First Officer Training Manual

This training manual will walk you through the process of acting as the First Officer for a training group. Please read carefully, keep this site bookmarked, and refer to the manual on a daily basis during your training class. The Training Admin team takes procedure and process very seriously, and this manual details the exact training progression that has shown to work best in successfully graduating cadets.

Expectations & role

The First Officer's role in a training group is to be the general assistant to the commanding officer. The CO will be leading the group forward and moving it to an expeditious close, while the FO should, for the lack of a better phrase, act as the "sheep herder" wherein no cadet is left behind.

Pre-Requisites

• Completion of at least two sessions as a Mock Cadet or Ghosting Officer

Main duties

• Send out tutorials
• Direct simmers IC on what to do
• Follow up with simmers to keep them simming
• Encourage simmers regularly
• Keep a tally of how many times each cadet has simmed

Challenges

• Approaching cadets in a friendly and non-threatening manner
• Keeping track of all the cadets to make sure they are being productive
• Keeping your own sims focused on quality and the final goal of passing the cadets

Expectations

Before going any further, be aware that there a number of expectations for the FO. While the training admin team, who authored this list, realize that it sounds harsh and demanding, we hope that it's clear why a strict attention to quality is absolutely necessary. The current low number of available, incoming applicants makes it necessary to ensure that each and every cadet who is recruited manages to make it to a ship. The more professional we appear, the more likely we are to gain word-of-mouth recruits.

• Attendance: all officers who volunteer are expected to participate in the training class all the way through. Unless life or limb is at stake, you ARE expected to at least give us the courtesy of a short e-mail stating that you cannot participate if something comes up before the end of the class.
• Expediency: training officers are expected to check their e-mail EVERY day and respond to issues on the same day that the problem occurs or becomes clear.
• The importance of proof-reading: you MUST proof-read and spell-check sims before sending them out. This not only helps your sims look more professional, but also helps to catch any forgotten "tags" (i.e.- [fill in] response lines) and misspellings.
• Daily simming: the FO is expected to sim EVERY DAY.
• Simming well: ALL training officers in a group are expected to be an exemplary example of what a simmer is, and does. That means not leaving any open response tags, not power simming, and so on.
• Facilitating: training CO and FO are expected to facilitate the training group, instead of directing it. This is not an opportunity to run your own ship, but instead to learn how to FACILITATE as a leader.
• Everyone is expected to focus solely on helping the cadets discover good ways of moving the plot forward with their characters. In this vein, NO sims are allowed to be written by training officers which are entirely for an NPC character. Such sims generally confuse the cadets, and direct the plot away from cadet creativity. NPCs are allowed in their true form: as side characters who facilitate the direction of the plot.

Back to the top of the page.

Pre-group activities

Before you're even aware that you've been selected to lead a training group, the training admin staff will have already completed a number of tasks that will get the ball rolling. Here's what they do:

1. Add the cadets to the training group: the training admin staff will directly ADD the cadets to the training list. They are added, instead of being invited by Yahoo! Groups, because we don't want the cadets to get confused about what they have to do next. When they are added, they will immediately begin receiving e-mails from the list.
2. Roll call e-mail goes out: the roll call e-mail is the first thing the cadets receive from the training list. This roll call e-mail asks the cadets to respond and confirm that they are ready, tell us the duty post they want, and give some information about themselves. They aren't required to give any personal info, but are invited to tell us whatever they feel comfortable divulging.
3. Invite the training staff: Yahoo! Groups limits the number of people that can be added to a list, as opposed to inviting them. As such, we ADD cadets, but INVITE training staff. Training staff should be sufficiently acquainted with how Yahoo! Groups operates, by this time, and as such should recognize and respond affirmatively and quickly to invitation e-mails from Yahoo! to join the list. Once you've responded to the invitation, the training admin staff will promote you to the moderator of the list.

An example of the roll call e-mail is in the box below. Do NOT send this out to the list! By the time you've been added to the list, this e-mail has ALREADY been sent out!

Welcome! I am [YOUR CHARACTER NAME HERE] and I will be your guide, host, and trainer during this next week to week and a half in regards to the StarBase 118 Training. First of all I want to thank you for your interest in the UFOP: StarBase 118 and I hope you will find it as fun and entertaining a game as I do. For the next week and a half, you will be under my direction and we will run a initial SIM, or “dry run” to see how you all do. I will be available to answer questions and assist with personal critiques and my own SIMs as examples for you to follow. Second, I'd like to apologize if any of you have waited more than a few days to begin starting training. It often takes us a while to get together a group of quality cadets to begin training. Have no fear, though, your adventure has begun now! In order to graduate from this training you will need to SIM a minimum of three times during this period, with the SIMs being of acceptable length and quality (decided by me). Also, you will need to complete a biography, but that will be discussed in later sessions. There will be six tutorials sent out, to assist you with the basics of SIMming, and we will use a training scenario. You are currently subscribed to an e-mail list, which uses Yahoo! Groups. This is a simple way for the entire training group to contact each other. All you need to do to send in sims or questions is click the REPLY button your e-mail program. It will automatically insert the e-mail address to the list into your "TO:" field. That e-mail address will distribute your e-mail to everyone else in the group -- which includes the other cadets in this group, as well as your training officers. Before we begin, however, I need you to click REPLY on your e-mail program and send to this list the following information: - Your character name; - The top 3 choices of duty posts you'd like to play (Engineering, Security, Tactical, etc.); - A little about your "real" self -- as much or as little as you'd like tell us so we can get to know each other; - Some suggestions: region of the world you're from, what you do for a living, why you like Star Trek, why you chose UFOP: SB118, your favorite color, etc. Again, it's optional, so tell us as much or as little as you feel comfortable telling! - Confirmation that you are ready to train!! I realize that some of you put this information above onto your application, but we have found that many times people change their minds in terms of duty posts or character names, so we want be sure! THE FASTER WE GET YOUR RESPONSES, THE FASTER WE CAN BEGIN TRAINING! If you do not reply to this training letter, you will not be put on the official roster and we will simply assume that you no longer wish to participate in the group. Finally, I'd like to tell you about our "Holodeck Training & Tutoring" forum on our message boards. This area is just for people in training, and you will find that other community members, or your training officers, can respond to your e-mails there. Or, you can just chat with other members of this training group. Just go to this URL: http://www.starbase118.net/forums/index.php?showforum=45 Thanks again for choosing us, and I do hope that you enjoy this training program. No matter what, we will be starting within two days. So use this time to get to know our website, chat up your fellow cadets, and start thinking about your character. Hang on to your jackets, people -- we're in for one interesting ride! I look forward to hearing your roll call responses!

Back to the top of the page.

You've been selected!

After the call has gone out for a training officer, and you have responded that you are available, the training admin staff will compile the list of volunteers for the group and decide who is best qualified for each position in the group. If you've been selected as the FO, it means you've completed your pre-requisites.

You will receive an e-mail from one of the training admin staff, sent directly to you and the other training officers selected for the group, that details all of the information that you will need to know. The e-mail will clearly state the names, e-mail addresses, and assigned position of each training officer, as well as the training list you will be using. The e-mail will also link to the roll call e-mail mentioned in the section above, and give you a list of the cadets with their applications.

You will also receive an invitation from Yahoo! Groups. Respond affirmatively as quickly as possible.

Back to the top of the page.

The group begins

The group will begin once the training officer sends out their first sim. By this time, you will be added to the staff list, as well, and should have received an e-mail from the CO reminding you of your duties.

The training officer will also send out the first tutorial. You should then sim, as soon as possible, to give the cadet something else to work on. Everyone in the group is encouraged to respond to the first sim before the "real" cadets do, so that they have a good example.

Back to the top of the page.

Sending out tutorials

On day two, it will be time to send out the second tutorial. You will need to continue sending out tutorials once a day after this until the training ends. Please be sure to send these in order and no more than once a day -- except for the placement questionnaire. You will send out the placement questionnaire RIGHT AFTER you send out Tutorial 5. Because the CO of the group sent out the first tutorial, you now have the following to send out:

• Tutorial 2: E-mail Protocol/Subject-Header Format
• Tutorial 3: Speaking for Others In Character
• Tutorial 4: Biography Specifics (Send 4 days before the end of training.)
• Tutorial 5: Military Time/Stardate
• Placement Questionnaire (Send directly after Tutorial 5.)
• Tutorial 6: Proper Forms of Address/Ranks and Promotions

Back to the top of the page.

Tallying sim count

The other duty of the First Officer is to tally each cadet's sim total, and then report that to the CO. This helps reduce the stress on them to get this done at the end of the group. Simply enough, keep a list of all the real cadets and add a mark each time they sim. After you send tutorial 6, e-mail this tally to the CO and tell them that it is "As of Date/Time..."

Back to the top of the page.