Experience shows that in Challenge 4, particularly, because it's so advanced and people do not always appreciate that they can still benefit from consuming the lesson or the module content. The narrative, the information there, before they start doing anything, but it really is important.

Okay, we’ve seen that in Challenge 3, as well they have been some excellent submissions. There have been some submissions that could have been better if the Challenge 3 instructions had been more closely appreciated. There are always time limitations. There are your inspiration levels. Nobody takes any graduates. But it is what it is; it's your aspiration level. If your aspiration level is high, you want to work carefully through the challenge description. Consume all the information. Ask me any questions before you already get started.

Challenge 4 has a deliverable structure. It's very much like project oriented. If you are running or involved in projects, you will know the Gantt Chart and project plan, risk management plan and deliverables. This is what you will see as the deliverable in Challenge 4. There are also internal deliverables. For example, there are two to three paper pages. That is an internal deliverable because it means that you write it for your team. You don't share it with me unless there are any difficulties or issues, which I believe won't be. But this is an internal deliverable that you - each of us - write for your team to then help you achieve integrated work with. So that provides the problem space descriptions for your scenario work. That's not something because I got some questions, you're not supposed to submit that for me. That's an internal deliverable for your team.

The work plans, the two work plans, are external deliverables. You need to compose them as a team and then submit to me like everything else. But it's a team submission and all of your team will get the same grade. Unless there is discrepancy in what people were willing and able to contribute. I assign team leaders, as you are aware, probably, on the class roster. If there are any issues, I would expect the team leader to point them out, to contact me and to point out who did what, who wasn't able to do what. Then, we can work it out. Or if a team member has any concerns and that can't be addressed within the team, it's a good idea to contact me. Because now Challenge 4 is really where you need to work together as team. Some people hate it. Some people bring bad experiences. But I will tell you, frankly, the feedback for this course regarding teamwork and Challenge 4 has always been extraordinary. Sometimes people hate the assignment. That's on me, but the feedback on the teamwork, as such, and the team experience that has been throughout has been much appreciated. People like it. Even those who said, tell me previously in the program, we didn't like it, we had issues with teamwork; but they really came to appreciate it, see the point in it and have a great experience with it. So that's what it has been. It is important for a couple of reasons. If we talk about Homeland Security as an enterprise or as a network community, you don't do Homeland Security alone. Now this is your capstone experience, so it, by the virtue of the field, needs to include some collective effort. Then scenario foresight is very important for planning purposes. Re-emphasized by DHS in a quite long timeframe. I think I mentioned that before. DHS is looking, for example: critical infrastructure, development protection, and enhancement needs in 75 years from now perspective. This is what the DHS policy office actually does. It’s not a game and not a joke to cite the Oscars. We're not trying to be funny, that's what they said. It's not a joke, not funny. So, this is the reality. They do that and they use that to inform capability planning for budgeting, a budget, fiscal year plans, or financial year plans. So, we don't go for the 75 years’ timeframe. It should be a little bit futuristic - maybe 10 to 15 years, but at least five years. Like we said, like we discussed in Challenge 3, and you should be well-equipped. Then for another reason, it is important to do teamwork in a capstone because today, not just in homeland security, so much is about leadership. How can you exhibit or sharpen or a critical reviewer’s leadership skills without having some experience where it comes to leading a group effort or to experience the leadership in a group effort? So it makes sense for a lot of reasons. In homeland security, as we said, as an enterprise and as a security in a network community, we can't do without it. We are reflecting that at the top tier, for now, of our challenge. Whenever there are any issues, contact me. I am here to coach you and I'm here to assist. It's still a course, so I am the instructor. It's my job to help you. Before we get started with that, what I would like to offer is to walk you through the Challenge 4 and the expectations and then also through the list of deliverables. So, to explain anything that may be a part, not obvious, to you yet. So, we will do that.

But before we do so, I would just like to ask you quickly, maybe you could type a comment. {Kyle} Welcome. I see you've just had a chance to join. Fantastic. How do you like the course so far? How has the experience been? Some feedback would be appreciated. So that would be great, so we can do quick, internal, and informal reviews of your experience so far in the course. As we last met online, you found everything nice, but that may have changed. I don't know, so if you could drop me a couple of short comments that would be fantastic. Then, before I start, you can just type as we talk. The most important things and I will read out. Then, in addition to comments, if you have any questions at this point about Challenge 4 or anything with which I can help you.

Most of you will probably be graduating. This is a good time to ask if you have any questions. You should all have them. Just to reiterate, because my office received some questions, the official time is now. It used to be called “File Your Intent to Graduate.” Now it's called under “Lionpath,” “Apply for Graduation.” So, you can't do that through the system anymore because the registration time window is closed. But if you still want to graduate at the end of the semester, and if you forgot to apply for the graduation “Lionpath,” just contact Lesa Stanford of my office. She will probably be able to have your “Application for Graduation” processed manually. But if you have missed it, catch up sooner than later by contacting Lesa.

Now comments are arriving here on the chat. Jenny said she enjoyed the experience of the course. The pace is okay to her, especially for most of us are working full-time and taking more than one course. This is great, fantastic, Jenny! Good. It has three challenges with progressive difficulty and with some artificially created stress. I know that, but that's part of the story. If it works and is compatible still with your busy working lives, that's great to hear - that's encouraging. Carl - good. Carl points out that the course is due to its comprehensive character, and it really gave him a chance to apply a lot of his previous learning experience from the program. That is fantastic. There is also an expectation that students do that because there's a reason why it's called capstone and culminating experience. It's the top. It helps you get to the top of the experience and on top of your program as a pre-graduate because you will be graduating in a couple of weeks. So, that's great. Michelle enjoyed the assignments, but on things done in other classes. Again, that’s the intention, to learn a lot from others. So, the peer education effect, or the constructivist approach, where knowledge is not just passed on, but created with interaction in class, is an important paradigm, in particular, for a Master of Professional Studies program. So, if you perceive that as working and that's fantastic. Any questions at this point? No questions. Whenever there is anything, drop it on the chat.

I'm just going to do the walk-through of Challenge 4 that I had promised. First thing, do not rewrite, redo, revisit, or whatever the case studies. The case studies are done. Now the case studies that you chose as this Challenge 4 started are what I said. They are a point of departure. You will use the kind of hazard or threat from the case study only as a starting point. Then you forgot the case study, you provide a problem space description regarding the hazard. That can be invoked by the case study, but they are not revisiting, rewriting, or expanding on, or whatever the case study. You discussed the hazard represented in your case. Then, you do your scenario foresight exercise in your team. There is some guidance in the Challenge 4 module that we are going to review in a second. That scenario foresight results in a scenario narrative of the futuristic hypothetical situation. It's not even going to be tomorrow and of that year. It has to be futuristic so the minimum timeframe would be five years. How the hazard represented in your case may materialize in a hypothetical situation at least five years from now. A good timeframe would be up to 25 years. But if you are in the cyber, if you do scenario foresight in the cyber domain, it's really a little bit, it's very prognostic to try to understand what cyber may look like in 25 years. Maybe reduce it to five to ten years, which makes sense. If it's something more tangible where we can better extrapolate; for example, supply chain critical infrastructure or even terrorism because we already have a lot of experience, and now how it has developed over the past 300 years and 200 years. But with cyber, we don't have that experience. With the terrorism scenario, you can plan it, if you like, more into the distant future, so maybe up to 2035. You have to indicate clearly the year and the timeframe in which your scenario takes place. It's a hypothetical situation that helps everybody think out of the box. Appreciate the variety of ramifications of your threat in a futuristic timeframe and then make better decisions in terms of investing now to get better proof or investing now, make changes now, in order to increase preparedness and resilience for the future. That's the gist of it, and we will read through that in a second. Then, the beauty of the Challenge 4 beast is that once you deliver the scenario to me, I'll swap. I'll swap scenarios across the teams; For example, the scenario written by Team 1, not the whole study just the scenario narrative typically one and a half pages from the study, I will give for example to Team 3. Team 3 is then expected (as an example I'm not saying now that the Team 1 scenario will be given to Team 3, it just a ballpark figure - just an example that it's a scenario of how I could deal with a scenario) will provide, will work, will do some analysis, will do some research, and write a paper with a response to that scenario. If there is a cyberattack on critical infrastructure in the year 2035, Team 1 will have described how critical infrastructure looks in 2035, where the vulnerabilities are, what happens and also what the response capabilities are. They will probably look different than now. We also don't know if DHS-2035 would still have responsibility for cyber. Could be with a different agency. We don't know. That's up to Team 1 to consider in their scenario. Then Team 3 will provide the response. Then, if I get that response paper, I will give the host paper to Team 1, so Team 1 can review how they think Team 3 did in terms of responding and providing as the suggested course of action to address that scenario. I will still do the final grading, but it will be the task of Team 1 to also provide me with the rating and explanation assessing Team 3 response to their scenario. This is also a real world. This is how an exercise, a scenario exercise function. I will, of course, also assess the quality, fairness, and appropriateness of the response or of the assessment that Team 1 provided to Team 3, so it's very comprehensive. It sounds more complicated than it is. Therefore, it is important to really have a close look and work through all the lessons for guidance, additional material, and examples. Because, otherwise, you are unnecessarily limiting your own learning experience.

We don't want to discuss about cases in Challenge 4. The case that you chose as a point of departure. Just to have a context to discuss the threat or hazard presented by your case in a futuristic manner. We are not looking for case studies. You are looking for futuristic scenarios. We are doing scenario foresight - but you are doing it. The Challenge 4 narrator will tell you how to do that. We will just quickly read through it together. Unless, at this point, there are any questions or any comments? Lance, I see you have had an opportunity to join. Welcome, thank you for being with us. Is that good and clear so far what I try to say?

If that's the case, then let's move on. So, what I am trying to share with you is that I will describe on which page of the course we are because I'm not sure if the recording actually captures the screen I'm trying to share because I see nothing. I just see the information that I'm sharing. I see nothing, so I don't know if it's going to be recorded. I'm going to be a little bit verbose so that they were so going to see the recording only to understand about what we are talking. You have the module overview. Then we move down to Challenge 4. Just click on and the name of the first page or the first part of the module of Challenge 4. That's called, “Challenge - Scenario Foresight Based Collaborative Problem Solving.” I'm not pulling that up. I hope you see that now. There is a big brown box where it says, where it sights from the “2014 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review” with the definition of homeland security as a network community. This reiterates what I said before. This is one of the reasons we are going to have that group exercise in Challenge 4. Because homeland security is about networking in a community of practitioners and experts, and the experts have to work together to group source knowledge. This is also what scenario foresight is about. Since this is a Master of Professional Studies degree, it is professional study of homeland security, but it is an advanced graduate level study of homeland security, as well. Immediately applicable to mission space needs, but also of good sound graduate school level study. It's a nice thing to try to accomplish that through scenario foresight, because as I said before this, it is also what the department does in terms of how they plan or how they seek to increase not just the department and the homeland security enterprise. Also, big firms shall do whatever to increase the requisite variety by thinking out of the box and to optimize preparedness for an uncertain future. Future studies in the Social Sciences are a recognized method or field of study and can really catch those things on both ends of the story. The Advanced Study in a capstone have used scenario foresight as a recognized method. On the other hand, scenario foresight is something that really plays a role that is used in mission space. Also related to emergency management, FEMA had a year-long foresight initiative called SFI, Strategic Foresight Initiative, where I was able to make a contribution and that was a great thing. This is really relevant from both the Advanced Study and the Professional Studies of the mission-based point of view. This is what that first page of Challenge 4 just recalls. Whenever you'd like to discuss anything in depth, or think that you are lost, you can raise your hand using the little man icon by clicking on it and raising your hand. Or, you can drop me something on the chat. Then, I will stop, will hold, and then we will address that subject.

The second page of the Challenge 4 is headed “The Expectation of Critical Thinking.” This provides just some additional context and awareness of why this scenario foresight in Challenge 4 is important and how it contributes to critical thinking. You should not hesitate to think out of the box. One group already made a great suggestion. I am not going to share that because then I would put people into an advantage because you would know one of the scenarios and that's not at a public domain. It's going to be a little bit of a surprise. They made a good suggestion, very interesting, very out-of-the-box, very applicable to the critical thinking and learning objectives from this challenge. If you are still unsure at the end of your program, you shouldn't be. But if you are still unsure, there is a link where you can refresh your understanding of what is critical thinking.

Page three of the Challenge 4 is titled “Questions to Consider.” Again, these are just the usual guidelines. The user guidance for the forum is for when you get ready for the forum. We will go through the Challenge 4 assignments in a second. This is centered on a reflection of your teamwork and that doesn't help us with the scenario’s foresight, so we're going to skip that here. The next page is sharing your perspectives and resources again, that's the forum assignment “Why is collaborative problem-solving important in homeland security and what is the practical value of studying homeland security?” Nice short video with Christian Marrone, who was the former Chief of Staff with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The reason the video is still up is because he is a Penn State alumnus, and he gave us a video opportunity where he explained how a program like ours could particularly help current, emerging, and future leaders in the homeland security workforce to do a good or even better job in the five-core mission. Since the core missions haven't changed yet, we don't know. They will be reviewed in QSSR-2018, so the video is still relevant. I would encourage you to just take two and a half minutes to watch it. Then working in teams, there are some tips if you're unsure or have had a bad experience with teamwork on how to do better. That's about it. Now the next page. Here it gets more interesting for the purposes of what we are going to discuss here - “Foresight Based Scenario Development.” The page with the title, “Foresight Based Scenario Development,” explains it is a scenario. Those who are or have military background law enforcement, of course, can talk about the training scenario, and this can be a situation that happens tomorrow. It’s not the typical use of scenario. Scenario is also in the DHS definition. I have a definition from the DHS risk lexicon. It is a hypothetical situation happening in the future. It is not a conglomeration of situational difficulties bunched up for immediate training purposes. This is not a value judgment. I can tell you what I know, what military scenario-based training is, why it is important, and I appreciate and valued it. It just not the concept of scenario that we are going to use here. We are proud of so many people with military backgrounds. We have teaching and studying in the program. We want to limit confusion. Look at the definition of what a scenario is based on the DHS risk lexicon and go by that. I updated some information because I found the shell, the author scenario guide, quite interesting, and I hyperlinked an “Explorer's Guide.” This can again enhance your understanding by some examples that are not homeland security: what scenarios are, why scenario planning is important, what the scenario looks like, and what it tries to accomplish. The shell study is definitely worth reviewing. Homeland Security was originally quite a scenario based on its planning approach. Then, it was a little bit replaced with the National Response Framework approach, which is capability centered. Later, it was found out that, of course, capability-based planning and scenario-based planning can be, or actually are, two sides of the same coin. A futuristic scenario that you try to get prepared for very much tells you about the half-time value of the capabilities in place and available today to address futuristic and emerging threats. The scenario, as DHS policy now says, the DHS Office of Policy and Programs, scenarios are a tool to inform and to structure capability planning. This is important. The national planning scenarios, therefore, are still relevant. Of course, they are a little outdated because they were developed in 2005 in a futuristic timeframe. Today, it's already 12 years later, so we may already live in the scenario space that they envisioned. The way of how this is worded and what it looks like is still worth reviewing, if you're in any doubt on how to particularly word smith your scenario narrative. There are many ways in which scenarios can be generated or developed. One way is a scenario foresight that tries to bring a diversity or diverse group of experts to the table that then think about the future and jot down their thoughts in the form of a scenario. This is what your respective group is supposed to do in this Challenge 4. You're not supposed to overkill it. We know that time is a scarce resource, but the strategic foresight and initiative of FEMA still provides some relevant guidance and useful how-to guides as to how to work together in the group to come up with a scenario addressing a specific kind of threat; therefore, you have the FEMA Foresight Workshop Guide linked here - the Strategic Foresight Initiative. You also have some of my own work, if you're interested to see it. This is basically an edited, special edition of a journal where we describe how our scenarios could and should inform home affairs planning decisions in Europe. The model is relevant. Also, if you take it out of the American concept context for a second and look at it in a more academic and laid-back way, take a little pause, you'll get the structure of the approach that may be helpful. Again, I can’t tell you that often enough that the yellow box says it all - you will use your chosen case as a point of departure from the textbook case. You will not reanalyze, nor renarrate it, but you will extrapolate from it right away towards a scenario using a foresight-based approach, as described in the readings above. Once again, remember, that scenarios are stories about the future, but their purpose is to make better decisions in the present. For example, when it comes to establishing programs and capabilities that increase our requisite variety to be better able to respond to a variety of known unknowns in the future; at least they need to be known unknowns. If we don't know they exist, they're known unknowns, we can't get prepared. In particular, if you want to have an effect-based approach, use at least the FEMA Foresight Workshop’s “How To Guide,” and it’s straight to the point. Think how it can inform your group process, and then do your scenario foresight. Again, don't over blow it, scenario foresight, I mean you can just do that if you're savvy, and in exchange of E-mails for over three days or over a long weekend. You need to do some scenario foresight and in a structured way. That's your job in this challenge and the FEMA Guide can help you. Then, your first school paper should also describe a little of the approach that you used in order to come up with your scenario. It's not just that we all have thought about it, and we found that interesting, but what did you do? Know that somebody, who was a part of a team, understands how you reasoned about the future and how you are in a reviewable way thought out of the box. Not just fantasy - out of the box doesn't mean fantasy. Out of the box means to look at trends, identify trends by getting rid of groupthink, everyday bias, ideological constraints, convictions, whatever. Then, that’s the first task that you have already accomplished. That's mentioned in the blue box here, blue grey frame box, I should say. We already have chosen your point of departure and your case from the textbook. You have communicated your choice to me, and I have accepted your choice. So, there you are.  

Before we move on to the next slide, any questions, have I lost you? Are you still there? Can you give me a sign that you are still breathing? Okay, Jenni is still here, okay fantastic. Okay, Erin, glad it helps. You know, if you talk too much about foresight and how it works, then you confuse people so much that they can't think out of the box anymore, that's also the dilemma. We want to be methodologically guided, but if we want to use the foresight method, if we think too much about method, we again take the ability to think out the box away from ourselves. I believe in essential focused guidance and something like that is provided by the FEMA Foresight Workshop’s “How-To Guide,” and it is also on the Shell Study. The Shell Study is a little more comprehensive, they are a firm, and they need to intellectualize a little more to feel good about themselves. The guidance is there, so please use it. Erin, [reading] we are making a scenario and then another group will basically create the policy in response to us. You hit the nail on the head, that's it, that's correct. So, you think about the future. You are in the year 2035, for example, with the scenario and with the group that is here today. We need to think about how we can get ready and be prepared for that other team’s 2035 scenario. That's a big difference. Your team is in the future, the other team is here and needs to help people today in their preparedness efforts towards your futuristic scenario.

We are going to look at the papers that are due and at the assignment in just a second. I am just now focusing, consciously concentrating on the content guidance provided in the course or the instructional mementos. The deliverables, we will look at them in a second. Still anything before we move to the next slide?

Next slide – Assessment. Now here is where it's getting interesting. That's basically the list of all of your deliverables - internal and external during that Challenge 4. It says the Challenge 4 assessment instructions. Then there is another blue frame - rather the yellow box and then it comes with the... and the bullets come. For the first assignment, share with your group and the individual two to three pages single-spaced report. Ah! Ask me, single or double spaced! Ten percent deduction! 10% deduction! It's in there. You didn't read. You didn't read, read before you assume. Just kidding! Ask me anytime, anything. I always forget things, so it's good to ask. We’re here to ask. Single-spaced. Contributing in this scenario foresight information and analysis. Here you also have the suggested timeframe, you see, as I always said 2035 because that's common in security. I did a study for the European Commission where I worked together with FEMA and DHS S&T, and we had 2035. I've seen a recent World Risk report that is 2035. So, 15 years, when we did it, it was 20 years. So, 15 to 20 years’ timeframe. Again, like I said, we don't want to overkill it. Like it says here in the description, in the guidance the five to ten years’ timeframe is okay. You could do a 2025-2030 scenario. Let's stick with what is said here. That individual two to three pager, this is something that each of you, each member in the group comes up with as their part to get their group scenario foresight effort started. It's up to your group on how to divide the effort. You could still make functional allocations of what your team members are going to discuss. You could also say, everybody is just going to write a two to three pages brainstorming paper where they think what the biggest drivers towards futuristic scenario is centered around your chosen threat would be over the world in 2025-2030 would look like. What will Homeland Security look like? Will it still be a national enterprise? Will it be internationalized - so the political organizational context? What's the threat environment? Will there be an essentially new capability? So, you could divide effort. If you have a tech person in your group, they could write an assessment or a brainstorming on what essential capabilities for a scenario response would look like in ten to five years from now. How cyberspace, for example, may look like in ten years. Another person is more like into public administration programming, they think about what DHS or Homeland Security may be organized like in ten years - legal foundations, organizational structure, whatever. Or like I said, everybody could just provide a two to three pages’ brainstorming paper. I will never, unless there are issues, see those papers. Because they are, like I said, internal deliverables. Internal deliverables are just to help you to get started with your scenario process and with your foresight process. You can still use that content. You don't have to duplicate anything. Of course, you can edit it and then use it in one of the group papers that are due. But there are two to three pages which are due by team members to the team. It's their team internal deliverables. At the same time, you have to think about how you're going to do your foresight study. What are you going to accomplish and when, so that you're going to be able to meet all the milestones represented by the due assignments? This is what you are going to do in the group plan. There are two group plans that are due. One is for the scenario foresight project, one is for the scenario response, and both group plans must use the Gantt Chart Template that is provided in the course. If you are unsure what that is, have no fear. It's just a matrix of tasks against time and what is going to be ready by when. This template also includes a box or a table that shouldn't be neglected. It is where you should address the major risks for your foresight project and how to address them - typical major risks, what do you think? Because any work plan needs to come up with a brief risk assessment. Again, don’t overkill it, but demonstrate that you understand what the risks are. In a project like that and a group project, what would you think is a major risk where different people contribute to reaching a collective outcome? What is a major risk that you should list in your group work plan? It gives you 10 points. I guess two times each group plan is worth 5 points or 10 points. Can it make a difference if you're between A- or A. So, it's better than nice to have, it's more than nice to have, it's something you can invest in, and it can make sense.  

Project related risk group source scenario foresight, any idea? Yeah, members not participating, correct? Or those that are not making timely contributions. Then, there are two responses to that. There is the threat response. How to deal with a member, but for the purpose of the risk management plan that is secondary. The first ranking issue is the assets response. If a member doesn't contribute, how do you substitute for that and what do you do? When I was leading an international security research grant consortium, I had that all the time. A member didn't submit anything, but it was still due. So, the alternative was not to ask for a deadline extension; that was Plan B. The alternative was to use some workarounds. For example, contributors and team members could use what they have from a previous course, if it addresses relevant parts of the topic to substitute for the missing parts. They would ask me for permission because, as per Penn State, you can't submit twice. But in terms of risk management, that could be a good plan. If that doesn't work, you could discuss with me to rescope the project so that the input becomes unnecessary. That's also a Plan B, but it's better than nothing. Or you can redivide, that's a euphemism. To redivide a group within the teams so that the remaining team members do more. It’s not what everybody wants to do, and it's not what I necessarily suggest. But there are a couple of ways to deal with it. It's a big huge program. So most likely, if there is a dropout, some of you will have submitted something somewhere in the program that could be used in substitution; for example, for a missing two to three pages. You know what I mean to have everybody on the same page. To have a missing risk, a sense of working as a team. For example, a good solution could be a quick video call or a phone call on a regular basis just to have an opportunity to be in real-time share and discuss and resolve any issues. So that's what teams sometimes suggest; it’s the teamwork and culture. We said this teamwork exercise and foresight are important because it reflects the objective of homeland security becoming or being a networked security community. So, your team should also act as a security community where everybody’s success depends on it. It's not the weakest link. I don't like that because nobody is weak here. Some are busier, used to group settings, some are less busy and less, whatever. It's not the weakest link. It's really about everybody that has something to share, then the group should be an enabler for everybody. An enabling context for everybody to do whatever they can.  

Aaron [Reading], you had trouble in the previous class getting people engaged so you basically asked them and what the expectations were. I'll send it to share the background. This helped you to better assign and reassign work within the team. That's good and this is, Aaron. Also, something that you could add to your risk management table in the Gantt Chart. Okay, so I think you are getting what that is all about. Very good.

I am now at, if you count from the top (one, second, third) the fourth bullet. We have just discussed the Gantt Chart, the work plan that should include risk management. So that was the fourth bullet. Now, we are going to the fifth bullet. I had explained and summarized through the results of your groups’ analysis, that means your scenario foresight result, in a written report - 35 to 40 pages. There you can use the two to three pages, if they make sense, and integrate them. You really have to ... oh sorry, sorry, forget what I said ... I jumped ahead ... sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry ... I confused myself because there are two work plans. It's like the Oscars, I'm afraid I made a mistake. Sorry, sorry, forget, forget, forget. We said to which bullet where we are. In Bullet 1, share with your group the two to three pages. In Bullet 2, the work plan for the scenario analysis, that's what we discussed. Okay, then comes Bullet 3, as a group, accomplish an integration of the scenario information. Invite a group paper of four pages in length, basically providing your scenario narrative and explaining how you develop this scenario. For the purpose of those four pages, group paper, you can, of course, use the two to three pages - the input. But you just can't fuse all of the two to three pages into the four pages’ paper. First and foremost in the four pages’ paper, you need to come up with a consistent scenario narrative about your hypothetical situation in the future. Your scenario will occupy one to two pages of that total length of the four pages’

paper. The rest of that is beyond the scenario’s description, it will be the approach and also the resources that you used. I wouldn't include the references in the four-page count because then your really have nothing. Please write a 1 to 2 pages’ scenario, and then write 1 to 2 pages explaining your group’s foresight process. Then, add to that some basic analysis studies that you use to create your scenario. You do not need to reference your scenario. Look at the national – sorry, I'm just switching back to the homeland security scenarios of 2005, the national planning scenario. So, no references, but at the end of the paper, list the sources that had helped you perform your scenario foresight exercise. Then, you should also add... [there's a typo, it's always nice, it's always good to read through that here because then I can immediately address the typo, let me see, now I can't find it, just a second, please close, please note] and also your four-page group paper, as described in Bullet two. I missed it again ... one, two, three. As described in Bullet 3, it should provide some criteria that you will be using and to later then assess the scenario response from the other team that will be given the scenario. So essential elements of scenario response should be listed in your papers of the evaluation criteria. Although typically evaluation criteria are published, I will not give those to this scenario responding team because, otherwise, it makes it too easy. Sometimes student groups provide a stepwise approach; how they think a model response to the scenario would look like. That is great, but you will understand, if I give that to the team, along with a scenario, then the team already knows what to do. That's then not a very high- level task. If we look at Bullet three of the assessment instructions for Challenge 4, how confused are you? Let me see. Jennifer says she is confused about the criteria. Could you give an example? Yes. For instance, so maybe I'll give you a general example. A common mistake in scenario foresight is that if you think of a critical infrastructure protection scenario in the 2025 timeframe. Say this is critical infrastructure, and this is the terrorist attack of 2025. So, great forward-looking thoughts about the evolving advanced persistent threat and things, how terrorists may think and act in 2025, and what infrastructure may look like. Then, the responding team just takes NRF, NIMS, and prevent, protect, mitigate, respond, and the recover capabilities of today in the year 2017 to respond to a hypothetical situation in 2025. That's inadequate. So, that's an inadequate response. The responding team also needs to have more foresight, if you will, about what capabilities may exist in the year 2025 to respond to a threat. So, it is time adequacy. If the threat scenario is 2025, don't use the programs or capabilities of today. The idea is to identify where the gaps are and what should be developed. Sometimes, it depends how helpful you want to be for your scenario responding team - the team that will be given your scenario. So, you can include it in your narrative some essential capabilities that will exist in the year 2025. Maybe better surveillance and maybe even critical infrastructure protection by using unmanned vehicles. It doesn't need to be limited to the area; it can be anything. So, this like a hint on the capabilities that you would foresee and could help your team respond. Then, the criteria, the evaluation criteria that you would provide would be extended towards the scenario responding team that takes up on the hints on available capabilities in 2025. Okay, Jenni, does it make sense? It’s just an example because that's the biggest and even great teams often fail on that end because they have that mismatch. They have great thinking about the threat of the future, but not the response capabilities of the future. I don't know why, but it’s probably because we are all trained to work with what we have; therefore, this is why we are in the field of security. We are not dreaming about what we could have, might have, or should have. We are just trained and educated to work with what we have. So that may just be professional bias. But again, the scenario is the chance to overcome it. Okay and good.  

Moving to Bullet four. You will then be provided a scenario that was developed by a different group. Analyze that scenario and, again, give me a plan of how you're going to work within your team to come up with a scenario response by using the same Gantt Model. Does Bullet four make sense? Then comes your big, you had mentioned that before, the big 35 to 40 pages’ report. Where you as a team were given a scenario, and then in that 35 to 40 pages’ report, you describe theories, do an analysis, and provide the response to that scenario. You do not need to expand on, explain, or assess the scenario. You could say this, that the scenario is a little bit. You can evaluate the scenario. The focus should be on analyzing it. So, to derive capability planning and other requirements that an equal scenario response would entail. Then indicate what capabilities would have had to be developed, by, let's say 2025, in order to be able to apply what it takes to address the threat post and the scenario. This then gives you the lead from today to 2025, and this can then help you to make your planning resource allocation training, whatever, decisions. It said somewhere in the assignment description, because we are all in a homeland security education, that using our response should, among other things, consider educational needs. It would be interesting to see if you would consider for, example, what the iMPS-HLS Program would need to look like in order to make sure that its graduates are the best prepared to respond to that specific scenario. So educational requirements are very important - educational training. You don't necessarily need to discuss our program, but if you would like to, maybe you have your ideas already from today. You will be invited to take part in our exit survey of graduates. At any rate, we will look forward to having your suggestions. But concretely connected to the requirements of the first responders in 2025, and what a program like ours needs to add in order to ensure preparedness. Educationally, it would be of interest or general training, whatever, first responder training, etc., but there should be an educational dimension, as this is a research report. I say that in HLS 801 also. It's crazy for me because in this semester, I teach HLS 801 to our new people across the program. Then, I teach our highest segment here, and you have experts in the base program capstone and it's huge. It's for you because you also have a lot of things to do it on your table. It's an interesting challenge and it’s a report. I will need a typed title page and an all contributing authors’ credit. It is a 35-40 pages’ report, so it will have a table of contents, and it will also have subheadings. It will be written, if possible, in APA style, or any other professional style that you prefer. This is really yours and think of it as your capstone paper report that is 35-40 pages. Embellish it, make it a nice, good content, don't over focus on beauty of the layouts, but make it a professional layout of paper. An executive summary needs to be included, as described. There's also a link with advice on term papers, if you are in any doubt on how to, you know, write a professional paper. You are all base program students, so you will have written three policy papers, for example, in HLS 811. So, you should know how to write a study paper. Just maybe in the work plan, number two in the second group work plan, foresee sometime for cross-reading and cross-editing within the team. Surely, make it a good and nice term paper because I would hate for you/people to lose points for formal issues. It's important and it's a Master of Professional Studies. In your job, if you are supposed to do a nice presentation for stakeholders, if it's a great presentation and just really composed on PowerPoint, it's not perfect and you can't score 100%, so allow some time for that. Think of it as your final term paper in the program. You're never going to have to write our homeland security program paper again. At least not at Penn State. So invest in it, okay? Timelining is important, not because one builds on the other, but, I can't give you any extension basically towards the end of the semester. Because if you want to graduate, it's very hectic. I only have a couple of days to get your grades in and to do everything. However, Homeland Security is about risk management all the time and continuously. If anything comes up or you anticipate any issues, you will never be punished for pointing that out if you're unable to do something timely. You will only be punished if you try to hide it, sweep it under the carpet, and then come up late. That's bad. Inform me early on and we will find a solution. I promise. So far so good. With the 30, I'm not going to burn too much time here, but I would just like to complete our assignment review. That can be done very fast now. Written report in a 35 to 40 pages’ scenario response scientific paper, a professional paper. Any questions? Are we clear on that? We’re clear on that. If there are still any questions, if not, speak up now or be silent forever or just shoot me a note.

Then moving to the next bullet. Deliver a joint narrated PowerPoint presentation. Where you present the findings to a high-level decision-maker. Think of that as somebody who is in charge of the set of capabilities that you need to respond to your scenario. You need to convince that person that it is important to invest now, to allocate resources, to increase preparedness towards the character of threats represented by your scenario. Make it an executive decision-making oriented presentation. This is not an academic presentation to me, this is to a top decision-maker whom we would like to act on for your futuristic scenario today. It needs to make sense to the decision-maker. However, the decision-maker also needs to understand that the scenario is hypothetical, but it is still grounded enough for him to consider to act on in terms of making, for example, investment or supporting certain investment decisions. On the presentation side, you're a pretty good group. So really, kudos. Your presentations so far have been excellent. It's basically the same thing in Challenge 3 in that you did your individual paper and then presented it out individually. Now you do the same thing as a group. You showed you can do it. Just upload it on the right space on the voice thread. You can share work. You can divide work for the presentations, if you’d like. I would just like every team member to present at least a bit of the presentation so that I can see each of the team members’ presentations styles and communication style, which would be good. You shouldn't divide up work in a way that if you're a team of four, that two would do the PowerPoint - they type it up and then two present it. You should break the presentation narration up among the four of you, so that each of you who narrates at least one or two slides. Does that make sense? It doesn't have to be anything new. It's just an implementation of your paper, like in Challenge 3, just behind a group setting. It seems to make sense perfectly. It’s a usual thing, comment on other groups’ postings. Now it's going to be simpler because we are only going to have a total of 5 postings, not 25, because of group postings. Then you need to send to me your evaluation of how you think the group did that was giving you their scenario. There is an assignment on the assignment list. There is an assignment that is called “Evaluation of Your Scenario User Group.” This is a questionnaire where one of your group members should, on behalf of your group, enter a consensus group assessment of how you think the team that was given your scenario did with their response. Okay? Of course, I will send to you, like I said, the 35 to 40 pages’ papers, and the entire papers will be given to the group that developed the scenario to which these papers respond. Though everybody will see the entire papers; therefore, for late comers and strugglers, it will be difficult. Because then it’s already unfair, then you can see earlier than others that our people finalized their big 35 to 40 pages’ papers. So, timeliness and on-time submission are important.

What people sometimes forget, which is bad, is that there's also an individual reflective paper due. It’s about two pages and that's basically the last two bullet points. This is not a SRTE. SRTE's anonymous and how you liked or didn't like the course - that's SRTE. In the individual reflective paper, you basically look at yourself and at your learning experience by identifying and assessing the way in which your group, and you as a team member, approached this course. What's your learning experience speed? Think about your team and don't think about the course. Whether you liked or hated the course, that's anonymous, that's for SRTE. Think about your team. This is not going to be the assessment that you made. The content of your assessment is not graded. What is going to be graded is how you present your reflection on the teamwork and how you worked as a team member. Does that make sense? If you would, it's the hot wash after the scenario foresight. It’s really the hot wash where you don't criticize. I mean, you can have criticism for the model. If you liked it or not and liked the group assignment and how are you, blah, blah, blah – that’s SRTE, that's anonymous. You don't do that in the hot wash. The hot wash, as you see now, that's a situation we have to take it as it is. It was our challenge. How did we, as a team respond to that? How did I think? What do I think I brought to the table? What could I have done differently? What did I learn? What can I do better? Think of it as a as a hot wash, okay? This is also something that you need to submit before the end of the course. At the end of the course is [course end date as listed in the syllabus], just to make sure because sometimes students are confused.

Just to verify the deadlines. Last day of classes is [course end date as listed in the syllabus], so before midnight that day, I need to have everything. It's not Sunday. It's not, “I didn't know, I wasn't aware.” That doesn't count. The semester ends midnight, [course end date as listed in the syllabus] and that's it. Unless you declared an emergency to me before, there's not much leeway if we want to graduate because I need your grades up. I need to put your grades up, okay? That is basically it.

The assignment listing, if we go to just to the assignment page, it should reflect that exactly. So, you have the perspective and record resources discussion. Like the group, that's known - the new thing is the group plan for the scenario foresight study. Then, your scenario description is to be given to the other group. Then, the group plan for the scenario response for the scenario that you will be given by me, as submitted by a different group. Then, your scenario response itself. That's the big paper, the 35 to 40 pages. Then, the implementation of the paper, and a PowerPoint presentation. Evaluation of your scenario end-user group - how you think the team, the other team, did in responding to a scenario. Wrap it up also, don't forget. Same pattern perspective, responses, and wrap-up discussion, you need to do that as well. I gave you a long deadline. You just needed to complete the wrap-up by [assignment due date as listed in the syllabus], so that theoretically everybody still has a chance to respond and discuss till [course end date as listed in the syllabus]. The focus is, don't skip it, the focus is really on the scenario foresight. Then don't forget the reflective paper. That's basically it.