STIP Managers Teleconference July 16, 2003

STIP Managers/representatives participating in July 16 Teleconference:

Dave Hamrin (ORNL), Pam Novak (PNNL), Mary Petersen (BNL), Dennis Gound (ORO), Mina Perrin (SRO), Dale Claflin (INEEL), Yolanda Bolivar (ALO), Kathy Macal (ANL), Stephanie Janicek (LMIT), Bettie Moore (YMP), Isom Harrison (LLNL), Dorothy Martin (SNL), Cathy Wright (ALRC), Carl Robertson (IDO), Linda Rhode (CHO), Amy Lawless (ORISE), Diane Cannel, Donna Lawson (Y-12), Allison Easter (AMES), Kim Kendrew (JLAB), Sharon Jordan (OSTI), Jannean Elliott (OSTI), and Kathy Waldrop (OSTI).

OSTI Organizational Changes (Sharon Jordan) - Rita Hohenbrink retired June 30^th. Fourteen of 69 OSTI employees took this early buyout from the Office of Science, so the impact is considerable (that's about 20% of the OSTI federal staff). Chuck Morgan and Chalmers Wilson also retired. The new OSTI organization chart is in the process of being approved. Walt is the Director and R.L. is the Deputy Director. Karen Spence is the Assistant Director for Information Systems, which now incorporates the former Technology Systems organization. R.L. Scott is still the Acting Assistant Director of Program Integration, the group that includes the STIP folks. At this point, the budget for FY 04 looks promising.

DOE O 241.1A (Kathy Waldrop) - A review of this Order was done by the Performance Based Contracts Order Review Panel and as a result, the Contractor Requirements Document was determined to be retained. Some changes are being made to the language in the Applicability section and the references to the Guide are being updated to reflect the current number. These are the only administrative clarifications and are not major. OSTI will apprise the STIP the STIP group as the changes make their way through the directives process.

STIP Home Page (Jannean Elliott) - Jannean is the new harvesting contact. She is a longtime OSTI employee whose last major role in STIP was with the old SGML group. Her contact info will be sent to the STIP community soon. The STIP Home Page is being redesigned as discussed at the spring STIP meeting, and Jannean will be the webmaster of the new page. Right now, she is reviewing the comments from the April Las Vegas meeting and other subsequent comments. A "strawman" site will be created and sent out for comment at a test URL. It should be ready to roll out in about two weeks. Then STIP Managers and their designees will have two weeks to provide comments.

DOE F 241.1 (Kathy Waldrop) - A chart is being created of the field changes which shows Dublin Core names, etc. The distribution limitations were altered and will be included in this package.

Researcher Awareness of STI on the Web (Sharon Jordan) - OSTI sends messages to authors to notify them that their document has been posted. Some authors have minor changes that they call OSTI with, while some authors have called angry because their documents were posted. OSTI wants to ensure, via the STI points of contact, that researchers are aware that their unclassified/unlimited STI will be posted on a public website. Several labs mentioned that they specifically ask the authors if they want their documents posted. Several sites agreed that they could ask the question of the authors at the site before the documents are provided to OSTI. Researcher awareness should improve information quality as well as ensure that no inappropriate content is released.

Miscellaneous (All)

• This was Stephanie Janicek's last Meet-Me Call. She will be sorely missed, and we wish her well.
• Science.gov now includes several hundred URLs of content for DOE, out of about 1700 total URLs for all agencies. The science.gov home page shows the various DOE sites that have URLs listed. Contact Sharon or Valerie Allen to find out how the procedure works if you have additions or corrections.
• Sharon went to the DOE Intellectual Property meeting in May after the spring STIP meeting. SC and DP are encouraging their projects to use open-source software (OSS) and make it publicly available. In case of labs postiing freely available software on their web sites, instead of sending OSTI the software, just send the URL to OSTI on the DOE F 241.4, no the actual software. Submission of the DOE F 241.4 (software announcement form) is still required. The M&O contract language will be modified to include the OSS language, so be prepared to look for this change in the near future.
• It appears that Congress may be thinking about reinforcing the notion that federally funded research should be available to the public. Several articles have appeared recently. If anybody learns more about this, send the item to Kathy so she can distribute to the STIP list.
• OSTI automated e-mails related to STI processing are being rejected by some labs. Apparently, some sites are using some "blacklisting" software that is not recognizing the server's IP address and has caused OSTI's e-mail to bounce back to OSTI. This is impacting the notification process that batch records have been received and whether or not they have been accepted or rejected. This of course impacts E-link users. OSTI needs your assistance in correcting this problem if encountered at your site. Contact Kathy if you believe you are experiencing this problem and we will work together to resolve.

Note: The E-print Network is now available at www.osti.gov/eprints/. It is a revised version of the PrePRINT Network and was launched on July 19. The new site has been expanded and has improved search features. See the new website for "what's new."

The next call will be in September at the regular time.