NC A & T SU/CERT shall evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of the educational materials and prepare a report detailing the results of the evaluation. This report will include recommendations for improving the materials.
Phase III. Finalize Materials and Development of Web Based Modules
1.11 NC A & T SU/CERT will revise the workshop developed under Phase II to incorporate the results of NHSRC and the published results for research sponsored by other organizations. The revisions to the course materials will include revision to the modules used in Phase II and the development of new modules.
1.12 NC A & T SU/CERT will develop a new (1 to 2 hours) module based on the NHSRC sponsored research on retrofit options for building protection. The government shall provide NC A & T SU/CERT with the results of the retrofit options research.
1.13 NC A & T SU/CERT will use the revised modules to present two short courses during Phase II of the contract. The short course procedures and short course evaluation procedures in subtasks 1.2 and 1.3 will be followed.
1.14 NC A & T SU/CERT will develop a web based version of the workshop materials. The materials will be developed so that they can be accessed using the World Wide Web on the internet or from a CDROM or DVDROM. NC A & T SU/CERT will provide these materials to the sponsoring agencies and access through the web for at least the duration of this project.