Attendees:
Nicole Carson (NNSA Site Office), Jill Jacoby (BN), Kevin Schmidt (SRS), Allison Easter (AMES), Jackie Stack (LANL), Diane Quenell (YMP), Pam
Novak (PNNL), Nancy Doran (PNNL), Betty Robinette (Y-12), Dennis Gound (ORO/ORNL Site Office), Paula Bragg (SRS), Sharon Jordan (OSTI), Kathy Waldrop (OSTI),
Jannean Elliott (OSTI)
Annual Information Management Conference (AIMC) - Sharon Jordan
The 2005 Annual Information Management Conference (AIMC) will be held in Charlotte,
North Carolina. A couple of years ago the STIP Meeting was held in conjunction
with Annual Information Technology Conference (AITC) in Denver, Colorado. Since
that time, this meeting has had an Interagency type focus, so we opted not to
combine the two meetings. For 2005, the CIO will likely set the agenda for the
AIMC closer to the E-Government initiative and where the Department stands with
that task.
Although we have decided not to hold the 2005 STIP Meeting in conjunction with the AIMC, we did think that if there were 2-3 STIP members interested in giving presentations, it might be possible to have an STI session. When there was an STI session during the AITC a few years ago, it was very well received. Several STI Managers expressed budget concerns as a barrier to their participation, however, there may be others who are interested in presenting at the AIMC. If you are interested in presenting an STI topic as a part of a possible STI track, please contact Sharon Jordan by November 29, 2004.
R&D Data Call - Kathy Waldrop
There has been a slight delay with the annual R&D Data Call due to a software
upgrade to R&D Tracking. One of the changes is the some of the validation is
being done before it actually gets to OSTI, therefore sites will automatically
know if there are problems. As an example, some sites put an “O” in a field
that required data instead of real data. This type of information will not pass
validation in the future.
The upgrade has been completed and the CFO is expected to sign the Data Call memo
this week. So the FY04 R&D Data Call could begin as early as November 23rd
or as late as the 29th. At this time, sites will begin to submit test files to
OSTI to ensure accuracy of submitting the actual data.
Although some of you don’t have direct responsibility for the R&D Data Call, please check on your site’s submission status periodically. When OSTI recognizes there is a delay with a particular site, it is not uncommon that we would contact the site’s STI Manager to follow-up on the matter to ensure compliance. If you need to know the name of your site’s R&D Data Call POC, please contact Delores Brabson at 865-576-1321.
Because the PI’s name and contact information will now be available in the record, a question was raised about their personal security. Might they not be more vulnerable if terrorists, for example, can identify who’s working on sensitive defense systems, etc. The response was a reminder that the really sensitive projects aren’t viewable in the public database.
DOE
F 241.1 Status - Kathy Waldrop
A lot of hard work and a lot of time has passed to get an approved revision of the
DOE F 241.1. Now OSTI is having in-house meetings to discuss the functional
requirements. As mentioned in the past, we said we wanted to have consistency in
fields and for validation purposes across the various methods for making the
announcement data available to us (i.e., webform, DTD, and harvesting. These
meetings could last weeks or longer and any issues raised have to be resolved
before design begins. Our goal is to have something to share at the STIP Meeting
in April 2005.
Harvesting Update - Jannean Elliott
These past six weeks or so have been difficult for harvesting in terms of the impact felt from events happening with
other tasks and systems. For most of October harvesting was unable to conduct test runs due to systems failures
that affected the test area for all of OSTI’s databases and products. Then, soon after the test area came back online, harvesting had to pause
while the software upgrade to Dublin Core/E-link was made. When that was completed, we discovered that the old harvesting system
would no longer function correctly. We were close to putting it to bed anyway, so it was not a great loss. However, it means that LLNL and NREL will start their test
runs on the new system immediately and will be forced to move into production on the new system more quickly.
In spite of the various delays of these past few weeks, we do have progress to report. Fermilab has completed their mapping and preparation phase and has moved into full testing. Their test runs will take place on Wednesday nights. Also, INEEL is active again and will be starting test runs shortly after Thanksgiving.
Software Upgrade - Kathy Waldrop
Some of you may recall receiving an e-mail from me on November 4, regarding an upgrade to our software that would impact E-Link records moving to Information
Bridge (IB) and Energy Citations Database (ECD). Beginning November 4, OSTI began upgrading our Oracle software from 8i to 9i. One of the main reasons for
the sudden upgrade was due to the fact that Oracle was no longer going to provide support for 8i.
During the time it took for the upgrade, E-Link was
still available and records and full-text could still be submitted via E-Link, however, the information was not updated in IB and ECD until November 16. If
sites are concerned about whether their data was actually moved to IB and ECD, please feel free to check and let OSTI know if there are any issues that need to
be addressed. One of the other benefits of the upgrade is that E-Link should not be as slow as it had become.
Miscellaneous – All
The question was raised as to whether OSTI was aware of the DOE Corporate Knowledge Management Policy currently under review. OSTI
is aware and has reviewed and commented on that document. We have let them know that their inclusion of STI is inappropriate and needs to be changed.
BNL had questions about this policy and Sharon clarified that OSTI’s move to a distributed information management mode a couple of years ago had, indeed, been a policy change. Sites muct choose between sending OSTI full text and allowing us to link to it on our server (in which case, we are the official record holder) or posting it on their own servers, sending us the URL, and remaining the record holder until such time as they wish to take it down and send it to OSTI.
Mary Petersen brought up the related question of the review and release forms. She said that her records management people seem to be looking at those forms as report control files that have to live as long as the reports themselves. She asked what the other sites were doing with their older forms. PNNL reported that they have all of the older ones and continue to use them. Sharon said that OSTI had needed to go back to the old forms last year for evidence in a deposition. Mary asked if the records schedule for reports could address the review and release forms as well.A third topic discussed during this part of the meeting was e-journals. Sharon reported that OSTI is exploring whether centralized funding would make the consortium more effective. It is working well with the SC e-journals project and might eventually be a good model for the consortium.Sharon also asked the group if anyone’s site was currently paying for authors to be included in open access journals. While it is being discussed here and there, the answer for now was “no.” As the teleconference was coming to an end, Sharon noted that OSTI is waiting on final budget resolution before scheduling more site visits.
Kathy reminded the group that the 2005 STIP meeting is set for April 18 – 21st in Berkeley, California.
Kathy announced that the next STIP teleconference would be January 12th, and the meeting was adjourned with wishes of happy holidays for all.