STIP Managers Teleconference

October 10, 2007

OSTI’s 60^th Anniversary Highlights (Sharon Jordan): Sharon reported on OSTI activities in support of OSTI’s 60^th anniversary. In addition to numerous retirees, key participants and speakers included Jeffrey Salmon, Associate Under Secretary of Science, U.S. Department of Energy; Eugene Garfield, Chairman Emeritus of Thomson Scientific; and Walter Warnick, OSTI Director. In addition, Congressman Zach Wamp delivered pre-recorded video comments. Go to www.osti.gov/60th/celebration for more information, transcripts and photographs documenting the event.

SC Reorganization (Sharon Jordan): As reported during the last teleconference, SC was planning a reorganization which was announced in the September timeframe. Overall, this reorganization was minor. There is no longer a CIO function in Science and OSTI (now SC-44) reports to the Deputy Director for Resource Management.

DOE O 241.1A (Sharon Jordan): As reported earlier, the STI order was one identified as being slated for review this year. Concurrently, a white paper was issued earlier this year on the overall Directive process. OSTI is coordinating with Headquarters and changes to the order are anticipated. These include clarifications on the review and release function and related responsibilities, definition of STI, reference to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and a notation of the R&D records schedule function which, pending NARA’s approval, addresses the submission of STI to OSTI.

STIP Visits (Judy Gilmore): In September, OSTI Staff spent a productive week in south east Washington State meeting with representatives from the Federal offices (Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection) and with staff at Fluor Hanford, Washington Closure Hanford, and of course Pacific Northwest National Lab. Traveling from OSTI was Judy Gilmore, Kathy Waldrop, David Bellis our Classified Programs Manager, and Dave Gottholm who many of the STI Managers met at our Spring STIP meeting. Much of the work conducted in the Richland area is of course devoted to clean-up, one web-site describing this as the world’s largest environmental cleanup project. That was one focus of discussion and consensus was met that yes, even for these large projects that are devoted to environmental clean-up, there is STI to be submitted and shared for the benefit of others. Also, it was well known that PNNL has an effective STI program for its publicly available STI. What was really impressive was the level of management support that is evident at PNNL for sharing STI results. Also at PNNL, classified submissions were discussed and through face to face discussions with the right people, progress was made in this area. A lot of planning and coordination went into this week and appreciation was expressed for those involved. Also, Marsha Fish is the newly named STI manager for Washington Closure Hanford. OSTI will be following up on items specific to some of the Richland-area sites, but we also discussed topics that are of interest to other sites such as being able to edit harvested records. We are looking at sites for visits next year and if you would like to request a visit during FY08, please let us know. Sometimes there may be new management involved in the STI process, and it makes sense to have a renewed focus on the program or if there has been a significant development in the STI process.

UCNI – Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information (Judy Gilmore): There is some new proposed rulemaking on Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information (see http://regulations.justia.com/view/89571/). Thanks to Kim Johnson at Argonne for letting us know about a that was mentioned at ARMA. As reported on the ARMA web site: The Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to amend regulations that prohibit the unauthorized dissemination of certain unclassified but sensitive information identified as Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information (UCNI). DOE is amending these regulations to clarify the types of information that may be identified as UCNI to prevent overly broad application of UCNI controls and to streamline the UCNI program by simplifying the process for identifying information as UCNI. Written comments are due by November 13. A public hearing will be held in Washington, D.C., October 29. Requests to speak at the hearing must be received by October 22.

The OSTI classification officer was unable to participate in the teleconference but did share some bullets that the STIP community should be aware of.  There is on the Federal Register a proposal to change parts of 10 CFR 1017, which addresses the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Section 148 (the UCNI section).  The goal is to:

1. describe more precisely the information that may be identified as UCNI
2. add new definitions intended to more clearly define the kind of information that may be identified as UCNI
3. simplify and streamline the UCNI program based on experience gained in the program to date
4. describe a number of conforming technical changes.

Each site should be aware of the proposed changes and potential impacts on their programs.  Kansas City Plant, Yucca Mountain, WIPP, Pantex Plant, are mentioned as examples of sites that might be affected by the changes.  A change on reviewing documents will impact OSTI, and maybe other sites for legacy reports.  There will be a new definition of "widely disseminated in the public domain".  Here are some items of interest: 3. Clarification of the Concept of ``Widely Disseminated in the Public Domain'' DOE proposes to clarify the concept of ``widely disseminated in the public domain.'' In Sec.  1017.6(b)(2) of the current regulations, a document that has been at any time ``widely disseminated in the public domain'' cannot be protected as UCNI. The intent of this language was to make clear that documents that were not only widely disseminated in the past, but also are currently available in the public domain cannot be protected as UCNI. However, the concept of ``widely disseminated in the public domain'' was not intended to apply to documents that were disseminated in the past but are no longer available. A document that cannot be located during a reasonable search is not considered ``widely disseminated in the public domain'' and is eligible to be protected as UCNI today. For example, a report sent to a university library in 1960 that cannot be located today at the university library or anywhere else would not be ``widely disseminated in the public domain.'' Therefore, copies of the report held by DOE may be protected as UCNI. DOE proposes to address the concept of ``widely disseminated in the public domain'' in a new section, proposed Sec.  1017.15 (``Review Process''), which is intended to further clarify the concept by describing more clearly the process for reviewing documents or material for UCNI in order to minimize the likelihood of UCNI controls being erroneously applied. It was noted by one of the participants that there is a lack of understanding on the Federal Depository Library function. Sites are encouraged to review and provide comments, and now is the time to hopefully effect necessary changes before changes are noted in the RevCom process

Subject Categories (Judy Gilmore): A presentation on Subject Categories and the fact that it is time to make some adjustments and additions to the categories was the topic of a presentation made at the Spring STIP meeting. Jannean Elliott at OSTI lead a review and analysis and had considered sites’ input during the review process. In April, it was proposed that four new subject categories be added to the existing subject categories, these new additions were: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global Climate Change Studies and Climate Mitigation, Genomics/Genome Research, and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. At this time, after further review and input, it is proposed that instead of adding four new categories, that two new ones be added: Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The Global Climate Change Studies will be addressed under the Environmental Sciences Category and Genomics would be addressed within the existing Basic Biological Sciences. Also, as previously discussed, there is international coordination that must take place. There is a meeting in a few weeks in Vienna of the ETDE/INIS Joint Technical Committee and update to the subject categories is already on the agenda. We have briefed Debbie Cutler, our International Programs Manager, on what is needed for DOE coverage and an update will be provided in December, along with hopefully a timeframe for implementation. Also, under consideration is coverage of environmental clean-up initiatives.

DOEpatents (Daphne Evans) - On September 18, 2007, OSTI launched DOepatents, a searchable database of patents funded by DOE and predecessor agencies, including records from the 1940s to the present. The database consists of bibliographic records, with full text where available via either a PDF file or an HTML link to the record at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Highlighted at DOepatents is a compilation of noteworthy DOE innovations from the past few decades. The database is updated frequently with new patent records; the Web site is updated on a regular basis with news and information about significant and recent inventions. Resource links for inventors are included at the site, as well as Recent Inventions and Patent News pages. The STIP community was asked to review the test site earlier this year.  We also received assistance from communications and intellectual property personnel at the various labs.  They provided news items and photos to be highlighted at the site, and have agreed to continue to provide these for future updates.  We appreciate all the assistance we received throughout this project.  This is a link to the flyer:

http://www.osti.gov/resource_flyers/DOEpatents.pdf

Data (Jannean Elliott): The DOE Data Inventory (DDI), a small but unique database will be launched late in 2007 or early January 2008.  The database will identify collections of DOE-funded research data and provide links to those collections at their source.  These collections are primarily numeric data but may also be collections of computer simulations, multimedia collections or image collections that are scientific in nature, interactive data maps, or databases that are a “specialized mix” of text and non-text items.  Some of these collections reside in DOE Data Centers; others are hosted at Scientific User Facilities, and others may be found somewhere on a laboratory web page, a university web page, even a project web page.  However, whether DOE is the primary funding source or only one of several, the goal of the DDI project is to find these collections, describe them, and provide access to them through a link.  The DDI tool will provide both search and browse capabilities.  Citations are being developed only for collections at this point.  Users will link out to the source and search for individual data files or items by using the specialized tools provided by the owners of the data.

Miscellaneous:

Two updates to Elink were noted. First, Elink now has a ‘copy’ capability so that the content of an Elink record may be copied into a new record with a new OSTI ID. Sites may then review the new records and make any necessary edits. In addition, information regarding Protected Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and the responsibility of sites to not submit such information is now noted on the Elink homepage, the Help page and in the FAQs.

Also, in the upcoming year the STIP homepage will be updated and one feature that may be incorporated is to highlight the various STIP programs/activities across the complex. More information will be forthcoming on a future call.