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Catherine Faint is an attorney and vice president of NTEU 245, the Trademark Society, which represents Trademark examining and interlocutory attorneys at the USPTO. She is currently an interlocutory attorney with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and served as a trademark examiner for more than eight years. Prior to joining the USPTO, Faint was an attorney with the Feinberg Group, LLP, specializing in the negotiated resolution of complex legal disputes. She also served as judicial law clerk to the Honorable Dennis M. Sweeney of Maryland’s Fifth Judicial Circuit. Faint received her A.B. in philosophy from Guilford College and her J.D. from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, where she was an articles editor for the ABA journal, The Business Lawyer. This article was prepared by Catherine Faint in her personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the USPTO, or the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Catherine Faint

September 2015 - The Public Manager

How Can Your Agency Foster Knowledge Transfer?

Maintenance The sixth step

Catherine Lombardozzi is a lifelong learning and development practitioner and founder of Learning 4 Learning Professionals. She collaborates with people to align their L&D strategy and skill sets with their organization’s driving goals and initiatives. Her work focuses on supporting the professional development of designers, facilitators, faculty, learning and performance consultants, and learning leaders. As an active workplace learning professional with nearly 40 years of experience in corporate and academic contexts, Catherine often contributes to professional conferences and journals, and she teaches graduate-level courses in adult learning, instructional design, emerging technologies, and consulting. She is author of Learning Environments by Design (2015). She maintains deep interest in modern workplace learning strategies, learning culture, social learning, self-directed learning, design of online learning experiences, and scholarly practice. Catherine holds a doctoral degree in human and organizational learning from George Washington University.

Catherine Lombardozzi

Create engaged employees to maintain high business success. Engaged employees successfully achieve their individual, team, and organizational goals. Creating Engaged Employees offers practical wisdom with research to answer important engagement questions

Creating Engaged Employees

As learning and development experts, your role in understanding the digital security measures implemented by your learning management system (LMS) provider is not just crucial but integral for safeguarding sensitive information and maintaining regulatory compliance. You are tasked with not only identifying an LMS that meets the diverse learning needs of your organization but also ensuring that it provides robust digital security measures to safeguard against potential breaches and protect valuable organizational assets.When evaluating potential LMS providers, it’s not enough to be knowledgeable—you need to be proactive. Arm yourself with the knowledge and insights necessary to make informed decisions that align with your organization’s strategic objectives and security requirements. Don’t wait for the information to come to you; go out and get it. Let’s explore the top five inquiries that HR professionals should pose to potential LMS providers. These are not just any inquiries; they are the key aspects of digital security that you need to understand. We’ll look at encryption protocols, authentication mechanisms, data privacy measures, continuous monitoring practices, and incident response capabilities. These are the areas where you need to be most vigilant. Here are five essential questions to ask your LMS provider to safeguard your organization’s data:1. What Security Protocols Are in Place?It seems the most obvious question to ask, but it is often overlooked when shopping for a new LMS. Ask what foundational security protocols your LMS provider has implemented. Ensure you get detailed information on the provider’s encryption standards to protect data both in transit and at rest. Robust access controls should be in place to ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive information. Additionally, inquire about data backup procedures to ensure the resilience of your organization’s data against loss or corruption.2. Is the LMS FedRAMP Authorized?FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) authorization is essential for government agencies and organizations handling sensitive data. FedRAMP authorization signifies that the LMS provider has undergone rigorous security assessments and adheres to stringent security controls mandated for federal agencies. There are three levels of security to consider:Low Impact: Designed for cloud services processing non-sensitive, publicly available information. This level emphasizes basic security controls to mitigate low-level risks effectively.Moderate Impact: Tailored for cloud solutions handling sensitive but unclassified information (SBU). Moderate-level controls focus on safeguarding data confidentiality, integrity, and availability, catering to a broader range of government applications.High Impact: Reserved for cloud environments handling classified, sensitive information that could pose severe consequences if compromised. High-level controls entail stringent security measures to protect against advanced threats and ensure the utmost data protection.Only a few LMS providers have achieved the level of security requirements for FedRAMP authorization. TotaraGov is FedRAMP authorized, and its tailored architecture allows agencies to deliver training programs securely while adhering to stringent regulatory requirements.3. How Is User Authentication Managed?User authentication serves as the first line of defense against unauthorized access to the LMS platform. Inquire about the authentication methods employed, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) or single sign-on (SSO). Multi-factor authentication adds an additional layer of security by requiring users to provide multiple forms of verification, while single sign-on enhances user convenience while maintaining security standards.4. What Measures Are in Place for Data Privacy?Data privacy is fundamental to digital security, particularly concerning personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive organizational data. Seek clarity on how the LMS provider ensures data privacy, including data anonymization techniques, role-based access controls, and compliance with data protection regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA.5. How Are Continuous Monitoring and Incident Response Handled?Adequate security measures require continuous monitoring and proactive incident response mechanisms. Inquire about the LMS provider’s approach to continuous monitoring, which identifies security threats and vulnerabilities in real time. Additionally, seek insights into the incident response protocols in place to address security incidents promptly and minimize potential damages. By posing these critical questions to your LMS provider, you can protect your organization’s digital assets against evolving security threats. Prioritizing digital security safeguards sensitive data, upholds organizational integrity, and fosters trust among employees and stakeholders. Remember, proactive assessment and collaboration with your LMS provider, such as Totara, are key to maintaining a secure learning environment and mitigating potential risks effectively. Stay vigilant, stay informed, and prioritize digital security in your organization’s learning initiatives.

5 Crucial Security Questions to Ask Your LMS Provider for Federal Government

Join MadCap Software's Xyleme expert, Chris Kocher, senior solutions architect, as he demonstrates the seamless integration of personalized content into your workflow. Discover how this innovative approach elevates learning experiences by efficiently tracking and managing complete courses, documents, and individual components for valuable insights. Gain unparalleled control over content management with exceptional granularity, versioning, and tracking capabilities, empowering your team to access the most relevant information.
During this event you will learn:

Effective strategies to deliver content through omni-channel publications for timely access.
Insights on efficiently tracking and delivering various types of content while gathering detailed analytics for improved understanding.
Knowledge to maintain full control over content management by utilizing versioning and tracking features to ensure up-to-date and relevant information for your team.  


DEMO: Unlocking Productivity: Streamlining Learning in the Flow of Work

One of the most critical questions talent and learning professionals need to answer to close an identified performance gap is whether to build or to buy the expertise needed to design, develop, and deliver the most effective learning experience. This is not just an either-or decision. There are many variations, ranging from completely outsourcing to partnering with an external source for just some of the components. The decision not only affects the solution, but also the budget, personnel, support efforts, time involved, the results for the employees and ultimately the success of the organization. What do you need to know before the conversations start? What research do you need to do? What questions do you ask? Where do you start?Situations like this are a common part of the talent leader’s portfolio. Your starting point might be different depending on your industry, your size, your market position, the maturity of your learning function, and other factors. However, if you are part of a benchmarking consortium, such as the ATD Forum, there is a known pathway–ask your peers!Forum members have a variety of methods to gain information from a diverse group of peers, including sending a simple member-to-member survey, asking others at a small group cohort meeting, hosting a virtual roundtable for members to share and ask questions, and holding deep dives at interactive labs.At the 2023 Spring Lab in San Diego, members focused on the build-or-buy conundrum and took it a step further to collectively develop ideas, checklists, and questions to enable a perfect fit between a provider and customer, regardless of whether the provider is internal or external. Context was provided by a member and its external strategic partner sharing a case study. This included an overview of the challenge, the case they developed for using an external supplier, and the many techniques employed over the years to work together to enable success for the real customers—the employees.Using this scenario, the collective peer group of talent leaders from 19 companies developed a list of reasons for using external versus internal suppliers, used the Value Proposition Canvas tool to dive deeper into clarifying needs, heard from an expert on using burden rate (the cost to an organization of hiring and maintaining an employee beyond their wages) when cost is a primary factor, and, finally, developed a list of elements to consider when selecting an external provider.Reasons for considering an external supplier:Diversity of thought and known expertise related to solving the challenge lends credibility on the issue that might be missing internally.A partnership can expand the company’s network for ideas, people, and solutions; this might include mentorships.Time to market can be much faster.Processes established to easily show metrics and ROI if the supplier has a model or tool designed for that purpose.Content maintenance capability is a huge factor, and the supplier may have a dedicated team.Reasons for not using an external supplier:An external person or group not understanding the context of the organization, the need, or similar factorsChallenge of getting executive buy-inCost, especially when burden rate is considered a sunk costRisk factors if internal leadership changes, the vendor gets acquired by another company, or other unforeseen circumstancesInitial time investment to set up the contract, especially if it involves legal, compliance, contracts, IT, or other departmentsLack of specificity based on industry—for example, experience from banking not applicable to constructionThe group then developed a list of elements to consider when selecting an external supplier. As the small groups reported their ideas, there was large group discussion and experiences shared from the rest of the peer group. The host team with the case study, along with the strategic partner, supplemented the conversation by providing real-life examples.With this list of elements clarified and expanded, the teams brainstormed how to determine whether these elements were present. A sampling of the elements and response includes:Element: How might we know if the supplier’s offering will really meet our need?Suggestions generated:Ensuring internal clarity on the problem and need by using a tool like the Value Proposition Canvas or Cathy Moore's action mapping prior to engaging with themRequesting demos and asking for a pilot or examplesAsking what they would change from their standard format for your organizationAssessing how they engage and ask questions of you as a client (Do they probe to dive deeper?)Element: How do you know if the external supplier can serve as a thought partner within your context?Suggestions generated:Asking for a list of other clients the supplier has worked with and interviewing themWorking through a scenario you provide and seeing how the supplier respondsAsking broad, open-ended, what-if type questions and focusing on what is referenced, especially noting other thought leaders and researchAsking, “What in our relationship, as you understand it now, might incur extra work and therefore additional fees?”Asking for examples of times when the supplier has provided thought leadership and the results garnered (Is there a regular cadence for sharing experience and current thought leadership? For example, does the supplier have a regular web conference or blog or gathering of clients to share forward-thinking ideas?)Asking for a list of the books, articles, whitepapers, or blogs the supplier has published for the industry at large and a list of conferences or other venues where they have shared experiencesThe build-or-buy decision is huge. However, if the decision is to buy, it takes continued effort from both parties—the customer and the supplier—to build an ongoing strategic partnership that results in a perfect fit which in turn makes an impact on the organization. Connecting, collaborating, and sharing with industry peers is an excellent start.

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