DOE STIP Meeting
November 3-4, 1999
Welcome - Karen Spence
opened the meeting and welcomed attendees (see attendee
list), who included representatives from Headquarters
Programs, Operations Offices, National Laboratories, and other
DOE contractor facilities.
STI Accomplishments and New Challenges
- Chuck Morgan noted that the STIP partnership is key
to making scientific knowledge accessible to the scientific
community and making it visible to the public. He
recognized particularly the successful transition to an
electronic environment from the traditional 54-year-old
paper-based process and the collaborative nature of the effort,
which marked a revolutionary change in the day-to-day STI
practices of everyone in the STIP group. This achievement earned
the STIP Community a 1999 Hammer Award from the National
Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR). Chuck then
presented Hammer Award certificates to the following individuals
who represented the 96-member STIP community: Kathy Macal, of
the STI Managers; Carol Duncan, of the STIP Working Group; and
Dennis Gound, of the Technical Information Officers. All sites
present at the STIP meeting received a commemorative plaque.
Chuck noted that, in this fast-paced information age, STIP must
continue to be proactive, innovative, and resourceful. He
challenged the group to improve STI in the following five
specific areas:
1. Improve
quality of announcement records submitted and routinely provide
STI electronically. With a majority of the national
laboratories and major contractor facilities using E-Link, OSTI
is now receiving over 75 percent of the announcement records
electronically and over 30 percent of the full-text STI products
in electronic formats or URLs. One
lesson learned by OSTI was that machine-aided indexing just
didn't work. For FY 2000, the report processing was
outsourced to reduce the level of OSTI resources. Another
significant change in the near future will be to cease
abstracting and indexing for DOE STI. Once implemented, records
received without optional fields (keywords, subject categories,
or an abstract) will be released into InfoBridge and other
products (as appropriate) more expeditiously to timely announce
the STI. More information on the implementation and anticipated
impacts will be provided at future STIP teleconferences.
2. Add legacy
collections to Information Bridge to continue to make it a more
comprehensive collection of full-text accessible STI.
Through our partnership, via the DOE Information Bridge, 50,000
technical reports and over 3 million full-text pages of DOE's
R&D results are now accessible and searchable online. The
inclusion of legacy information is now a primary focus. Legacy
information is being added in cooperation with specific sites (Fermilab
and LANL at present). Sites that have scanned legacy documents
are encouraged to inform OSTI. In the coming months, OSTI will
be actively seeking opportunities to include more full text STI
in the DOE Information Bridge.
3. Ensure that
classified and limited STI documents are included in the STI
collection. Much of our focus the past couple of years
has been on publicly releasable STI and, most recently, on
software. The management of STI includes all categories.
Classified STI and various limited STI should not be overlooked
but should also be announced to OSTI. Our efforts this year will
focus on improving this area.
4. Expand
coverage through the E-Journal initiative. The
recent unveiling of PubSCIENCE makes the e-journal initiative
even more relevant. By having the electronic journal consortium
agreements in place, access to full-text journals is made
possible from the PubSCIENCE citation search.
5. Take
advantage of the R&D Accomplishments database and web
site to make your laboratory's accomplishments known in an
easily retrievable format. R&D Accomplishments provides a
forum to display the tangible results made by DOE's R&D
programs.
Product Announcements and Demonstrations - Sharon
Jordan announced the following new OSTI products, which were
demonstrated by Rita Hohenbrink:
1. PubSCIENCE (http://pubsci.osti.gov)
lets users navigate across hundreds of bibliographic
citations from multiple scientific journals and link to full
text provided by the publishers. It was unveiled October 12 in a
ribbon-cutting event at DOE Headquarters. PubSCIENCE has gained
the interest and support of many prestigious publishers, and it
currently offers access to over 1,000 separate journal titles. The
STIP e-journal collaboration for consortium license agreements
is even more relevant by providing the full text links to
journals from citations located in PubSCIENCE. Increasing
journal coverage for scientific publications of interest to DOE
is an ongoing effort.
2. ETDEWEB (http://www.etde.org/ETDEWEB/)
is the ETDE World Energy Base, an international product
similar to the DOE Information Bridge. Ribbon cutting will be
held November 16 in Paris. It features changes that are upcoming
for the "next generation" version of the DOE/DOE
Contractor and Public Information Bridges, based on the new
metadata fields and improved search and display screens. DOE and
contractors can obtain access to the ETDE version if desired.
3. EDBWeb (http://www.osti.gov/edbweb/),
a web version of the Energy Science and Technology
Database (familiarly called "EDB"), is currently in
testing stage. It contains 3.8 million citations from 1974
through 1998, presented in the Dublin Core-based data structure.
When the product is completed, OSTI intends to offer the full
EDB, updated regularly, to DOE and contractors without charge.
The product will be available in December.
4. PrePRINT Network
(http://www.osti.gov/eprints)
is a new project aimed at making distributed sources of
preprints searchable and accessible through a central interface.
Preprints are viewed as the 3rd component of STI,
complementing the gray literature in InfoBridge and journal
publications now accessible through PubSCIENCE. OSTI will soon
be lining up alpha and beta testers.
5. EnergyPortal
Search on EnergyFiles (http://www.osti.gov/EnergyFiles/);
then choose Energy Portals Search) allows a distributed
search to be conducted with one query. A searcher can use
EnergyPortal to search across as many as 25 databases and over
450 web sites.
6. R&D
Accomplishments (http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments)
was unveiled in March to increase the visibility and
recognition of past DOE R&D. A new feature is the
"snapshots" page, intended to complement the database
by offering links to overviews, pictures, web pages, and other
brief forms of information about accomplishments. The items
listed report the outcome of past R&D that had a significant
economic impact, improved lives, or is widely recognized as a
significant scientific advancement. (See viewgraphs
showing the DOE laboratories or other DOE elements that have
either authored an accomplishment report or are mentioned within
a report or snapshot.) Submissions of such material to OSTI are
welcomed. Mary Du Rea is the product manager. For additional
information about any of these products, contact the respective
product managers or the STIP group at OSTI.
Status of Task
Forces and Special Interest Groups
Changes in
Software Management - Sharon Jordan reported
on the completed work of the Software Transition Subgroup (see viewgraphs).
The group, led by Cindy Crego of Fermilab, was formed in
November 1998 to transition the software procedures to the
electronic environment as had been done for other STI products.
The revision to Part III of the Guide (see the draft revised
Guide for proposed changes) represents the collective effort of
this group, which has now been completed. Noteworthy changes
include combining multiple software submission forms into one
new form similar to the DOE F 241.1 and accepting URLs in lieu
of software if the software meets criteria for
freeware/shareware.
STI Information
Modules as a Distance Learning Tool - Kathy
Waldrop discussed the possibility of using a DTIC STIP Distance
Learning Tool to create a DOE STIP Distance Learning Tool. The
interest in having such a tool still remains, therefore OSTI
will participate as a beta-tester of the DTIC STIP Distance
Learning Tool. The results of the beta-test and the potential
for forming a Task Force to conduct a feasibility study to
create a DOE STIP Distance Learning Tool will be discussed at a
future STIP teleconference.
Information
Module III: STI Best Business Practices
- Ruth Belanger (YMP) presented a brief overview of the
processes used to compile Information Module III. The rational
for the structure and the information was discussed. Information
Module III includes general directions pointing the user to the
DOE Order and Guide, a section on sensitivity reviews, and a
section on electronic formats. The STIP partners responded
favorably to the information provided.
E-Journals: New
Agreements - Carol Backhus (LBNL) provided an update
on the E-Journal SIG activities. The Group is using existing
survey information on 22 sites to provide demographics to
publishers to encourage additional publisher involvement in the
collaborative arrangement. Additionally, plans are under way to
contact non-participating Departmental sites individually in an
effort to expand DOE participation in the consortia as well. The
Elsevier/LANL arrangement will include 11 participating sites by
the end of the calendar year, with one additional site pending.
An Elsevier Title Review Working Group was recently formed whose
interest is to expand the number of titles available to DOE. The
Group is analyzing information requested from DOE sites
regarding current subscription cycles and Elsevier titles to
determine how to leverage ongoing agreements. Discussions are
ongoing with DOE's Integrated Contractor Purchasing Team to
determine if their coordination of SIG interests would be
advantageous to the Group.
Report from the
October LOWG Meeting - Randy Hoffman (ORNL)
summarized points of interest from the Library Operations
Working Group (LOWG) meeting relevant to the STIP community.
LOWG members have been active in the STIP goal groups ; of
particular value to LOWG members is access to online journals.
NTIS is an important resource to LOWG, which expressed concern
about the potential discontinuation of services provided by NTIS
particularly for full text copies of government reports; OSTI
was encouraged to support and represent their needs in Agency
responses to the draft legislation. LOWG also cited the
importance of international literature and encouraged OSTI to
continue efforts to provide access to international literature
within DOE scope. Libraries are providing more information at
the desktop, as desired by researchers and other users. LOWG
fully supports OSTI's initiative for the new EDBWeb product and
recommended that OSTI and the STIP community involve the library
community as key information resources in various STI
initiatives.
DOEDIR Concept
Paper: R&D Visibility - Karen Spence
reviewed
the purpose and past efforts of the R&D Visibility Working
Group. The history involved EnergyFiles and the
distributed search capability that served as a foundation for a
virtual library with one-stop shopping, prompting OSTI's vision
of a National Library of Energy Science and Technology. After
sharing the idea at the May 1998 InForum meeting, many questions
remained about resource requirements, working relationships,
users, and content. The DOE R&D Visibility Working Group was
then formed to tackle these issues. At the November 1998 STIP
Meeting, a subgroup (members: Dennis Hall, LBNL; Kathy Macal,
ANL; Lois Holmes, PNNL; Beth Perry, Amarillo; Barbara Ashdown,
ORNL) was tasked to investigate further. This group prepared the
Analysis of Users, Benefits, Content, and other information
reported at the May 1999 STIP meeting. In the last few weeks,
two things have occurred: (1) the subgroup compiled the May
information into the draft concept paper provided here, and (2)
at the PubSCIENCE Ribbon cutting, Dr. Martha Krebs endorsed the
concept, stating that "with this exceptional suite of
electronic products to guide us into the new millennium, the
concept of a national library of energy science and technology
could become a key initiative in the realization of the
Secretary's vision of a Department of Energy working for the
American people."
The paper outlined the
collective thoughts to-date on this concept. Opportunities exist
to increase public recognition of DOE R&D by enhancing
visibility of DOE's accomplishments and to improve access to STI
by the global scientific community. Strategies are to develop
and operate a DOEDIR of selected information resources of the
STIP community, using a Web-based foundation. It would be
operated by a consortium through a new level of STIP
partnership, not requirement. The objectives are increased
visibility and improved access. Management would be
consortium-based with OSTI providing federal oversight and
facilitation. DOEDIR has a relationship to TIMP, but goes beyond
compliance to a new level of partnership. The consortium
structure was defined, as well as how decisions on proposals
would be handled. The Head of DOEDIR is federally funded (role
included seek funding; by laws were developed for the draft
charter). The concept also addressed proposals, funding sources,
peer review, implementation, and monitoring. Attachments
provided the Audience/Info/Benefits; Summary Benefits; and
Potential Participants.
After the summary of the concept
paper, an open discussion was held. OSTI stated its belief in
the concept as being the right thing to do. Our focus is on the
Department and its customers, not individual lab roles. There is
high-level endorsement of the concept and high hopes for funding
endorsement as well. Collaboration has its good points, but
progress is slow due to different missions and priorities.
The STI Managers agreed with the
concept of linking distributed resources, but stated a
significant concern for the bureaucracy of consortium structure.
Other stated concerns from the labs dealt with costs, resources,
users, and mission. A commitment was made to re-direct user
inquiries to OSTI to relieve concerns of resource burdens. It
was noted that, with the electronic STI and Web developments
over the past couple of years, we are close to declaring
victory.
At the close of the discussion,
the following agreements were reached:
- The STIP Community endorses
the idea of a web site (with links and search tools) for
one-stop shopping for DOE information.
- The basics of the concept
paper should not be lost, but avoid the bureaucracy.
- OSTI is to move forward and
pursue the concept.
- OSTI will seek funding to
support web service component.
- STIP will serve as an
Advisory Council for OSTI, to be asked for feedback on new
initiatives and collection development, which OSTI will
consider in the decision-making process and will give formal
feedback.
- OSTI and STIP will consider
standards/principles for sharing, similar to Best Business
practices.
- Get OSTI more visible on DOE
Home Page and Web.
- Nobody likes DOEDIR name;
another one will be chosen that people will recognize
(example: Digital Library Program).
- Various media types should be
included for content.
- Consider users and their
technical capabilities.
OSTI will pursue the effort and
pursue better ways to get feedback on new development and
existing products.
Classified,
Declassified, and Limited STI Issues and Activities - Sharon
Jordan reminded the group that STIP and the STI objectives,
requirements, and procedures apply not only to
unclassified/unlimited STI but also to classified, declassified,
and limited STI (see viewgraphs).
A focus of OSTI in the next year will be to strengthen coverage
of these forms of STI. Several issues were raised regarding
providing access to limited STI and the recent initiatives
related to information security, such as export control. It was
suggested that a team of interested parties be created to look
at issues and work toward improving guidance and/or facilitating
communication across various DOE elements.
Special Character
Sets - Now and in the Future - Rita Hohenbrink
described the existing problem of multiple special character
sets being used in exchanging electronic STI metadata and full
text (see slides
and handout).
It was agreed that the issue was appropriate for a STIP special
interest group to investigate and make a recommendation. Several
attendees volunteered to participate and to provide names of
participants from their organizations. Rita will convene a
teleconference of those who indicated interest.
ETDE/International
Program Update - Chuck Morgan provided an
overview of OSTI's International Program and related activities
(see viewgraphs).
Due to budget constraints, OSTI solicited STIP input and support
on the value of international STI to the success of the DOE
mission. STI points of contact provided input on the benefit of
having international STI as a component of the STI collection
and agreed to voice support where possible as a continued
activity of OSTI's STI Program.
Potential Impacts
of the Possible Closure of NTIS - Karen Spence
gave an update on OSTI's activities to ensure that issues and
potential impacts related to the possible closure of NTIS are
addressed. She also noted the status of the Commerce
Department's draft legislation and OSTI's involvement in DOE's
comment process. OSTI is involved through the interagency STI
forum called CENDI, as well as interagency agreements with NTIS
and GPO that fulfill DOE mandates, which historically dealt with
paper or microfiche but now are handled with electronic
full-text access though the Information Bridge. The draft
Commerce legislation has prompted much testimony and informal
comments/response. OSTI's comments focused on having a central
point of access, not a centralized collection. Other concerns of
the draft legislation were the seeming redundancy between GPO
and the Library of Congress: Executive vs. Legislative powers;
service to paper copy requesters; the definition of unclassified
and unlimited STI, not nonclassified; the disposition of the
NTIS archives and assets held in trust; the mandated 5-year
agency availability; and the proposed annual IG reporting. While
OSTI is commenting on draft legislation, OSTI plans to continue
Information Bridge and include legacy data by converting paper
to electronic. The provision of EDBWeb for DOE will also help
ameliorate potential impacts.
WAS Order
Revision Follow-up - Susan Tackett noted that
the Work Authorization System (WAS) Order was revised and
reissued as DOE O 412.1 by the Office of Field Management in
April 1999. The Order was effective 10/1/99. Implementation is
to coincide with the FY2000 budget process. New requirements
cited in the Order that impact STI were highlighted and
discussed. OSTI implementation strategies were related including
modification of both the paper and web-based 241.1 announcement
form to accept field work proposal and work authorization number
information as well as software changes to manage the data
across multiple systems. It was acknowledged that implementation
strategies will vary across sites to include the additional
information on DOE announcement records. Sites were encouraged
to share strategies and procedures to provide the data as new
processes are defined to foster use of best practices (see viewgraphs.)
Overview and
Demonstration of the EWAS System - Mary
Rawlins, Program Manager for the Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy, at Oak Ridge Operations Office, provided an
overview of the DOE Electronic Work Authorization System (EWAS).
Michael Fielden, ORNL, subsequently demonstrated the
application. The EE-developed pilot, funded by the Office of
Transportation Technology (OTT), was designed to facilitate the
transfer of funds from DOE HQ to the various Operations/Field
Offices and DOE contractors. The existing paper version of the
work authorization can be completely replaced with this
electronic version. The system is currently being piloted in OTT
with subsequent use planned throughout EE and DOE if interest
warrants.
Discussion followed indicating
that DOE implementation of this system is the needed link
between FWP submission and the R&D Tracking Database to
accomplish corporate life-cycle management of R&D-funded
projects performed by designated management and operating
(M&O), management and integrating (M&I), and
environmental restoration management (ERMC) contracts. The
combined entities would provide the ability to track all aspects
of the work authorization from initiation to final approval
through final implementation; could be linked to related STI
full-text deliverables via EnergyFiles, InfoBridge, and
PubSCIENCE; as well as to project results in the R&D
Tracking Database System. The decision is pending regarding
Departmental implementation.
Review of
Proposed Guide Changes - Kathy Waldrop led a
review and discussion of the draft Guide revisions (see revised
guide), which included recommendations from the STIP
community. The primary revisions are the replacement of Part III
to incorporate the software changes, as well as placing
additional emphasis on guidance for export controlled, sensitive
or classified STI. Other revisions are editorial or information
updates. In an attempt to avoid the burden of addressing major
issues during the formal Sunset Review process beginning January
2000, the STIP meeting participants were asked to address
concerns during the meeting or to submit additional
recommendations to Kathy Waldrop no later than December 3.
Removing Barriers
to the Electronic Transition - Sharon Jordan
indicated that, of the over 40 sites routinely
announcing/submitting STI, only two of the smaller DOE
contractor sites are not sending metadata records electronically
(see chart).
However, several sites have not transitioned to providing
electronic full text. The transition to electronic has required
effort equally on the part of OSTI and on the various STI
originating sites.
New Features of
E-Link - Rita Hohenbrink noted that an
improved user interface is under development. Features will
include the capability to retrieve and revise records to ensure
that quality of the metadata can be maintained. For example, one
typical problem is a bad URL or filename, causing an error in
matching the full-text. The E-Link user group will be supplied
access to the draft user interface by the end of November in
order to review and provide comments. Lynn Davis, E-Link Product
Manager, will discuss the new features with the users at the
next teleconference.
Case Studies
- Individuals from four sites shared information about
their respective experiences in making the electronic
transition. (1) Carol Backhus (LBNL) explained that the LBNL
Library has created a facility for gathering bibliographic data
and full-text files electronically (see viewgraphs).
The data is then loaded into a database and reformatted into
various products such as: a patent clearance form; web screens;
email to printing coordination, report coordination, and reprint
ordering. The database information is automatically formatted
into DOE Form 241.1 SGML format and transmitted to OSTI via
E-Link. (2) Carol Duncan (LLNL) presented LLNL's process of
delivering STI to the Web. LLNL has provided authors
step-by-step instructions for Web submittal. They have 28,000
PDFs on their Web site. Currently they use the web 241.1 for
announcing to OSTI, but they are working on using the batch
241.1 form submittal in future. (3) Chris Forbes, representing
Bechtel Hanford, Inc. (BHI), made a presentation
that identified one contractor's initiatives and activities in
support of the STIP goal to implement protocols for electronic
development and dissemination of STI. The presentation showed
how BHI has eliminated all hard copy transmittals to OSTI.
Relying primarily on generation of metadata files in PDF, BHI
only sends a metadata record to OSTI. The record contains a
unique URL for each document, and the URL is accessed through
the Electronic Library that is available through the Richland
Environmental Restoration Project web site. (4) Dave Hamrin (ORNL)
described their commitment made in FY 1999 to begin the
transition to electronic STI, as indicated in an ORNL
performance measure and a memorandum.
Although the effort has had its ups and downs, ORNL is now
making progress both in their internal procedures and in their
submittal of electronic STI using the PDF format.
Current Issues
- Sites that are still struggling to make the
electronic transition were encouraged to learn from the
experiences of others such as those shared. It was noted that
OSTI's focus this year will be electronic full text, since
electronic metadata has become more routine. No other issues
were raised, but it was noted that the E-Link User
teleconferences have been helpful.
Summary and Next
Steps - Before closing the meeting, an open
discussion was held, where a few additional topics were raised.
Travel restrictions are an
ongoing issue. Mary White suggested only annual STIP meetings be
held, along with regular teleconferences. Kathy Macal agreed to
the annual meeting suggestion and recommended it would be more
cost-effective if held at a travel "hub" rather than
in Oak Ridge. There was also discussion on the value of InForum.
OSTI will make a decision on next spring's InForum meeting
within the next few weeks. Feedback needs to be gathered; Kathy
Macal suggested polling the STI community to see how many will
be planning to attend InForum. For anyone having questions on
handling radioactive leather log books, Kathy Macal may be
contacted.
Karen Spence then
summarized the following accomplishments and agreements of the
meeting:
- We shared in recognition of
STIP collaboration success.
- We were challenged to focus
on electronic transition, full text, classified information,
e-journal expansion, and R&D Accomplishments.
- Several new and upcoming STI
tools/resources were demonstrated.
- We agreed to endeavor to have
these tools/resources more prominently linked on the DOE
Home Page.
- We agreed to push forward
with software management changes, pursue distance learning
tools, continue e-journal initiative, and work on best
business practices.
- LOWG is a key resource for
reaching researchers, and we are addressing LOWG's concerns
related to NTIS and international information.
- STIP endorsed the concept of
a web site for linking DOE's distributed electronic
information resources, and OSTI will pursue this effort.
- OSTI agreed to pursue better
feedback mechanisms for ideas on products/services using
STIP as an "Advisory Council."
- STIP agreed to spend some
time considering classified, declassified, and controlled
access information.
- STIP agreed to identify
participants to address Special Character Sets.
- We learned the status and
importance of the Work Authorization System and had good
demonstration of the EWAS system; encouraged to share info
with your contacts and plans to pursue adoption by the CFO.
- We committed to get Guide
changes identified by December 3 in order to start the
Formal Sunset Review.
- OSTI agreed to consider
mechanisms for announcing ECI and similar information for
the US Public.
- OSTI summarized changes to
E-Link which will hopefully make things easier on users.
- We committed to solicit
feedback and make a decision regarding InForum.
- We heard that, related to the
E-Journal consortium, some sites are having trouble with
vendors, thus the need to reinforce with sales staff that
Consortium deal isn't the only route.
The meeting closed with our
thanks to meeting hosts Janine Ford and Dechelle Christmas of
the Nevada Operations Office. They provided a great deal of
support and excellent logistics, as well as arranging the
optional tours. OSTI also thanked all STIP attendees for coming
and participating in the discussion which made for an excellent
meeting. Meeting was then adjourned. |