From the Mouse Pad

by Bill Waldron & Jim Johnson

What’s New at IPMAAC Online?

If you haven’t visited our site on the World-Wide Web lately (or— gasp! — ever), you’ve missed out on a lot of changes. First of all, we have a new location, which should be both simpler to remember and make it easier for others to find us. Point your web browser to http://www.ipmaac.org/ and you’ll be greeted with the page below:

Take a minute to look at what’s on this page. It’s our main menu, providing access to the different areas available at the web site. Let’s examine a few of the links (the portions of the page that are underlined).

The ACN…electronically. One of the most exciting additions is the full text of the Assessment Council News. All issues produced during 1996 are available online. “So what,” you say, “I already receive the ACN in its paper form.” This is of course true, and obviously marks you as a person of great taste and professional distinction. The online edition, though, provides a place where you can find articles you read in the past, without worrying what filing cabinet or pile on your desk your copy is in (a key feature for the chronically disorganized among us).

More importantly, a keyword search function is available which allows you to locate articles of interest across all the issues on the web site. You might remember seeing an article on measuring job satisfaction in one of Mike Aamodt’s Technical Affairs columns. You skimmed it at the time, but now you really want to read it and you don’t have access to your filed copies of the ACN (and you have no idea what particular issue it was in, anyway). Simply use the search form, entering the words “job satisfaction,” and you’ll be presented with a list of all articles containing those terms. Click on one of the articles in the list, and you’ll see it’s text. Try it!

IPMAAC-List. In previous issues of the ACN, you’ve read about the IPMAAC electronic discussion list. We created the list as a way for members to easily interact electronically…asking questions, providing information about important issues, and sharing experiences. It’s a “virtual community,” operating via email.

If you click on the IPMAAC-List link on the IPMAAC home page, you’ll be presented with another menu ofoptions. One of these options allows you to “subscribe” yourself to the list. This means that you’ll be able to send messages to the group, and will automatically receive the messages that the other members send. If you’re not a subscriber yet, we strongly encourage you to join us. The more folks involved, the better the discussions will be. Especially useful to new list members is another set of links, containing an archive of all of the messages that have been posted to the list since its inception (way back in the AOL days). If you’ve just joined the list, this can be very useful in allowing you to review previous message topics and see what has been discussed. Also, these archives are searchable, just like the ACN area.

Journal contents. Another popular area of the web site is a set of (searchable) tables of contents from a number of journals relevant to the work we do. It’s hard to keep up with your professional reading these days, but at least you can more easily locate articles of interest!

File library. This is another area that we’re excited about, and that is starting to grow. Quite simply, it will become what we all make of it. This area contains a number of documents that your fellow IPMAAC members have made available. For instance, you can download a copy of the Personnel Specialist Job Analysis Report that was produced last year, or a copy of Keith Pyburn’s presentation at last year’s conference in New Orleans. This is where we will be adding some of this year’s conference presentations. If you’ve got something you’d like to share with the rest of us, don’t be shy about submitting it!

Notice board. This is an electronic version of an old-fashioned bulletin board, where you can post information or requests for other members to see. A form is provided for you to easily provide your own note to be posted.

Positions available. Looking for a new position, or have an opening you need filled? You can post your vacancy here at no charge. This is a new service we’re trying out, so there aren’t a lot of positions here yet. Please feel free to use this!

HR departments online. In the past year or so, there’s been an explosion of organizations putting employment information on the web. We’re maintaining a list of the best of these, so you can visit them and get some ideas for your own site (if you don’t have one yet, you probably will soon!). If we haven’t listed your site, use the form available here to provide us with the information.

Member information. As you can see from the figure above, a number of the other links contain valuable IPMAAC information, including the current strategic plan, a member email directory, and a listing of board members and committee chairs. We hope to expand the depth and breadth of available information in the future. Until recently, we also had the full Boston conference program available…you can expect to see next year’s program when it’s ready (and the conference Call for Proposals in the near future).

Other links. There’s a lot of information out there on the web that is of interest to HR professionals. It’s not, however, always easy to find. We try to maintain up-to-date links to the best professional sites out there. You’ll find links to web sites maintained by APS, SIOP, and PTC/MW, among others (and, by the time you read this, to IPMA’s new site). If you find a useful site that we haven’t listed, please let us know about it!

Tips on using the World-Wide Web

The World-Wide Web (WWW or Web) is exploding with information and services freely made available by individuals and organizations of all kinds. The Web sometimes seems confusing at first, but it’s actually quite simple.

Surfing. “Surfing the net” is a catchy clich‚, but it’s apt: its not unlike following the ocean waves, wherever they might take you. Since everything is connected to everything else on the WWW, it’s possible to “jump” from one area to another simply by clicking your mouse on the hypertext links which appear on most web pages. It is this “interconnectivity” which makes the Web unique. I might read something on a page of text with a word, perhaps personality inventory, or compensation, or National Performance Review, set off from the other text — perhaps underlined and/or in a different color — which means it’s connected to something else. You might be reading text at a web site produced and maintained at Yale University, but when you click your mouse on such a “link,” a new page appears on-screen, which may reside on a web site anywhere in the world: in Australia, at the American Compensation Society, or on one of the many U.S. government sites. To “surf” is to jump from link to link until you find what you are looking for. Some have described this as the greatest invention since the printing press. Understanding this new strategy takes a little time, but you’ll find it increasingly valuable in your work. You can surf forever, however, and never “get there.” Here are some tips…

Bookmarks. All Web browsers allow you to “save” the URLs (addresses) of pages you’d like to keep, so that you can readily return to them in the future. While different browsers use different terms and methods for this, it’s an important feature. You’ll find that you regularly use certain sources in your work, and you’llwant avoid having to re-key the sometimes lengthy URLs you want to return to. One of your most important bookmarks should be http://www.ipmaac.org/!

How Do We Find Useful Things on the Internet? A good place to start is the set of links at ipmaac.org. But the Web changes so rapidly that we can’t keep up, and we simply can’t provide links to all potentially relevant information sources. You’ve probably read about the chaos of the web, its total lack of organization, and why that’s both a strength an weakness. There are, fortunately, some additional means of finding things you need…sites called search engines, which catalog thousands of the web sites throughout the world and allow you to search these site catalogs by keyword. Two of the best are Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/) and Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.digital.com/). You’ll probably want to bookmark both, in addition to the new Search.com site (http://www.search.com/) that provides a single interface to almost all of the search engines out there. Because the web is expanding daily, most of us use search engines often to find or update sources of information we need.

Using the Web. Here are just a few examples of how you can use information available on the web to help you increase your effectiveness.

You’re going to a meeting first thing tomorrow morning, and you forgot to get directions. No problem. Go to Mapquest at http://www.mapquest.com/ or Yahoo and enter an address anywhere in the US. A map will appear on screen, showing the exact location of the address. Zoom in or out to get the exact level of detail you want. Click the print button or menu item on your browser, and you’re ready to go.

You need a Federal law, rule, regulation, guideline, etc. It all seems to be there (and what isn’t will be soon)! You’ll see several key links at ipmaac.org. You’ll be sure you’re getting the latest version, and you can download the document to your computer…although some people don’t even bother with this step –since the information is always available on the web.

You need a state or local law, rule, regulation, etc., or you need job descriptions, or salary information from other public employers. For these and many other purposes, check the “Government Links” section of the IPMAAC site he Piper link is especially useful. You’ll be amazed at how much information is now available at thousands of web sites maintained by state and local governments…and more is added every day.

Court decisions at all levels of government, publications of professional organizations…whatever it is, odds are you’ll find it on the Web.

And on, and on. . . We’ve learned an important lesson — never underestimate what you might find on the Web to help you do your job better or more efficiently. Use of the Web seems likely to become an essential tool sooner than we think. Notice that URLs are now regularly mentioned on TV, in magazines, and newspapers. And it’s getting easier and cheaper to use all the time.

Try it!