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4. Technology Saves Time And Money In Ethics Training Program

Technology Saves Time And Money In Ethics Training Program

The Bureau of Public Debt (BPD), a component of the Department of Treasury (Treasury), has designed an interactive ethics CD-ROM as a convenient and cost-effective means of training and providing general ethics information and updates to a dispersed staff. The CD-ROM was designed and prepared in-house by a production team of 5 or 6 persons working a total of 300 hours. From inception to completion of a working beta program the process of developing and preparing the CD-ROM took three months. BPD used resources already in place: a Pentium 133, a 2x CD-ROM Recorder, a CD-ROM disk, a tape backup, and a graphics program, and supplemented these with a Digital Camera, Video Capture Board, Video Modem, Video Camera, and MediaWrangler(TM). The final result is an ethics CD-ROM complete with audio-video messages from Treasury's DAEO, Alternate DAEO, and BPD's ethics officials, in addition to a wide array of general ethics material.

An ethics training computer program has been developed. This program directs employees through a succession of screens, which in total fulfill the annual ethics training requirement. Much of the ethics information was obtained from OGE's Ethics Information Center. The program can be updated by BPD personnel.

In addition to the convenience offered by this resource, BPD believes use of the CD-ROM in ethics training will prove beneficial in many respects: attorneys' time preparing for and providing training sessions will be saved; employees' time spent traveling to required training sessions will be saved; research time will be saved due to BPD's ability to update the CD-ROM for current law and guidance. Peripheral benefits of this project include the transferable experience the production team gained in using this type of technology.