[Ibpsausa] [Bldg-sim] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

Fri Nov 18 07:00:13 PST 2011

All,

I was reading all of these emails this morning and I will admit, I've
only scanned the Job Tasks Analysis document. But I think we should all
put this in the perspective that this is a first step in Energy Modeling
becoming a profession on its own. If I understand this correctly, these
classifications are used as standard job definitions for things like the
Occupational Outlook Handbook http://www.bls.gov/oco/, and to gather
statistics on energy modeling as a profession, like how many are there
in the country, what is their typical education, salaries for different
levels of experience. 

I am an energy modeler, much more than an architect, or a mechanical
engineer. I for one am excited that energy modeler is becoming a
stand-alone profession, rather than just a offshoot of one of the allied
professions. 

There may be flaws in the definition, and the process, but this kind of
marks a coming of age of our field, and I think that is kind of
exciting. 

Chris Baker 

AIA, EIT, BEMP, LEED AP BD+C

THE WEIDT GROUP(r)

5800 Baker Road
Minnetonka, MN 55345
T 952.938.1588
F 952.938.1480
twgi.com <http://twgi.com/> 

________________________________

From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Haberl
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 8:12 AM
To: Studer, Daniel; Doug Hittle; Nick Caton
Cc: Kendra Tupper; Building Simulation; ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

Daniel,

I still don't agree with your process. Your logic is flawed and most
likely so is the document. 

You excluded those organizations that could/will benefit from your
document for no valid reason, and you have excluded known educators in
this field, experts in the field, and other national labs. 

For the most part this was developed off-line, out of public review.
Hence the results of any such process cannot be trusted and the document
must be regarded as being second rate.

Jeff

8=!  8=)  :=)  8=)  ;=)  8=)  8=(  8=)  8=()  8=)  8=|  8=)  :=')
8=)8=?

Jeff S. Haberl, Ph.D.,P.E., FASHRAE..............jhaberl at tamu.edu

Professor............................................................Off
ice Ph: 979-845-6507

Department of Architecture.............................Lab
Ph:979-845-6065

Energy Systems Laboratory.............................FAX: 979-862-2457

Texas A&M University.....................................77843-3581

College Station, Texas, USA, 77843..................URL:www.esl.tamu.edu

8=/  8=)  :=)  8=)  ;=)  8=)  8=()  8=)  :=)  8=)  8=!  8=)  8=? 8=)8=0

________________________________

From: ibpsausa-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[ibpsausa-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] on behalf of Studer, Daniel
[Daniel.Studer at nrel.gov]
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 11:42 PM
To: Studer, Daniel; Doug Hittle; Nick Caton
Cc: Building Simulation; Kendra Tupper; ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Ibpsausa] [Bldg-sim] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

Please note that this email contains responses to postings by both Mr.
Haberl and Mr. Hittle.

Mr. Haberl:

The purpose of each JTA is to capture the job as currently practiced.
Such a baseline document is essential in order to fairly and objectively
identify knowledge and training gaps that exist between where any
industry is and where it "should" be.

As such, we went to extreme efforts ensure that psychometrically valid
sets of SMEs were selected to define the documents. Besides having to
prove that they were current practitioners in the field, applicants were
screened by a psychometrician (not DOE or NREL) using criteria such as
geographic location, years of experience, and industry credentials to
ensure that the selected group was broad with respect to all of these
criteria (this is outlined in slightly more detail in the JTAs
themselves). Bias in any one of these areas (experienced folks over
novices, people from the east coast vs. the southwest, etc.) would have
favored a particular group and skewed the resulting document in favor of
that particular group's thinking. Since we were attempting to adequately
capture the job as practiced in the U.S. (not as practiced by experts in
the U.S., or by academics in the U.S., or how it should be done
according to organization X, etc.), we wanted the broadest U.S.
representation possible. This is also why there were no international
participants.

Clearly, the inclusion of any professional society or organization
directly involved in the development of such a document would also skew,
whether meaning to or not, the resulting document toward the viewpoint
of said organization. Indeed, to prevent this from happening, no outside
reference materials were allowed into the workshops. Thus, the material
presented in the JTAs comes directly from the first-hand knowledge of
the participants. The resulting JTAs were all created by practitioners
detailing what it was they did in their jobs.

I believe that the Boulder meeting you mentioned was the BEM Innovation
Summit, which was hosted by RMI in Boulder last spring. The following is
from PDF page 36 (document page 32) of the post summit report
(http://rmi.org/Content/Files/BEM_Report_FINAL.pdf):

"Additionally, the DOE is currently sponsoring a project to develop (1)
job task analyses (JTAs), which identify and catalog all of the
activities a worker performs in a given job; and (2) the knowledge,
skills, and abilities (KSAs), which define the minimum requirements
necessary to adequately perform those tasks, for six building job
categories, including "energy modeler". The project goal is to create
"national guidelines" which will define a common body of knowledge that
any training organization will be able to draw from when developing
curriculum, helping to ensure consistent core competencies among
training programs."

An action item identified in that same report (PDF page 38) reads:
"Respond to Doe's RFP to develop "national guidelines" for energy
modeling education."

Mr. Hittle,

Congratulations on your recent retirement; that is one of my near-term
goals (to be accompanied by a private island though).

I believe that you may not have seen my previous email to Nick Caton,
which I believe (again, opinion) may answer most of the questions you
pose. If not, please feel free to let me know and I will do my best to
answer them. Like I said in my last email, this thread is getting a
little fragmented.

However, I can answer one of the questions you pose here. The Federal
Register notice released by DOE (
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-10-14/pdf/2011-26645.pdf) details
the means by which they will accept public comment. While email is one
of those means, said email must be sent to a specific email address and
accompanied by a signed copy (there are other, less burdensome ways to
submit comments as well). So in response to your question, no, this
correspondence will not be officially documented as comments received on
the documents.

Thanks all for the lively discussion!

Danny

From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Studer,
Daniel
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 9:32 PM
To: Doug Hittle; Nick Caton
Cc: Roth, Amir (HQ); Kendra Tupper; Building Simulation;
ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

All,

Apologies for the confusion. I had been responding previously only to
the Bldg-sim listserv, as opposed to both the Bldg-sim and IBSPA-USA
listservs. Below is my response earlier this evening to Nick Caton's
email inquiry (again, sent only to the Bldg-sim listserv). Also, since
things seemed to be quickly fragmenting, I have attempted to paste below
all emails on this topic, so that everyone can easily reference them. I
will follow up to the two most recent emails in a separate posting so
that others may follow the conversation more easily.

Thanks,

Danny

Previous email sent to the Bldg-sim listerv only:

From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Studer,
Daniel
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 6:27 PM
To: Nick Caton; Doug Hittle; Roth, Amir (HQ)
Cc: Kendra Tupper; Building Simulation
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

Nick,

Your concerns are entirely understandable, but perhaps a little
overstated. The intention with this project was to produce documents
that could be used by the corresponding sectors to improve existing, or
if necessary, create new, training/certification materials, thus leading
to a more qualified and effective workforce. If you take a look at the
job categories we targeted, I think you will see that we focused on jobs
that have a direct impact on commercial building energy use.

The development of specific training/certification materials however, is
being left up to the training/certification providers in each industry.
Our goal was to eliminate the heavy lift for such organizations by
facilitating the identification (by industry, not by DOE or NREL) of
what tasks were required in each job category, and what knowledge,
skills, and abilities were required to perform each of those tasks. The
idea is that organizations who have existing training/certification
programs can self-compare their program to the developed JTA to
determine if they are adequately meeting industry's needs. Or, for
industries where few training/certification programs exist,
organizations could use the developed JTAs to immediately start
developing curricula (the DACUM method is often used to create curricula
at the community college level). Through these mechanisms, the idea was
to improve the quality and amount of training available to the end-user
(in this case, the modeler), with the ultimate goal being a reduction in
real energy use at the building level.

Additionally, the JTAs can be used as a standardized metric of sorts to
evaluate existing training/certification programs. We are currently
working on a tool that will allow an end-user in each of the six fields
to examine what content different training/certification programs cover,
using the JTAs as a baseline (so that folks are comparing apples to
apples, instead of apples to oranges). That way, they can make a more
informed decision about where to invest their time and money when
pursuing professional development activities.

I do know that GSA is planning to utilize the JTAs to support efforts
related to the Federal Buildings Personnel Training Act of 2010. What
other items (new licensure/certification/PDH requirements for
government/military contracted work, etc.) will come out of this work I
cannot speak to, as those decisions are likely to be out of my control
and should they arise, will likely be made within each corresponding
organization, far from my purview.

I know this is another long response, and that I did not directly
address several of your questions. However, I felt that clarifying the
project purpose would actually eliminate the need for such answers. If
you feel differently let me know and I'll try to go through and provide
more specifics.

Thanks,

Danny

From: hittle.doug at gmail.com [mailto:hittle.doug at gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Doug Hittle
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 9:00 PM
To: Nick Caton
Cc: Studer, Daniel; Roth, Amir (HQ); Building Simulation;
ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org; Kendra Tupper
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

My apologies Daniel, I suddenly realized that I am so old as to be
before your time. I was project manager on the BLAST energy analysis
program and my colleague and thesis adviser, Curt Pedersen was head of
the BLAST support office and one of the project managers of EnergyPlus.
We both have been very active in ASHRAE Technical Committee 4.7, Energy
Calculations and 4.1 Load  Calculation.  I recently retired from
Colorado State University where I taught HVAC design including energy
modeling (BLAST, EnergyPlus via DesignBuilder, TRACE, TRANSIS, etc.). I
feel fortunate that a number of our former students are now your
colleagues at NREL. 

As you no doubt know, the words "certification" and "licensure exam"
(see your clarifying email) are loaded phrases in the consulting
engineering community. While most practitioners support professional
engineering exams and licensing, requirements for additional, new
certification are not likely to be widely embraced, at least not until
they can be shown to have some economic or other value. Furthermore, it
may not be enough for cognizant organizations to be aware of your JTA
work. Groups like NCEES and ASHRAE have to be early proponents of any
certification or licensing program that might result from your project.
Otherwise Republicans and Tea Partiers will claim that you are proposing
more intrusive, job-killing government regulations (be clear, I am NOT
expressing this opinion). 

Aside from the (probably) uncontroversial goals of guiding training and
education, and helping with job descriptions, what are the project goals
and expected outcomes. Are the results to be used to create an industry
standard (like standard 90)? Are parts of the work to be incorporated
into building codes? Do you hope to create a Professional Engineering
Exam for Energy Modeling? Perhaps the answer is "all of the above." The
JTA report is vague about this, perhaps intentionally. 

Just exactly why are you and your team doing this work? Who are its
proponents? What are the hoped-for impacts? Who will be affected in the
long run? I am not trying to be critical by asking these questions but
without the answers it is hard to review the report. 

Lastly, many energy modelers have a personal mantra that is not listed
in your report: "It helps to know what you are doing!" If I were hiring
that would be the main qualification.

Regards,

Doug Hittle

PS Can we all assume that these email exchanges will be considered as
qualifying comments on the report as requested by Dr. Roth?

________________________________

From: Jeff Haberl [mailto:jhaberl at tamu.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 8:58 PM
To: Jason Kirkpatrick
Cc: Studer, Daniel; Doug Hittle; Roth, Amir (HQ); Building Simulation;
ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: RE: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

O.K.

So much for me reading my email...in fact, I did indeed get this but did
nothing.

However, even though there was an email about this, there was no
discussion about this at the June IBPSA-USA meeting, nor was there a
request for this to be put on the agenda at the June ASHRAE meeting for
TC 4.7, Standard 140, or other committees of interest. In addition,
Charles Eley has held several conference calls (some of which I've
attended), which have discussed COMNet, yet this was not mentioned on
any of the calls I attended.

In addition, such documents like this, if they are coordinated with
ASHRAE, will usually be sent to RAC then to the TCs for comment, back to
RAC and then back to DOE.

Finally, if this effort was truly important to DOE, why are there no
other participants from the other National Labs? Why is NREL the only
lab with expertise in this area? Or for that matter, why are there no
individuals from outside the US? Or even Canada?  Seems fishy. 

Somehow, I still don't get a warm, friendly feeling about this.

Jeff

8=!  8=)  :=)  8=)  ;=)  8=)  8=(  8=)  8=()  8=)  8=|  8=)  :=')
8=)8=?

Jeff S. Haberl, Ph.D.,P.E., FASHRAE..............jhaberl at tamu.edu

Professor............................................................Off
ice Ph: 979-845-6507

Department of Architecture.............................Lab
Ph:979-845-6065

Energy Systems Laboratory.............................FAX: 979-862-2457

Texas A&M University.....................................77843-3581

College Station, Texas, USA, 77843..................URL:www.esl.tamu.edu

8=/  8=)  :=)  8=)  ;=)  8=)  8=()  8=)  :=)  8=)  8=!  8=)  8=? 8=)8=0

________________________________

From: Jason Kirkpatrick [jason.alan.kirkpatrick at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 9:29 PM
To: Jeff Haberl
Cc: Studer, Daniel; Doug Hittle; Roth, Amir (HQ); Building Simulation;
ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

Jeff,

The following went out on the Bldg-sim listserve in March 2011.

Also, the IBPSA Wiki known as BEMBook is mostly empty. Maybe there's
another one that I am unaware of?

Jason Kirkpatrick

Building Performance Analyst
Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Phone: 415-352-3811
_______________________________________________

Opportunity Announcement

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is currently
sponsoring a project to develop (1) job task analyses (JTAs), which
identify and catalog all of the activities a worker performs in a
given job; and (2) the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), which
define the minimum requirements necessary for a person to adequately
perform those tasks, for the following six commercial building job
categories:

- Energy modeler
- Operating engineer/building technician
- Building energy auditor
- Energy/sustainability manager
- Commissioning/retro- 

commissioning practitioner
- Facility manager

The project goal is to create "national guidelines" which will define
a common body of knowledge that any training organization will be able
to draw from when developing curriculum, helping to bring the core
competencies imparted by training organizations to their trainees into
common alignment. This body of knowledge will also be used by the
General Services Administration and the Department of Energy to help
meet the requirements of the Federal Buildings Personnel Training Act
of 2010.

To facilitate development of the JTAs/KSAs, Professional Testing,
Inc. is seeking current industry practitioners who are interested in
helping to define, promote energy efficiency in, and support their
field of practice by participating in these JTA/KSA development
workshops. Interested individuals are invited to submit their
credentials at http://proftesting.rapidinsites.com
<http://proftesting.rapidinsites.com/> . Please note that
each JTA/KSA workshop will take place in Denver, Colorado and is
anticipated to last 3 full days (not including travel). Reimbursement
for travel costs up to a fixed amount and a travel per diem will be
awarded to individuals selected for participation. Additional project
details, including how practitioners will be selected and where to
direct project-related questions, can be found using the above link.

NREL and Professional Testing, Inc. are excited to present this unique
opportunity for individuals to have their voices heard in this
important discussion. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
The NREL Commercial Workforce Development Team
_______________________________________________

From: Jeff Haberl [mailto:jhaberl at tamu.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 8:10 PM
To: Studer, Daniel; Doug Hittle; Roth, Amir (HQ)
Cc: Building Simulation; ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: RE: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

Daniel.

I'm afraid I can't agree that you conducted "extensive outreach" to
prepare this document. For example, there was no discussion of this,
before it happened, on any of the list servers before it came out. In
addition, there was no "call for experts" that I was aware of. Normally,
for a document like this that is sponsored by DOE, one would expect a
call of some sort through the usual list servers.

In addition, I noticed from your list, that there is nobody who directly
represents IBPSA-USA, nor even ASHRAE TC 4.7, which is the responsible
ASHRAE TC for energy modeling. Although there are several individuals on
the list who attend IBPSA and ASHRAE meetings and are well-known. It
seems like little was done to notify others in IBPSA-USA or ASHRAE.

You should know that IBPSA-USA has also worked for some time on such an
effort, which now exists as a wiki, under Joe Deringer's guidance. It
also held a workshop in Boulder, and developed the BEM exam with ASHRAE.
Yet, I see no reference to this or any of the previous efforts, nor
efforts made to contact those of us who worked on this. 

Finally, there are also at least a dozen or more educators within
IBPSA-USA who teach Energy Modeling at the University level, yet not one
of these individuals is mentioned in your list of contributors, only one
academic appears on your list.

Hence, I suggest that if DOE is serious about making this a consensus
document, then it needs to do a better job contacting the relevant
organizations to obtain input and not rely on an email response after
the fact.

Clearly, this is not the case with this document.

Jeff

8=!  8=)  :=)  8=)  ;=)  8=)  8=(  8=)  8=()  8=)  8=|  8=)  :=')
8=)8=?

Jeff S. Haberl, Ph.D.,P.E., FASHRAE..............jhaberl at tamu.edu

Professor............................................................Off
ice Ph: 979-845-6507

Department of Architecture.............................Lab
Ph:979-845-6065

Energy Systems Laboratory.............................FAX: 979-862-2457

Texas A&M University.....................................77843-3581

College Station, Texas, USA, 77843..................URL:www.esl.tamu.edu

8=/  8=)  :=)  8=)  ;=)  8=)  8=()  8=)  :=)  8=)  8=!  8=)  8=? 8=)8=0

________________________________

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Nick Caton <ncaton at smithboucher.com>
wrote:

Daniel, 

Thank you so much for this clarification!  I have to sympathize with Mr.
Hittle in that, despite the apparent efforts to "spread the word," I too
feel somewhat unsure of what the real implications will be for myself
and my colleagues in the energy modeling world.

My current impression is that the results of this study will ultimately
manifest as some sort of new licensure/certification/PDH requirements
for modeling services in future LEED and/or military/government
contracted work (i.e. DoD/GSA contracts)...  does that sound right?

Maybe an illustration would be helpful... This is from the comment
document:

"JTA is traditionally used by secondary and postsecondary educators,
test developers, and business, industry, government, and military
trainers to help identify core knowledge areas, critical work functions,
and skills that are common across a representative sampling of current
practitioners."

Can you provide an example of what JTA's have accomplished for those
working in the above industries?  

For better or for worse, my concern is this study is going to add
additional layers of beauracracy to the job description... Great news
(enforced business) for those in the licensing/training industries I
suppose, but will there be a net benefit for the actual practitioners?
Are my concerns unrealistic or missing the point?

Thanks again for your time and efforts!

~Nick

NICK CATON, P.E.

SENIOR ENGINEER

Smith & Boucher Engineers

25501 west valley parkway, suite 200

olathe, ks 66061

direct 913.344.0036

fax 913.345.0617

www.smithboucher.com <http://www.smithboucher.com>  

From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:
bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Studer, Daniel
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 3:56 PM
To: Doug Hittle; Roth, Amir (HQ)

Cc: Building Simulation; ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

Mr. Hittle,

My name is Daniel Studer and I am an engineer at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory. I also happen to be the project lead for DOE's
commercial job/task analysis development work.

I can assure you that we have conducted extensive outreach to ensure
that persons who operate in the spaces targeted by these JTAs are fully
aware of the work being performed, including ASHRAE.

The energy modeler JTA itself was created over the course of three days
by eleven practicing energy modelers who were guided through the process
by a professional psychometrician. The names and associated
organizations of each of these folks are listed at the back of the JTA,
in case you are curious. DOE and NREL had zero input into the content of
this document. And to ensure that the document is truly reflective of
the industry, DOE has decided to make the documents available for public
comment. That way, individuals such as yourself can provide DOE with
constructive feedback to ensure that the document content is both
appropriate and valid.

The intent of the project, as stated on the project website, is to:

Provide a basis for developing and comparing new and existing training
programs in the commercial building sector. This will help individuals
identify opportunities to enhance their professional skills, enable
industry to identify an appropriately skilled workforce, and allow
training providers to ensure that they are providing the highest quality
product possible.

In short, we are trying to document the job as it currently exists so
that training/certification providers can ensure that they are providing
high quality products in line with industry's identified needs.
Additionally, gathering this information using the objective approach
that we have also has the side benefit of creating a sort of baseline
document that can be used to help a training/certification end user
better understand how their current skill set and existing
training/certification options fit together.

I totally agree with you that items identified such as "time management
skills" are not very measurable, and in fact seem both excessive and
irrelevant, in the context of developing a training program or
certification around this material. However, such information is very
valuable in other contexts, which is why it is included in any JTA which
utilizes the "developing a curriculum" (DACUM) method. The idea is that
all aspects of the job should be documented so that the resultant
analysis can be used for multiple purposes. For example, an individual
wishing to develop a job posting may look at the JTA and include items
such as "time management skills" or "spatial skills" in the job posting.
They could then structure interview questions to better understand that
person's abilities in those areas to make a more informed decision about
a candidate.

In other JTAs that were developed under this project, SMEs also
identified physical attributes necessary to perform the job (e.g., lift
X lbs over head, see X feet). While these may also seem silly, they
become very important when developing high risk assessments, such as
licensure exams, in these spaces.

The real meat of each document is the DACUM chart located at the back of
each. These charts identify the specific domain areas, tasks, and steps
that the SMEs identified were necessary to perform the specified job. It
is this content specifically that is of most use to
training/certification providers, which is why DOE asked for comments on
this specific chart in the Federal Register notice.

The proposed content blueprint tables (located near the front of each
document), contain the SME's proposed weights for how often, and how
important, each of the identified tasks is to the job. Such weights
provide valuable context to training/certification providers by serving
as guidelines for how much time should be devoted to each topic.

As part of this project, NREL will be facilitating a "survey validation"
which will provide industry with the opportunity to adjust these
weighting factors. However, to avoid the confusion that would occur with
two "comment periods" occurring at once, this will not happen until
DOE's public comment closes at the end of November.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions.

Thanks,

Danny

From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:
bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Doug Hittle
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 1:17 PM
To: Roth, Amir (HQ)
Cc: Building Simulation; ibpsausa at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] [Ibpsausa] DOE Job Task Analysis for Energy
Modelers: Open for public comment until Nov. 28th

I would like to be grandfathered in please. Who is scrutinizing this
document (proposed regulation?) at ASHRAE headquarters? Have you had any
input from ASHRAE?

If you were to do a jta for President of the United States it might not
be so lengthy as the one for building energy modelers. (And, a lot of
folks in the current primary would be automatically excluded). Is it
possible that we have the cart before the horse? Perhaps we need a jta
for building architects and building design engineers of which energy
modelers could be a subset.  I am sure that if DOE proposed a regulatory
test procedure for architects and engineers there would be plenty of
comment. 

I've looked at the document. What caught my attentions was the list of
"skills and abilities." These included such thing as "time management
skills," "critical thinking," and  "spatial skills."  Assuming that the
goal is to define measurable skills, we might want to give energy
modeler want-a-be s the SAT again. 

Then I saw "common sense" and "patience" as skills and abilities. Now,
not withstanding the jta, I consider myself a competent modeler of
buildings and their energy systems. We don't need to vote on that but I
also am reasonably sure that "patience" has only recently kicked in as a
personal skill (maybe I am being optimistic). How are we going to
measure the "common sense" of someone who wants to apply to be an energy
modeler?

Dr. Roth, it is not clear that very many in the building sciences field
are aware of your project, its history, and potential impact. Perhaps
you could get on the agenda at an upcoming ASHRAE meeting and explain
the process and your intent for the project outcomes.

Respectfully,
Doug Hittle

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Roth, Amir <Amir.Roth at ee.doe.gov>
wrote:

Apologies for cross-posting,

The DOE has put together a job task analysis (JTA)--job description plus
required knowledge and skills--for building energy modelers.  The draft
document, created by a group of 15 energy modeling professionals, can be
found here: 

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/commercial_initiative/pdfs/energy_
modeler_jta_comment.pdf 

DOE is accepting comments on this draft until November 28, 2011 at this
URL: http://www.nrel.gov/ap/buildings_workforce_feedback/. Very few
comments have been received so far. I urge you to review and comment on
this draft as the final document will provide the foundation for future
education, training and certification programs and will likely have to
be complied with going forward by existing programs, e.g., ASHRAE BEMP.
In addition to constructive critique, positive comments, e.g., "perfect,
don't change a thing", are also welcome.

Thanks,

-Amir

============
Amir Roth, PhD 
Building Performance Simulation Tools, US DOE/EERE 
Ph: 202.287.1694

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