2005 STIP Meeting

April 20-21, 2005

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Berkeley, California

(Attendee list is attached)

 

 

Wednesday, April 20

 

Welcoming Remarks

The meeting began with opening remarks by host, Jane Tierney. 

 

She discussed LBNL and their relationship to Berkeley.  She emphasized that LBNL does no classified work, and mentioned that ESNET is housed there. 

 

Jane also discussed free access in publishing and the Public Library of Science (PLOS), and noted that she is a strong proponent of free access to scientific literature.  PLOS was co-founded by Michael Eisen, a computational biologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  According to Ms. Tierney, there is increasing tension between “for profit” publishers and OSTI-type publishing; this is an important issue as it results in a large amount of scientific literature not coming to OSTI.  She described the PLOS business model, in which the scientist pays once initially ($1,500), and all peer review, access, distribution, etc, is free thereafter.  There are no copyright constraints.  PLOS is reportedly also committed to providing access “forever,” as opposed to some for profit publishers who may not be willing to maintain older items.  PLOS journals are slowly becoming more prestigious, and Jane suggested that we pay attention and attempt to help increase their publicity and prestige.

 

Jane made a much anticipated announcement that the University of California had another five-year contract from LBNL.

 

Orientation

STI History and Goals
Sharon Jordan began the orientation session by reviewing orientation materials and discussing the history of STIP, emphasizing its culture of partnership.

 

STI is a way to advance science, and involves more than meeting and collecting documents.  OSTI’s unique role revolves around the dissemination of information.

 

An important goal of STIP is innovation.  Partnering with other STIP members is key to balancing dissemination and protection of STI.  We need to share lessons learned in order to leverage “best practices.”

 

Sharon discussed the history of the DOE Order 241.1A, and how it has evolved and been streamlined, as well as its relationship to the Guide 241.1-1A. The definition of STI is also evolving and expanding from traditional “technology reports” to include other forms of science information. Those changes have an impact on our processes and policies.

 

STI Directives, Roles, and Responsibilities
Kathy Waldrop discussed the emerging roles and responsibilities of the STI  managers.  Sensitivity reviews are particularly important since 9/11.  She also discussed product submission options.

Sharon Jordan continued with an explanation about documents submitted to OSTI and where they appear in OSTI products. 

 

Sharon explained that we are working with Google, Yahoo, and MSN so that individual reports are now searchable on the web; however, currently, we are not part of Google Scholar.  That is supposed to change eventually.  Nancy Doran posed a question about Google indexing.  Sharon explained that we provided citation information to Google in their required format in order for our documents to appear in Google search results.

 

Jannean Elliott presented the STIP site and solicited participation.  It was decided that it would be beneficial to STIP members if certain contact lists, e.g. harvesting technical contacts, were posted at the site. 

 

Main Session


Sharon Jordan (OSTI)

Range of OSTI Activities

Sharon discussed the organization of OSTI, as well as how OSTI fits into the Office of Science (SC) and highlighted the different areas that PI is focusing on. OSTI has a close relationship with the SC Office of Communications, and we are still doing work with other HQ offices. We are looking once again at doing more value-added projects that will benefit the sites, specifically in the areas of patents and conferences.

 

Sharon Jordan briefly discussed Science Research Connection (SRC) OSTI’s latest product for the DOE community. Access policies are based on IP authentication and varied levels of user registration.  Sharon discussed other recent enhancements to products, including an alert service for Science.gov.

 

STIP focus areas were discussed, as well as the DOE Directives hierarchy. The notion of a DOE STI Policy document, one that would provide umbrella policy for all types of scientific and technical information, is being explored. We are rethinking business rules for a broader, more distributed STI program.

 

 

Sharon noted that Digital Object Identifiers (DOI’s) are gaining more interest.  Our membership in CrossRef offers us the opportunity to assign DOI’s to DOE documents, and we will explore with sites to see if they are including DOI’s or would want to do it through our membership.   Heath O’Connell was nominated to head a subgroup to explore the issue of DOI.

 

Also, OSTI is considering the archiving and preservation of technical reports hosted by labs.

 

Several relevant OSTI statistics were reviewed. And, the STIP members were reminded of issues that are ongoing, such as the challenges of making STI more visible and more valued.

 

 

Daphne Parker (OSTI)
OSTI Products:  New and Improved

Daphne Parker discussed several OSTI products that are new, or have had recent enhancements.  SRC is the newest product and Phase 1 functionalities were highlighted, including the author selection and taxonomy tool.  Other new products on the horizon are Science Conferences and the patents database.  Products with recent updates include ScienceLab, Federal R&D Project Summaries, DOE R&D Project Summaries, and EnergyFiles.

 

Annanaomi Sams (PNNL), Sharon West (SLAC), Sharon Jordan (OSTI)

Document Mgt and Web Content, Management Process Discussion

Sharon West of SLAC presented information on their management of conference literature.

 

Sharon Jordan provided a current overview of OMB Initiatives, including a handout. 

 

 

Kathy Waldrop

Website Document Review

Kathy Waldrop of OSTI talked about the final phase of website document review, HEDB Migration, as well as the resolution process, and U.S. Dissemination Only Records

 

A question was raised about whether or not authors should be involved in the decision to change items from US Dissemination Only to another access limitation.  Authors alone cannot designate access limitation; however, the Classification Office says that authors need to be involved, particularly if the full text has a limitation marking.  Each site needs to determine the appropriate marking for these items and implement appropriately.  Sites also need to notify OSTI by May 20 of their preference for making the change to the E-Link announcement record(s), whether via global change, DTD, or web form.

 

Sharon discussed requests for documents at OSTI that are unlimited, but hidden.  OSTI will look at the paper copies of old records in the vault, and if the markings are inconsistent, we will ask sites how they want these handled. 

 


Thursday, April 21

 

Walt Warnick

Walt Warnick welcomed everyone and presented Jane Tierney with a plaque in appreciation for hosting the meeting.  Also, commemorative gifts were presented to all STIP members, in recognition of the collaborative success of STIP.

 

Enhancing Collaboration – The Washington Perspective

Walt discussed the idea that STIP is a functioning, innovative collaboration, and discussed the overall STIP mission and future.

 

Enhanced roles and collaborative successes were reviewed, including Science.gov, CENDI, CrossRef, and search engines such as Google.  He iterated that bringing visibility to DOE science should be a constant goal.

 

STIP members were curious about OSTI’s collaboration with Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  Walt explained that we first approached Google, and it was a long process.  We later formed a relationship with Yahoo, and that process was less complicated.  Yahoo recognized the quality of our information and upped our position in their reference rank algorithm.  Both are successful collaborations, and we are now working on forming a relationship with MSN.

 

Walt discussed OSTI’s central and distributed roles, and noted that DOE has the largest share of Federal STI content in the Science.gov alliance.  He mentioned the new features of Science.gov, including the alert service, and said that even more features are on the horizon for 3.0 and 4.0.

 

Walt discussed the GPO partnership, the NSDL collaboration, the CrossRef opportunity, and the SC e-journals project.  Sharon Jordan interposed here with a consortium purchasing journal proposal.  OSTI is willing to expand its service as journal subscription agent from the labs.  Some publishers have indicated a desire for a central purchasing agent for subscriptions.

 

Walt Warnick continued with a discussion of emerging policies and the outcry for different types of Federal STI, including numeric data. Walt also discussed NIH Policy regarding enhancing access to publications, and the recent establishment of STIAB, the Scientific and Technical Information Advisory Board (STIAB).

 

Walt solicited comments from the STIP community regarding the draft of the STI definition.  He ended by touching on some new opportunities in technology and the promising future of STI.

 

 

Pam Novak (PNNL)

Nicole Rantz (LLNL)

Rebecca Reitmeyer (SLAC)

Getting the Attention of Upper Mgt

4Ps of Info Mgt

Methods of Author Outreach to Promote Policy Compliance

 

Pam Novak

Getting the Attention of Upper Mgt

Pam Novak of PNNL discussed ERICA, their Electronic Records and Information Capture Architecture, available for use since 97, but under utilized and not popular with staff.  However, that is changing and each fiscal year shows progress with usage and compliance.  There is a policy requirement for using Erica, but they can publish without going through that system, and compliance is not always enforced as it should be.

 

There was some discussion at this point regarding publishing in a journal as opposed to making articles available in public repositories.  Scientists are not aware of the importance of making their research available through the appropriate channels.  Raising awareness of this issue is a challenge.

 

Nicole Rantz

4Ps of Info Mgt

Nicole Rantz discussed four aspects of information management: Process, Protect, Publish/Disseminate, and Point of Contact.

 

LLNL deployed an electronic review and release system in October 2003; this streamlined their review process from 10 days to 3 days, and allowed staff reallocation to other positions.  Authors have primary responsibility in this process.

 

Nicole discussed how system controls and training are key in protecting sensitive information and how LLNL has made improvements in the areas of publishing and dissemination.  She mentioned that it has been a challenge to explain what OSTI is about, and what it means in relation to publications.  She noted that LLNL promotes a link to OSTI from their site.

 

Points of contact are important in the communication and dissemination of information.  LLNL has selected 18 people to serve as directorate points of contact.
 

Higher visibility of STI can be achieved through training, awareness, reviews, and releases.

 

There was some discussion here about the two previous presentations and how the two document review systems compare to each other.  They are similar. 

 

Rebecca Reitmeyer

Methods of Author Outreach to Promote Policy Compliance

Rebecca Reitmeyer discussed author outreach to promote policy compliance.  SLAC launched their author outreach program in FY 2003 and that program is continuing.  She discussed the major goals and outreach efforts of this program, and its success thus far.

 

Gary Drew, BSO

Tim Lithgow, LBNL

Intellectual Property – Copyright Issues and Patent Process

Gary Drew, DOE Patent Counsel (SLAC, Berkeley, PNNL, Yucca Mtn Project, Bonneville Power)

 

Gary Drew discussed intellectual property issues related to scientific and technical information, including the two types of government copyright licenses, the copyright of scientific and technical articles, software copyright, and open-source software.  He also discussed other types of OSTI reports and issues related to STI.

 

There was some discussion about the proprietary nature of patent application serial numbers.  That is being researched by OSTI staff.

 

There was also discussion of the Fair Use policy and how it relates to copyright.  Gary Drew advised extreme care to avoid litigation.

 

Another question was posed about subcontractor work and whether or there was a requirement that it be sent to OSTI.  Sharon Jordan answered yes, it should be sent.

 

Patty Simmons

STI Metadata:  A Case for Consistency

Patty Simmons discussed the importance of data consistency and outlined the

implementation of our combined E-Link, DTD batch processing, and harvesting changes. She reviewed the 241.1 prototype, including layout, and field changes and additions. She presented slides detailing changes in batch processing and HEDB migration. She also briefly touched on legacy documents.

 

STIP members were asked to provide feedback on the form redesign to Kathy Waldrop or Patty Simmons.  A request was made that we not rely on color alone to designate required fields on forms. Using an asterisk for this purpose was suggested.

 

We need comments regarding the naming of an additional access limitation for the addition of OUO limited distribution for FOIA exemption 2.   It was suggested that a sub team be formed to provide to provide suggestions to the group.

 

Sharon Jordan

Round Table Reports

The group was given an opportunity to ask questions or make comments.  Dave Hamrin, ORNL had a question about non-DOE publications, “The DOE Inspector General is interested in having non-DOE publications (generated using DOE user facilities) wind up at OSTI with an indicator of which user facility was involved… does OSTI, or any DOE site, feel we’re making progress on this front?”  Sharon reported that several data from user facilities is now received regularly, some via harvesting, but she did not have specific statistics this year.

 

Kathy Macal, ANL asked, “What copy is considered the official copy of an article?”

 

A discussion followed on the terms preprint, reprint, and eprint.  Sharon Jordan said it is important how we mark these documents.

 

There was also some discussion here of fair use and copyright.

 

Jannean Elliott

Harvesting 2005

Jannean Elliott reviewed the progress of harvesting since the 2004 STIP meeting, including the fact that migration from the old to the new system is complete, and all sites are now in production on the new system. She emphasized accomplishments achieved due to advantages of the new system.

 

Jannean talked about progress with legacy data and reminded the group that legacy records should not come through harvesting.

 

She ended with “in the near future” goals for harvesting.

 

Heath O’Connell, Fermilab

Travis Brooks, SLAC
E-harvesting and the SPIRES Database         

Heath O’Connell reviewed the evolution of SPIRES and talked about how it is used today.  All FermiLab documents are placed in SPIRES, which makes them easier to find.  He pointed out the advantages of SPIRES both for OSTI, and for the lab.  In summary, he noted that SPIRES is a great way to increase visibility of papers, easily find “leaks,” generate publication reports for directorates, and provides a straightforward way to set up eharvesting with OSTI.

 

 

 

Nancy Doran, PNNL
The PNNL Harvesting Experience
Nancy provided a “lessons learned” story about harvesting.  It concerned the accidental benefit of migrating to the new system, a benefit that resulted in more than a thousand missing records being identified and subsequently harvested.  Her story also served to advise other sites who may harvest in the future to be aware of the “behind the scenes” complexities that can arise, particularly where a combination of factors is involved.  With the new harvesting system’s offset capability, its faster speed, and the internal changes that PNNL made, a leak that was occasionally allowing records to remain unharvested and their loss undetected was plugged.

 

Kathy Waldrop

DOE G 241.1-1A Revisions

Kathy Waldrop presented information regarding the DOE G 241.1-1A revision.  She began by recognizing the Guide Review team and the Software Sub-team. She then provided a detailed summary of proposed changes for the Guide.

 

She also solicited STIP community comments and requested they respond by May 11, the next scheduled STIP conference call.

 

Sharon Jordan

Wrap Up

Sharon Jordan provided closing comments. The meeting ended with discussion of where to meet next year; Chicago was the tentative choice, pending the location of a suitable facility.

 

 

2005 STIP Attendees

 

Nicole Brooks

Technical Information Officer, Idaho Operations Office

Travis Brooks
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Nicole Carson
Office of Environmental Management, National Nuclear Security Administration

Dale Claflin
STI Manager, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental

Christy Collier
STI Manager, BWXT Pantex

Mary Donahue

STI Manager, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Nancy Doran
Assistant Director, Knowledge Management & Information Services
Hanford Technical Library & Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Rodney Drake
STI Manager, Bechtel Nevada

Gary Drew
Berkeley Site Office, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Alison Easter
Scientific and Technical Information Office, Ames Laboratory

Jannean Elliott
Harvesting Manager, U.S. Department Of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Chris Forbes
Document Development and Production Manager, Bechtel, SAIC

Janine Ford
Technical Information Officer, US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration NNSA Service Center

Teresa Gilbert
Cataloging Team Leader, Sandia National Laboratories

Dennis Gound
Technical Information Officer, U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations Office

Dave Hamrin
STI Manager, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Isom Harrison
STI Manager, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Judy Hulstrom
Information Resources Publication Services Team Leader, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Michelle Johnson
Idaho National Laboratory

Sharon Jordan
Assistant Director, U.S. Department Of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Ms. Patricia Kreitz
STI Manager Stanford, Linear Accelerator Center

Tim Lithgow
Technical & Electronic Information Department, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

Kathy Macal
Director of Technical Services, Argonne National Laboratory

Pam Novak
Manager, Scientific and Technical Information Division Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Heath B. O’Connell
Information Resources Manager, FERMI National Accelerator Laboratory

Jose Olivares
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Daphne Parker
Information Specialist, U.S. Department Of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Nicole Rantz
Information Management, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Rebecca Reitmeyer
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Bea Renteria
BWXT Pantex

Annanaomi Sams
Technical Library Manager, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Jessica Shaffer-Gant
Technical Library Information Analyst, Sandia National Laboratories

Patricia Simmons
Technical Information Specialist, U.S. Department Of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Jackie Stack
STI Manager, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Jane Tierney
STI Manager, Department Head Technical & Electronic Information Department

Kathy Waldrop
Scientific and Technical Information Program Field Liaison, U.S. Department Of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Walt Warnick
Director, U.S. Department Of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Sharon West
Electronic Publication Manager, Technical Publications Department, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center