Current Status of Harvesting – We were not able to do parallel testing (identical runs on both systems) for LLNL and NREL as we had done with the other harvesting sites when they were migrated from the old system to the new one

Minutes

STIP Managers Teleconference

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Attendees: Judy Holstrum (NREL), Mary Petersen (BNL), Jessica Shaffer-Gant (SNL), Teresa (SNL), Dale Claflin (INL), Charlie Lovejoy (INL), Pam Novak (PNNL), Nancy Doran (PNNL), Christy Collier (Pantex), Betty Robinette (Y-12), Diane Quenell (YMP/ORD), June (Fermilab), Isom Harrison (LLNL), Kevin Schmidt (SRS), Mary Hale (ANL), Yvette Woell (ANL), Dennis Gound (ORSO), Linda Rohde (CH), Sharon Jordan (OSTI), Jannean Elliott (OSTI), Kathy Waldrop (OSTI)

STIP Meeting Update (Kathy Waldrop) - As a reminder, the 2005 STIP Meeting will be held in Berkeley, CA the week of April 18. Don’t make airline reservations yet, but here is the schedule we are tentatively planning for now. We will likely begin on Wednesday morning with a Meet and Greet and Welcoming Remarks before splitting up into groups for Orientation, DOE Only Meeting, etc. All meetings will be held at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, courtesy of Jane Tierney.

We are currently working with three hotels near LBNL. Once we have a signed contract, we will provide the meeting days and hotel information to you via e-mail.

We are pulling together a preliminary agenda and would like your input. We would like for you to suggest topics for the meeting. Last year we had an excellent representation of non-OSTI speakers. These presentations generally covered new or changed processes used by the various sites that were informative for the other meeting participants. Please let me know if you would be willing to give a presentation this year and the title of your topic. Also, we would like your suggestions for other topics you would like presented or discussed at the meeting. Your offer to present and suggested topics can be sent to me via e-mail.

DOE F 241.1 Status (Kathy Waldrop) - There is a committee working on the business rules for the DOE F 241.1. We are making the web form, DTD, and Harvesting as consistent as possible. The inconsistencies will lie with defaults and validations. We plan to have some if not all of the updates to the web form, DTD, and Harvesting completed in time for the STIP Meeting in April.

Harvesting (Jannean Elliott) - Current Status – We were not able to do parallel testing (identical runs on both systems) for LLNL and NREL as we had done with the other harvesting sites when they were migrated from the old system to the new one. This is because the move to Oracle 9i caused so many problems for our old harvesting system that it was deemed not worth the time and effort to fix. Instead, we have been running LLNL and NREL on the test version of the new system and carefully checking the results by comparing raw data files with mapping requirements and with E-Link results, then tracking the path of these records to Dublin Core. These tests have been running well and are wrapping up. We expect to begin production again for these two sites, this time on the new system, within the next week or two. Test reports are being written and will be sent to each site. Moving these two labs to the new system will mean that all sites are once again being handled by the same and only one harvesting software.

We have also been testing FNAL and are writing a report on their results. We still have a couple of unresolved issues with the data but are pleased overall with the progress.

Sandia has notified us that they are ready to begin the testing phase of harvesting, and we have a conference call scheduled for Thursday.

A significant accomplishment is the harvesting of 649 citations that were missed, at the rate of a record or two a week, during harvesting on the old system. Migration to the new system allowed the problem to surface, and we have been working with the lab to determine how best to identify those records and bring them in without reharvesting thousands of records that we already have. That was successfully done, and we have checked each record here at OSTI to ensure it reached Dublin Core without problems.

New Issues for Harvesting - The harvesting folks here at OSTI are working with Kathy and her 241.1 team to lay out business rules and identify and/or resolve differences between the major mechanisms for metadata collection. In this process, we realized that harvested records should have in them the name of the releasing official, just as the records coming in via the web form or via an SGML batch job do. While the name of the releasing official does not go into ECD, it is stored in the E-Link database and stays there permanently as part of the administrative metadata. We have two options: (1) Labs may give permission for OSTI to insert the name of their particular releasing official as a default for harvested records, or (2) the labs may add fields to their XML output that will include this data. Jannean asked for an opinion from the group participating in the call and received a majority of opinions calling for OSTI to do the default. I pointed out that the releasing date would, in a default situation, have to be the date of the record’s creation or latest updated. That, too, was voted as acceptable.

Jannean will send an email to each harvesting site asking them to confirm their acceptance of the default method for releasing official information and requesting them to provide the name they wish to use. She also pointed out that any lab wishing to send the releasing official information in on a record by record basis in the XML file certainly would be welcome to do so. We would just need to know ahead of time so that we can adjust the harvesting DTDs appropriately.

HEDB Migration (Sharon Jordan) – OSTI has been working on a mapping matrix for migrating the Historical Energy Database (HEDB) information to E-Link. The migration is expected to be completed by mid February. This will bring the number of E-Link records to 2 ½ million. When the migration is complete, people can begin to edit old records for purposes of updating access limitations as related to the website document review process, provide links to digitized legacy documents, etc. We will request from OSTI IT staff lists of the items migrated and provide to the respective sites.

Consolidated Product (Sharon Jordan) – As discussed previously, OSTI is working on creating a DOE and DOE Contractor product consolidating DOE versions of ECD and Information Bridge, and the Controlled Access File (CAF). This will be the first time the CAF information will be available electronically to the DOE and DOE Contractor community. The product will be tested in February and is expected to go live by March 2005.

Miscellaneous

CrossRef Member (Sharon Jordan) – Negotiations for OSTI to become a PILA member has been ongoing for several months with the Publishers International Linking Association, Inc. (PILA), operating as CrossRef. The agreement language has been approved, marking the first government organization membership. One benefit of CrossRef membership will be access to documents via Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), which is currently being evaluated. More information will be shared as available.

Patent Database (Sharon Jordan) - One of the projects being undertaken by OSTI in FY05 is to develop a DOE Patent Database. Patent records were traditionally included in the Energy Data Base in the past, but few have been obtained in recent years due to resources and changes in processes. A new mode of operation is being planned and will be discussed further at the STIP meeting in April.

Guide Review Team – (Kathy Waldrop) The Guide Review Team members are Kevin Schmidt, SRS; Isom Harrison, LLNL; Dennis Gound, ORNL Site Office, Janine Ford, NNSA-Service Center; Jean Plummer, Sandia; Nancy Doran, PNNL; and me. We had our first meeting on January 11, and will be meeting periodically over the next few months. Our goal is to have a final draft to share with the STIP community prior to the STIP Meeting for discussion during the STIP Meeting. If non-team members have suggested revisions to the current version, please e-mail those to me asap for consideration by the team.

SPARC Press Release (Sharon Jordan) - DOE/OSTI’s E-print Network was selected as SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) partner. A press release announced that the E-print Network, a free service of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), has been chosen as a SPARC Scientific Communities partner. The selection recognizes the contribution of the E-print Network to expanded availability and use of open-access scientific and technical research on the Internet.

“The E-print Network is a pioneer in harnessing open-access research across the Internet,” said Rick Johnson, director of SPARC. “Besides contributing to more efficient information sharing and accelerated discovery, the E-print Network gives us an eye-opening glimpse of the vast extent of open archiving today.”

SPARC and SPARC Europe are alliances of academic and research libraries working to unleash the potential of the Internet to enhance scholarly communication. SPARC partnerships, advocacy, and educational activities encourage expanded dissemination of research and reduced financial pressure on libraries. Worldwide membership currently includes over 300 institutions and organizations. SPARC is located on the web at <www.arl.org/sparc>. SPARC Europe is at <www.sparceurope.org>.

Site Visits – (Sharon Jordan) OSTI made several STIP site visits during FY 2004. Most of the sites visited were NNSA sites. For FY05, OSTI will identify additional sites to visit to become more familiar with the STI process, address concerns, etc. If you would like for OSTI to visit your site, please contact Kathy.

PNNL - Pam Novak announced that PNNL is recruiting for a Manager for the Publishing Department.

LLNL – Isom Harrison announced that LLNL has a new Division Head for the Technical Information Division.