Meeting is being recorded. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome and thank you for joining today's OGIS Open Annual Meeting. Before we begin, please ensure that you have opened the WebEx participant and chat panel by using the associated icon located at the bottom of your screen. Please note all audio connections are muted and this conference is being recorded. To present a comment via WebEx Audio, please click the raise hand icon on your WebEx screen. The raise hand icon is located in the lower toolbar. You will hear a beep time when you are unmuted at that time. Please state your name and question. If you are connected to today's webinar via phone audio, please dial pound two on your telephone keypad to enter the comment queue. If you require technical assistance, please send a chat to the event producer. With that, I will turn the meeting over to Alina Simo, Director, Office of Government Information Services. Alina, please go ahead. Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone. My name is Alina Simo and as the Director of the Office of Government Information Services, or OGIS, it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to our seventh annual Open Meeting. With this meeting, I mark my seventh year as OGIS Director. A little hard to believe. I hope everyone who is joining us today has been staying safe, healthy, and well. In a minute, I will go through some basic housekeeping rules and set some expectations for today's meeting. But first, some background on why we're holding this virtual meeting today. When I joined OGIS in December 2016 as Director, Congress had just passed the Boy Improvement Act of 2016, six months earlier. Among the Boy Improvement Act's mandates was that OGIS, not less frequently than annually, conduct a meeting that is open to the public on the review and reports by the office. And that OGIS shall allow interested persons to appear and present oral and written statements at the meeting. Throughout this meeting, we will be monitoring the chat function on WebEx. We are also simultaneously live streaming on the NARA YouTube channel with a slight delay. Following my short State of OGIS report, we will have a public comment period. We will open up our telephone lines during the public comment period to give attendees the opportunity to comment orally. Each caller will be limited to three minutes each. I want to note that if you're watching us on the NARA YouTube channel, you will not be able to provide oral comments during our public comment section. You can only provide oral comments via telephone if you have registered in advance via WebEx. However, you are always welcome to submit written comments or statements. We are accepting public written comments for 30 days following this meeting through Thursday, July 13. Please use our public comments form available at www.archives.gov forward slash OGIS forward slash public dash comments. We will post all comments that meet our posting policy, which is available on the website. I just noted and that we are posting in the chat that my colleague has just posted. Thank you, Kirsten. While we are happy to have all points of view shared, please respect your fellow attendees and keep conversation civil and on topic. We are recording today's session and we will post a transcript of this event on the OGIS website as soon as it becomes available. The video of the meeting will be accessible for later viewing on the NARA YouTube channel. Next slide, please. Fiscal Year 2022 presented OGIS with fewer challenges than in the prior three fiscal years. Taking you back to fiscal year 2019, which seems like a decade ago, we experienced the longest shutdown in the history of the federal government, nearly five weeks, which has no doubt contributed to increased backlogs for FOIA programs and requesters seeking OGIS assistance. Life as we know it was upended in fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down. We are pleased that neither a government shutdown nor a pandemic challenged us in fiscal year 2022, as we continue to provide high quality services in our role as the federal FOIA ombudsman, serving as a neutral and trusted voice for the FOIA process. Next slide, please. At the end of last week, we were very pleased to be able to publish our 2023 OGIS annual report for fiscal year 2022. We are holding this meeting to coincide with the publication of that report. We have included the direct link to our annual report on the slide that looks a little off, so my apologies, but you can still see the link. And the PowerPoint for today's presentation is accessible on the OGIS website, www.archives.gov. Next slide, please. Before I discuss our activities in the past fiscal year, a few words about who we are and what we do. As the federal FOIA ombudsman, OGIS serves as a resource for information and assistance about the FOIA process. Our work as the ombudsman ties directly to the mandates given to us in the FOIA. By listening to stakeholders, requesters, and agencies, and observing the FOIA process in action, we help to fulfill Congress's mandate to resolve disputes as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. By allowing our dispute resolution casework and compliance assessments to serve as a FOIA barometer and to study a range of FOIA issues, we fulfill Congress's mandate to review FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance, and identify procedures and methods for improving compliance with FOIA. And by speaking about systemic change in a variety of ways, we are fulfilling Congress's mandate to identify procedures and methods for improving compliance with FOIA. We do all of our work guided by commonly accepted ombuds standards of independence, impartiality, and confidentiality. We are independent. We are an entirely separate office from individual agency FOIA programs, and we can submit reports, recommendations, testimony, or comments about the FOIA directly to Congress without prior approval from any federal officer or agency. We are impartial. We advocate for a fair and equitable FOIA administrative process rather than for the interests of either FOIA requesters or agencies. And we are a trusted neutral third party and protect the confidentiality of our communications with both requesters and agencies. As we note in our annual report, running through all of our work is holding space for vital and sometimes difficult conversations to occur, which is a core ombudsman function. Next slide, please.  We hear from requesters and agency FOIA professionals from the least experienced to the most seasoned who seek our assistance in a variety of ways. Let me explain more about our dispute resolution program. It is important to note that we do not dictate solutions or tell agencies they have to turn over records. Our mediation services are completely voluntary and we have had both agencies and requesters declined to participate. Most often we act as a facilitator to help agencies and requesters better understand the issues and the other party's positions and interests. Both our mediation and compliance programs, which I'll discuss shortly, are guided by the principle of neutrality. We advocate for neither the requester nor the agency, but for the FOIA process to work as it should. We are a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. We try to prevent litigation, but a requester is still free to follow a lawsuit if they are not satisfied with the OJOS process. We have found that even if we cannot resolve a dispute entirely, we can help the requester and the agency narrow the issues that remain in dispute. Next slide, please. In fiscal year 2022, OJOS received more than 4,300 requests for assistance and closed more than 4,500 cases, including many cases from previous years. We meet people who come to us where they are, both in terms of the FOIA process and FOIA knowledge. The help ranges from answering questions about the FOIA process to providing requesters with additional information about the processing of their requests to facilitating difficult conversations between requesters and agencies. While the bulk of the requests for assistance come from requesters, agencies come to us seeking assistance with improving both their programs efficiency and their communications with requesters. Next slide, please. In addition to assisting thousands of requesters each year, we have started providing a new virtual training program on negotiation for government FOIA professionals. Prior to the COVID emergency, we hosted several in-person training sessions each year that were very popular and highly successful. Last year, we substituted our in-person training with a virtual training option, focusing on negotiation skills with requesters, particularly when communicating by telephone. I am pleased to report that we are seeing increased demand for this training. If your agency is interested in such training, please contact us and let us know. We're currently trying to fill up our dance card for the remainder of the year. Next slide, please. OJIS publishes a number of assessments and reports each year as part of its compliance rule. In September 2022, OJIS publish an assessment on FOIA and agency performance plans. The genesis of this assessment report was a recommendation made by the 2018, the 2020 term of the FOIA advisory committee on FOIA's inclusion in agency performance plans as opposed to individual federal employee performance plans. We reviewed the available annual performance plans and reports for all 15 cabinet level departments and the independent agencies that receive more than 50 FOIA requests in fiscal year 2020. OJIS assessed whether agencies annual performance plans and performance reports mentioned FOIA and, if so, included FOIA performance goals, measures, and results. And we made two findings. The first, one quarter of departments and agencies reviewed included FOIA and their agency performance plans. Second, FOIA performance goals and measures varied widely across agencies that included FOIA and their annual performance plans. We also made two recommendations regarding the inclusion of FOIA and agency performance plans. The first recommendation that all federal agencies that receive more than 50 FOIA requests annually should include FOIA and their annual performance plans. We recognize that agencies sometimes view their mission as in conflict with the openness requirements of the FOIA. We suggest shifting that thinking to view agency missions and FOIA as partners for a better performing agency that is trusted by the public at service. Another recommendation, agencies should include specific FOIA goals along with metrics and their annual performance plans for accountability and to leverage FOIA toward furthering an agency's mission. This past fiscal year, we also published a second assessment report and continued our successful partnership with our NARA colleagues in the office of the chief records officer for the US government, growth on the records management self assessment, our MSA, an annual survey to determine whether federal agencies are complying with statutory and regulatory records management requirements. The RMSA survey with a tremendous 96% response rate and administered to agency records officers from January to March of 2022 included three questions regarding the challenges of administering FOIA during the pandemic, and one question about the collaboration between agency chief FOIA officers and agency records officers. Here are some key results from that survey. Roughly half of all respondents, 51%, reported that the COVID-19 pandemic did not disrupt their agency's ability to respond to FOIA requests. However, 45% of agencies did report a disruption to their ability to respond to FOIA requests. 78% of respondents to FOIA programs were disrupted, reported their agency's paper records were inaccessible due to office closures, while 51% reported that agency staff were not available to search for records. 73% of respondents reported that their agencies worked directly with requesters to tailor their request for most efficient processing during the COVID-19 pandemic. 55% of respondents said that they included information about anticipated delays in requester communications, including acknowledgement letters. 54% assessed their technology to ensure the most efficient administration of the FOIA, and 51% reported that their agencies posted notices on their FOIA websites informing requesters of the most efficient ways to make requests. Over half of the respondents, 56%, reported that the agency records officer and the chief FOIA officer worked together on information technology requirements that benefited both programs, an increase of 5% from the previous year. 50% of respondents reported that they worked together to identify programs or offices most likely to have responsive records, a 6% increase over the previous year. Our partnership with the Crow's Office on the RMSA continues, and we look forward to publishing another assessment later this fiscal year. Next slide please. One of several hats that I wear is co-chairing the Chief FOIA Officers Council, along with Bobby Toledian, the Director of the Office of Information Policy at the Department of Justice, and whose creation was mandated by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. We have created two very active committees, the Technology Committee and the Committee on Cross Agency Collaboration and Innovation, Co-CACI. Both committees are made up of dedicated FOIA professionals from a number of federal agencies across the federal government. We encourage any FOIA professionals watching us today to volunteer their time on either or both committees. Please send an email to cfo-council at nara.gov if you are interested in joining us. Our Chief FOIA Officers Council meetings are recorded and available on the National Archives YouTube channel, www.youtube.com forward slash US National Archives. All CFO Council materials are now being posted on FOIA.gov, and we are grateful to OIP for spearheading that effort to cut down on duplicate posting of material on both the OGIS and OIP websites. Among our activities in fiscal year 2022 was the next gen FOIA Tech showcase, which was a collaborative effort of the CFO Council's Technology Committee, OGIS and OIP. The purpose of this event, the first of its kind, was to identify FOIA technology solutions for federal agencies in response to existing FOIA case processing challenges raised through the Technology Committee's research. Additionally, the event was intended to help federal agencies better understand the promise of artificial intelligence and advanced emerging technology for case processing. Fenders shared issues, insights, and explored potential solutions in several areas, including e-discovery electronic record search tools, case processing tools including the collection of records to review for redaction and posting accessible 508 compliant releases, redaction tools, including tools that allow for automatic redaction of similar forms and record types including paper, digital content, videos, data, and others. Artificial intelligence, AI tools that may assist with FOIA case processing, the future of improved public FOIA reading rooms and websites, and improving the FOIA customer experience. Slide 10. Next slide please. Another hat that I wear is chair of the FOIA advisory committee. The fourth term of the committee had an unprecedented four subcommittees, a lot of work for all of us, which delivered 20 recommendations for improving FOIA administration government-wide to the then acting archivist of the United States, now deputy archivist of the United States, Deborah Stidell-Wall, and one recommendation to the then archivist David Ferriero. The fourth term and its four subcommittees, classification, legislation, process, and technology, ended in 2022 with 21 recommendations, 20 in fiscal year 2022 and one in fiscal year 2021. The recommendations for improving the FOIA process spanned a range of topics including neither confirmed or denied, GLOMAR responses, classified information, online access enhancements, FOIA and accessibility, alternatives to FOIA access, and reimagining OGIS. For retiring, Mr. Ferriero signed the charter for a fifth term of the FOIA advisory committee, and Ms. Wall appointed its members in August 2022. Current committee term, which kicked off in September of 2022, saw members forming only three subcommittees, which were grateful for, that are looking into the implementation of past committee recommendations, ways to modernize FOIA administration, and how to increase resources for FOIA programs. Next slide please. A couple of years ago, OGIS created a terrific recommendations dashboard in order to keep track of the great work the committee has done since its inception in 2014. I have included the link on the slide as well as an image of the radio button you can find on our front webpage, www.archives.gov forward slash OGIS on the lower right hand side. We continue to update the dashboard periodically as we make progress on the recommendations. Next slide please. The FOIA statute authorizes OGIS to submit legislative and regulatory recommendations, if any, to improve the administration of FOIA. In our 2022 annual report, we made two recommendations stemming from FOIA advisory committee recommendations regarding increased oversight of FOIA by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, which the FOIA statute specifically contemplates. GAO, often called the Congressional Watchdog, is a legislative branch agency that provides auditing, evaluating, and investigating services. 2018 to 2020 term of the FOIA advisory committee recommended that the archivist task OGIS with asking Congress to engage in regular and robust oversight of FOIA, hold more hearings, establish regular and coordinated communication with agencies, and strengthen OGIS with clear authority and expanded resources. That was recommendation number 2020-19. And also address funding for agency FOIA programs and ensure that agencies have sufficient resources to comply with FOIA. That was recommendation number 2020-20. With regard to recommendation number 2020-19, OGIS recommended that Congress should consider asking GAO to pinpoint either systemic or specific compliance issues that Congress could then address in a more targeted surgical fashion, either through hearings or additional inquiries. As the 2018 to 2020 term of the FOIA advisory committee explained in its final report, in the absence of oversight from Congress, FOIA otherwise lacks a sustaining enforcement mechanism. It is incumbent upon Congress to ensure that the country has a robust, well-funded, and carefully considered overall FOIA program to deliver the transparency and accountability that the American people deserve and expect. The committee's final report provides specific recommendations for ways that oversight could be achieved. OGIS supports regular and coordinated communication between Congress and federal agencies. We are pleased that in direct response to a request from the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, GAO initiated an engagement on agency FOIA request backlogs in March of this year. We look forward to GAO's findings and recommendations that we believe will help address the FOIA advisory committee's recommendation as well as one of FOIA's biggest challenges. While GAO's engagement on FOIA backlogs is not directly focused on funding for agency FOIA programs, we expect and hope that agencies will bring funding issues to GAO's attention, which ties directly to FOIA advisory committee recommendation number 2020-20. In response to that recommendation, OGIS renewed its recommendation that Congress should consider asking GAO to conduct a study of the funding for agency FOIA programs to determine whether agencies have adequate funding to comply with FOIA and respond to requests in a timely manner, and what additional resources agencies in fact need in order to improve the FOIA process overall. OGIS has gained a significant amount of experience in assessing agency FOIA programs and stands ready and available to assist GAO with these efforts. As we noted in our 2022 annual report, we fully support any efforts in Congress to increase funding for agency FOIA programs that demonstrate the need and can document how they will use increased funding to improve the FOIA process, including decreasing backlogs and increasing efficiency and effectiveness. We have also noted that the 2018-2020 term of the FOIA advisory committee recommended that agencies conduct a comprehensive review of their technological and staffing capabilities within two years to identify the resources needed to respond to current and anticipated future FOIA demands. That was recommendation number 2020-13. Such a review, we believe, would put agency FOIA programs on a firm footing for asking their agency leadership and Congress for more resources in a more targeted fashion. Next slide, please. So, what is ahead for OGIS? We will continue to provide high quality on-bud services. We will continue to hold space for vital conversations regarding improving the FOIA process, the public events, receiving comments from and interacting with our many stakeholders. And as the pandemic recedes into memory, we look forward to reviving our program of assessing individual agency FOIA programs. We will continue to offer virtual training to help agency FOIA professionals improve their communications with requesters. And we will continue our collaboration with OIP and the Chief FOIA Officers Council and continue to lead the FOIA advisory committee to the successful conclusion of its fifth term in June of 2024. Next slide, please. I would be remiss if I did not take a minute to recognize the extraordinary OGIS staff. I am extremely grateful to my terrific OGIS team whose work facilitating greater access and transparency to federal records and assisting anyone with the FOIA process has continued to further two of NARA's strategic goals, making access happen and connecting with customers. Their work behind the scenes makes me look great in front of the camera and I am grateful for all the support that they provide. Thank you again to my great OGIS staff. Next slide, please. We have now reached the public comments part of our annual meeting. Congress has instructed us that in conducting our meeting that is open to the public on the review and reports by our office, we should allow interested persons to appear and present oral or written statements at the meeting. We will open our telephone lines momentarily to give attendees the opportunity to present oral statements. As I noted at the top of our meeting, if you are watching us via the NARA YouTube channel, you will not be able to provide oral comments during our public section. As I noted earlier, each individual caller will be limited to three minutes each. And a quick reminder with regard to oral comments, please be aware that this is not the right time or venue to ask questions about a specific FOIA request or a specific issue you are experiencing that is unique to you. While we're happy to have all points of view shared, please respect your fellow attendees and keep the conversation civil and on topic. We will now open up our telephone lines and Michelle, our event producer, please provide instructions again to our listeners for how to provide oral comments via telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, as we enter the public comment session, please limit your comments to three minutes. Once your three minutes expires, we will mute your line and move on to the next commenter. Each individual will be limited to three minutes each. Thank you, Michelle. Do we have any callers waiting to speak on the telephone? Yes, we do have one person in queue. Mr. Hammond, go ahead. Your line is unmuted. Microphone, we can't hear you. You might want to adjust your mic. Still unable to hear you, Mr. Hammond? I don't know if you can adjust your mic at your end. We're unable to hear you. Unable to get Mr. Hammond's line together. So, Mr. Hammond, I would recommend that you dial in perhaps to be unable to hear you. Okay. Thank you, Michelle. Do we have any other callers online? I do not see any other callers at this time. Thank you. If Mr. Hammond is able to call back in, we would be happy to hear from him. I'm now going to ask my oldest colleague, Dan Levinson, who has been monitoring our chat if we ever received any comments during the course of our meeting. Yeah. Hi, yeah. Mr. Hammond has made several statements of factual matters about the administration of FOIA. We would just like to say that with regard to the FOIA annual reports, the Office of Information Policy, OIP, takes the lead on the reports. Any discrepancies may be reported to OIP, and OGIS greatly appreciates OIP's work on these statutorily mandated reports that shed light on each agency's administration of FOIA and that give FOIA managers data to help them manage their programs. So, those are the comments. Thank you, Dan. There's nothing else. I wasn't monitoring the chat when I was speaking. So, to you. No, those were the only comments. Okay. On chat, I see Mr. Hammond has his hand raised and he has also dialed in. Michelle, should we try him again? Yes, let's try Mr. Hammond again and see if he can get his line open. All right. Mr. Hammond, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? All right. Perfect. Yes. Your audio is good.  You may go ahead, sir. Okay. This is Bob Hammond. I'm normally polite. Today requires candor or nothing will ever change. I have several key points, which must be reflected in the meeting minutes. First, I was unable to make my oral comments at the June 8th, 2023 FOIA advisory committee due to technical difficulties on the government's end. I will be posting those comments. Second, regarding the MITRE prepared FOIA reference model, MITRE does an excellent nonprofit organization that can help you with FOIA. And your agency may already have contact with them. The NISRA reference model is a good start, but a lack of request for input. Some important things are missing. Some are not quite right. Some are contrary to our policy. He can get his line open. Mr. Hammond, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? All right. Perfect. Yes. Your audio is good.  You may go ahead, sir. Okay. This is Bob Hammond. I'm normally polite. Today requires candor or nothing will ever change. I have several key points that must be reflected in the meeting minutes. First, I was unable to make my oral comments at the June 8th, 2023 FOIA advisory committee due to technical difficulties on the government's end. I will be posting those comments. Second, regarding the MITRE prepared FOIA reference model, MITRE does an excellent nonprofit organization that can help you with FOIA. And your agency may already have contact with them. The NISRA reference model is a good start, but a lack of request for input. Continuing my oral public comments. My two questions from Avi Tlaibian at the end. Will VOJ-OAP and MITRE mark V1.0 as a draft and staff it for public comments now? Avi Tlaibian, will you state today in this open meeting, there's no circumstance whatsoever where multiple requests may be merged or combined into one. Please confirm that doing so is a violation of law. Third, as the OGIS is FY2022 on budget report, my comments are the same as last year's report. I have been advocating for transparency and material emissions. OGIS is failing miserably and statutory FOIA compliance oversight and mediation missions. The crux of which is massive near of underfunding, 10 to 20-fold. While I have been advocating for four Congress for two years, perhaps way through my time, Ms. Simo was silent about inadequate funding in her ombuds report to the president and Congress and in her testimony for Congress last year. All the while asking the FOIA advisory committee to find her more money. In theory, Ms. Simo's ombuds reports and her testimony to Congress are not reviewed or edited or approved by anyone. I don't believe it. From my expedited 2021 FOIA request, Ms. Simo's 2021 SES based salary was $190,300. Therefore, in 2021 performance cycle, Ms. Simo would receive mandatory SES bonus between $9,965 and $39,800. And they refuse to release Ms. Simo's bonuses, which OPM requires to be released. Perhaps Ms. Simo favored increase in bonus over straight talk to Congress and the price about mission failure due to inadequate funding. You never get money to demand. Thank you so much for your comments. Instead of reality of abject failure, you will not get increased funding. It is physically impossible for OGIS to have engaged in 4,500 alternative dispute revolutions with free mediators. And I suspect OGIS has not conducted any performance. Mr. Hammond, thank you very much for your comments. Your time has expired. Thank you. All right. I do not see any other hands raised at this time. Okay. Michelle, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Can I just ask you to come on camera again? I just want to confirm that we have received a number of public comments that we have already posted online. Is that correct? We have received a number of comments and I believe we posted them. If there are any that are not posted, they will be posted soon. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate that combination. Okay. Michelle, no other callers on the line. Nope. I do not see any other hands raised at this time. Okay. I appreciate that. Next slide, please. So, just a reminder, we are going to continue to accept public comments, written comments through Thursday, July 13. Screenshot of our public comments form on our website and the link to the public comments. May I add one thing? They will be posted as long as they meet our public comment policy. Yes. Thank you. Next slide, please. Okay. I just want to thank everyone for joining us today for our annual open meeting. As I mentioned earlier, our annual report is posted. I invite everyone to take a look and thank you to all of you. Thank you to all of you who have joined us and I hope everyone and their families remain safe, healthy and resilient. And we will see you again in this forum on September 7, 2023 for our next FOIA advisory committee meeting. Thanks very much. Have a great day.


What's up guys and welcome to trendy updates up our SPM buzz. Now onto the trending news today is a Kabarak University graduate who has fearlessly confronted Governor Bee, Senator Mandago and Deputy Governor Barrow Rot. Now this was during a meeting that they had called the parents and the students to address the issues of the county. Now this lady raised an concern that they had paid the money for scholarship abroad after college but unfortunately they did not get to go nowhere and also unfortunately the money was never returned to their parents. And unfortunately this lady says that the officials might have shown up late despite putting the meeting time at 9 am and she went ahead to ask them what time did they come. Now this conversation has or rather this video from this lady who is a Kabarak University graduate has raised reactions online. The lady of course also noted that most of them the students that were intended to go for those scholarships or rather get the scholarships are surviving on antidepressants. Alieza Kuliza the officials come on and you are any type of antidepressants which they said no. Now the lady said that they do not give them permission to pay for other students using their money. They need that is the officials need to do what the people elected them to do for them. Now of course some of the reactions is the president of Comediary Komondia said that I am urgently looking for this girl. Anyone with her contacts please DM our time is now no one will save us if we don't save ourselves we have a plan. Iwasingishu Senator Jackson Mandabo claims he is not the one responsible for the placement he had promised is consistent in the foreign countries. He continued to say that max global officials agent are the official agents of Tambera University and all programs come through agents. Akaizakwambia watu wa toto ota mbao meza kuna amenda inji anchi they have followed through the agent and also he noted that this particular program was introduced to him or rather to the county of Wasingishu by the governor of county Elgayo Marakwet at the time. Now let us know down on the comments section what are your thoughts about these Kabara University graduate students are fearlessly fearlessly raising her concerns and also what are your thoughts about the officials being blamed for not paying the children money that they should be refunded and also what are your thoughts on the officials being accused of not refunding the money to the parents and to the children for not getting them a scholarship but in the meantime keep it trendy updates hapa SPM buzz


In total revenue systems, IRS tax news, IRS five-year strategic plan now available in Spanish. Super exciting news. I've just got two letters for that. B to the freaking N, baby. BN. How you being? I'm movie being. Like hippies are always like just being, man. But why settle for like just being, man, when you could movie being? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Just kidding. My very limited Spanish skills are deteriorating rapidly, I must say. I tried to learn Spanish by watching Star Wars in Spanish. Luke, yo soy tu padre. No! Busca tu sentamiento. ¡Sofes que es verdad! No puede ser! But then like Disney went totally woke and I had to cancel my subscription. Which ended my Spanish training. Which is annoying because Disney does have the best subtitles and language options I've ever found. And I'm willing to put up with a lot for quality like that. But they just went too far. So whatever. Maybe I can learn Spanish by reading the IRS news now or something. But that doesn't sound fun. Nobody cares, just read the news. Okay, okay. I'm gonna read the news now. Here we go. But first a joke. A transgender dude named Dory decided not to change her name. But instead just listed her pronouns as hunky.  That's good. I haven't laughed that hard since I was a little girl. Thank you. And insisted for the sake of reducing gender confusion, mind you.  Oh, you're not joking.  But like, if you're just referring to him her, like with a pronoun. You have to use hunky, but can leave off the Dory part. Otherwise, you know, what would be the point of the pronoun, right? Mr. Robato is lying to us. Tell me something I don't know. Open mouth, kiss the horse once. Say what? Something you don't know. Like for example, I met hunky Dory the other day and hunky was happy. Did you hear I finally graduated? Yeah, and just a shade under a decade too, all right. Now, the plural form of hunky, in case you were wondering, is hunkies. A lot of people go to college for seven years. I know. They're called doctors. Not hunkies, mind you, but hunkies. It's totally different. Oh, that has to be you. Thing for bugs. But what if everyone in the group is not hunky? For the ultimate course. You. Me. Why? Like hunky Dory. Like, can you still call the full group hunkies? Try that. Y42 doesn't work. Answer, yes. As long as hunky Dory is in the group, the entire group should be referred to as hunkies, even if there's like ugly, unhunky people in the group. Oh, well, partly the curiosity, partly a sense of adventure. That's how it works. And everyone has to do it that way. To reduce confusion. Mostly, I think it's for the fame and the money. Everyone thinks you're deep. Win, win. IR 2022-198, November 10, 2022, Washington. The Internal Revenue Service announced today that for the first time ever, the agency's strategic plan for fiscal year 2022 to 2026, there's a link to that is now available in Spanish. There's a link to that. This announcement aligns with the IRS continued effort to expand tax resources in more languages to provide taxpayers with the service they desire. As part of the agency's new five-year strategic plan, the IRS has committed to increase the availability of services and tax products that are easy to use and support the needs of all communities. Recent multilingual efforts include the addition of a translation of instructions for Form 8821, tax information authorization. There's a link to that here in traditional Chinese, as well as an expansion of its multilingual products, Braille, text, audio, and large print products available in Spanish. The strategic plan will serve as a roadmap to help guide the agency's program and operations. Developed with input from external partners as well as IRS employees, the plan focuses on four goals that will help improve customer service. Service, provide quality and accessible services to enhance the taxpayer experience. Enforcement, enforce the tax law fairly and efficiently to increase voluntary compliance and narrow the tax gap. People, foster an inclusive, diverse, and well-equipped workforce and strengthen relationships with our external partners. Transformation, transform IRS operations to become more resilient, agile, and responsive to improve the taxpayer experience and narrow the tax gap. The IRS also has a languages webpage. There's a link to that here available in 20 languages to help taxpayers find basic tax information. Some of the multilingual resources include the taxpayer bill of rights. There's a link to that here, e-file, link to that here, resources, and many tax forms, instructions, and publications. There's links to that here, and there's links to all the stuff I said there was links to, and there'll be a link to this in the description.


Jackie's contribution is immeasurable. She's pulled together the team of staff, she's provided really high quality training. She's really considered the youngster's needs and developed a programme that's really dignified and she's engaged really well with parents so that they can make a positive contribution and tackle some really difficult issues such as e-safety. I can think of nobody more deserving of this award. Jackie's desire and passion for young people who have got disadvantages is tireless and she's not someone who wants the limelight claswn, a hynny'n ei bwysig i'r cyfrifio'r gwyffredig i'w gael y wleddwyd. Rydw i dd gyfaint o'n meddwl gyfarwch hynny sy'n gweithio g隻 wych yn dgael. Gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio i'w meddwl, ond rydym yn gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Fy yw bod y dweud o thysgu arni yn ei gweithio, maen nhw eulodau o'r holl i gweithio, ond rwy'n cyfrifio eisai hyn, I've nominated Jackie because she stands out as an exceptional teaching assistant. She is really deserving of this award. She works incredibly hard and there's just not one area that she doesn't impact positively on with us within the school.


Welcome everyone. Today we look at how COVID-19 affected the access to maternal health information in rural and urban communities in Ghana. With the help of our two guests, Sahar Kamis and Delay Takwada, both from the University of Maryland, we will be talking about the role of technology in determining the quality and quantity of information that expected mothers had access during the pandemic. We also dive into the motivations, the challenges of maternal health information access during this time. So let's jump in and let's talk about media and communication. Sahar and Delay, thank you so much for joining the conversation. Thank you so much. We appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. I would start, perhaps, Sahar with you by asking you, because your article focuses on access to maternal health information in Ghana. So why did you find this topic worthy of conducting research on? And why Ghana? Well, thanks so much again for having us on this podcast. It's a pleasure to talk about our co-authored article. I'm an associate professor of communication at University of Maryland. Delay is my brilliant and excellent PhD advisor, and she is actually from Ghana. So the selection of the topic was based on her own country of origin. The interest in the topic, however, is mutual between both of us, since I'm also a scholar of media and also gender and women's studies with a special focus on women's issues in the global south. So we feel this is a very important blind spot in the body of literature that deals with health in general. There is a little literature that deals with maternal health, and especially when it comes to maternal health among women from the global south. Therefore, we really felt it's very important to fill this very important gap in the existing body of literature in health communication in gender studies and women's studies by focusing on both an understudied topic, which is basically maternal health communication and an understudied population, in this case women in the global south, specifically in Ghana, which is the country of origin of my co-author as I previously mentioned. We felt this is very important also to pay attention to a topic that has been neglected even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the midst of research and scholarship that tackles the COVID-19 pandemic, because a lot of these studies talked about things like, you know, vaccination and resistance to vaccines or social distancing and masking. But we did not really see a lot of attention paid to the idea of how women are being impacted in terms of their own motherhood, their own maternal health, maternal health communication, maternal health experiences. This has been also a blind spot and an understudied topic in the body of literature also that dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. So for all of these reasons, we felt it's very important to pay attention to this understudied topic and to also give voice to the voiceless. Both of us are feminist scholars, both of us have an interest in gender and women's issues. And it's very important using qualitative methodology in this particular research to give voice to the voiceless. In other words, to listen to the voices and the experiences and perspectives of these women in their own words. And that's another value of this important study. Absolutely. Delight. Let's follow up on this giving voice to the voiceless and jump into the main findings of your article. Can you tell us more about that? Yes, Rodrigo. So one of the things that we set out to study as Dr. Kamis mentioned is the information sources that these women had during COVID. And we found out that when their reliance on their maternal health experts, their midwives, the healthcare providers was threatened by COVID-19 restrictions, they were able to use other sources to fill in the gap in their knowledge. So we found that they relied mostly on sources like their friends, their family members who have had the experience of pregnancy and childbirth, and also used other sources such as the internet. So the internet's use was heavy, particularly among the urban mothers who already had access to the resources to assess the internet. So we also found that although their relationship or their access to their providers was threatened, they still had the opportunity to speak to their providers when they wanted. So some of the women were given personal phone numbers of their midwives that they could call at any time to have a conversation with them in relation to what they were experiencing during pregnancy. And this was highly pronounced for women who lived in rural areas. So they kind of had this relationship with their healthcare providers that they were able to have access. And this was enabled by the mobile devices that they had and they could connect with their healthcare providers. So some of the other sources that they relied on were books and mainstream media. And although some of these women did not find much information in mainstream media, there were snippets of maternal health information here and there, but it wasn't enough. So all in all, the sources that they used were the healthcare providers, the internet, interpersonal networks, and the media. Very, very interesting. You've been there's been a focus here on the conversation. Sahar, I would like to follow up on this to look at the impact of the research in real case scenarios because it seems that it points out the importance and the light has said that as well. The importance of access to technology and investing in health literacy to expectant mothers. Can you elaborate on this Sahar, on the impact on social policies? Yeah, that's a very important point because as a scholar also of health communication I paid special attention to this particular aspect of public awareness campaigns and public health in general. And as the light mentioned with one of our main findings was women needed more information through different channels, one of which was quote unquote mainstream media. However, there was a shortage in terms of supplying this kind of information through, for example, community radio or local television. That's a very important thing to be paid attention to in future research and other scholars want to also study this topic as well as government actually designing the kind of public awareness campaigns and public health literacy campaigns that these women need the most and providing this kind of important and valuable information through mainstream media such as radio and television and also designing it in a way that's most relevant and applicable and meaningful to this particular segment of the population. Because my previous research for example in rural Egypt showed that some of these governmental public awareness campaigns are completely out of touch with the targeted audience or targeted population. We do not really address women's needs or their own wants and demands, and therefore we don't really resonate with this particular segment of the population and are not effective. We are also doing audience research and making sure to tailor these messages and these public awareness campaigns to women using mainstream media is very important in addition to the importance also of positive peer group pressure. In our study we also notice the importance of interpersonal communication. That's a very important area as well that seems to be a blind spot sometimes in this type of research women sometimes rely on other women and on their own interpersonal networks to get information about maternal health. So this importance of interpersonal communication and face to face interaction also needs to be paid attention to and finally the light mentioned mobile devices that's also very important infrastructure and making sure women have access to these types of mobile devices is also very important because some of them relies on these devices to get access to the internet and to be able to do for example a Google search of the most important maternal health information. Perfect. We have touched upon the so what of your research very well explored. Let's look ahead now let's look at the future starting I would like to listen to both of you starting with the light. So for the researchers and planners that are listening to us. What should they focus next so tell us more about what happens from now on. Thank you Rodrigo so we have conducted the initial research into understanding the information access to mothers in rural and urban areas in Ghana. Moving forward, we were thinking that researchers should begin looking at how the information that these mothers assess from the various sources that we have found in our study impacts their behavior. When it comes to their maternal behavior, how does the information that they get influences how they relate or how they take care of themselves during pregnancy, how they take care of their child and how they interact with the healthcare systems during pregnancy. And also, we, we are thinking that researchers should also focus on the credibility of information that this massive mothers have access to on the internet. So one of the main findings of our study is that women who use multiple sources of information for their, during their pregnancy are able or a better positioned to understand their bodies their pregnancies and are very, very up to date when it comes to their healthcare with the healthcare system. And then so we are thinking that researchers should move forward to understand the credibility of information that these women have access to particularly on the internet, because there's a pool of information, tons of information on the internet. And a quick Google search can bring you millions of information, millions of data. So you are, we are thinking that researchers should start focusing on how the information that the women are retrieving are authentic, are credible and are not harming the women who are accessing this information because we, we want these women to have optimal pregnancy experiences other than negative effects out of these information that they access, access from the various sources. Right. Of course. Sahar, let's follow up on this. I would also like to listen to you on this. Let us know a little bit more about the research limitations because I think it's important to touch upon this as well. Before talking about the limitations, let me follow up on something very important that the life was talking about, which is basically the credibility of the information. Now we're living in an age where we have unfortunately sometimes an overflow of misinformation and disinformation. So I think future research also needs to look at this very important point. How can we verify the authenticity and the accuracy of this type of information is actually accurate factual it's not made up it's not you know this information and misinformation I believe that's a very important thing for researchers to look at and explore moving forward. In terms of the limitations of our study of course it's a qualitative research studies we had a small research sample like most qualitative research and that means we have limitations in terms of representativeness and generalizability. We cannot claim that this study is representative or generalizable to all urban and rural women in Ghana, let alone in Africa or in the global south more broadly. I believe that we need more studies and more research like I said at the beginning to fill this important gap in the existing body of literature, maybe explore this very important topic in different contexts in different settings in different countries, especially with paying attention to women in the global south, because we are the understudied minority in this particular type of research, we should give attention to this particular marginalized community, maybe use also a mixed methods approach, which complements or supplements both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in order to give a more holistic and more comprehensive overview of this very important and timely topic by trying to give for example some kind of overview using some kind of quantitative survey and at the same time augment it and complement it using, for example, focus group discussions and in depth interviews, using a qualitative research methodology in our study we use in depth interviews and also use focus group discussions as one way to explore this particular topic in other research moving forward. And I want to add one last limitation which is basically that sometime has really, you know, has lapsed between the time these women experienced their own pregnancy during the pandemic and the time we actually asked them to recall these particular experiences and that some of them maybe had a difficult time recalling or remembering all the small, you know, nitty gritty my new details of their own pregnancy and their own maternal experience. That is another limitation in the study so maybe in the future. I don't want to say God forbid another pandemic, but whenever there is a health crisis it's best to actually do the study during the crisis itself as it's actually unfolding at the moment, rather than later in order to avoid the problem of women's ability or the participants ability to recall or to remember the accuracy and the details of the information. Absolutely the highlights for future research focused on, as you said, perhaps different methods, the timings of research which you just mentioned and of course, credibility of information which is what touches upon several other areas. So some highlights for future research delight. If our listeners wish to further explore this topic. What materials would you recommend the consult. Right, so we've put together some resources that artists of listeners could have access to and we did this specifically for people living in Ghana because this is specifically tailored to the cultural the social cultural environment that they're in their pool of resources when it comes to maternal health you can get some coming from the West and all that. But we decided to look for the ones that are within the community that participants to listeners might have interest in so we. There's this app called the talkative app, the talkative mom app, and it's the first parenting app by a Ghanaian woman, and she's had her experiences and everything, everything is built around Ghanaian women. And also we have drama baby, which is a Facebook page and a YouTube page that matters share their experiences we are hopeful that when women listen to this they are able to glean from the experiences of other women as well. So this is the mediums of pregnancy and childbirth, and we also have as the gynaecologist. This is a Facebook page that I believe that the administrators are Nigerians, but this is huge it has over a million participants in the group and there's a lot of pregnancy and childbirth information, and we believe that this, this sources are very credible as these administrators and managers of the pages have had fast experiences when it comes to mothering parenting pregnancy, and all that yes. We have also put together some academic resources for our listeners, if you want to read more on this topic there's some scholarly articles that we have put together, and I cannot mention all of them but these would be in the link that will be attached. Precisely to follow up on what the light has just provided us. If you are watching us on the let's talk about meeting communication websites, the recommended materials will be a little bit below from the page so you can have access to all these resources that both Sahar and the light have provided you. Sahar, let's close this episode with a punchline. If you could shorten this conversation we just had in a couple of sentences, what would it be. I would say the divide is real, and I want to talk about three different divides here. The first divide is the divide between the global north and the global south that is a very real and very much impactful divide that we have to be aware of when we talk about issues like health communication and maternal health communication. The third divide is the digital divide as much as we would like to hail the role of the internet and digital communication and digital media and say yes it's awesome that we have the internet. We have to remember that not every part of the world has 24 seven internet access a high speed internet on a 24 seven basis, not every person on this planet also has digital literacy skills so we have to also remember the impact of the digital divide and the third divide is the gender digital divide that all of these issues are multiplied many times over when it comes to women because a lot of women unfortunately are deprived from access to sources of information, including maternal health information because they don't have access to high speed internet and or digital literacy skills. So I want our listeners and viewers to remember the impact of the three very important divides and to also bear in mind that the COVID-19 pandemic had an amplifying and escalating impact when it came to all of these divides to increasing these gaps and increasing these divides even more. Amazing episode. Sahar Delight, it was a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. For our listeners, if you are watching us on YouTube, you can find all the resources and the materials at this conversation on the let's talk about website. You can also listen to this episode, whatever you get your podcast. Thank you very much.