STI Product Factsheets for DOE Laboratory Researchers:

Technical or Workshop Report

ABOUT STI

In the course of performing research and development (R&D) and other scientific and technological work, researchers funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) produce scientific and technical information (STI) to document and disseminate their findings.

STI includes products such as journal articles, technical reports, conference presentations, books, and more. Through the Scientific and Technical Information Program (STIP), the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) collaborates with people across the DOE complex, including Headquarters programs, field offices, national laboratories, and other facilities. The STIP partnership ensures that the results of DOE- funded work are identified, disseminated, and preserved. Thus, OSTI collects STI produced across the DOE laboratory and facility complex as well as from financial assistance recipients.

DEFINITION

A technical report (or scientific report) is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of research and development or other scientific and technological work, including recommendations or conclusions of the research and such information as the original hypotheses, approaches used, and findings. Facts, figures, analyses, and assumptions used during the life of the project to support the results are used to convey to the scientific community the findings during the project. Technical reports are an important source of STI derived from research projects sponsored by DOE and may include more comprehensive or in-depth experimental details than scholarly papers or presentations can. Workshop reports are similar in format, but the content is derived from a workshop, conference, or similar venue which focuses on a specific scientific or technical problem or topic. The workshop report may summarize various papers and presentations or give a synopsis of the topics addressed during the meeting. As a DOE STI product, a workshop report is typically prepared by a research organization (e.g., a lab or a university) as requested by a DOE program or subprogram to address a certain research topic.

SUBMISSIONS

Each DOE laboratory has a site program to manage scientific and technical information produced under the contract and to make it available to DOE's Office of Scientific and Technical Information. Each site's STI Manager is involved in the process; for more information, see the listing of STI Managers at https://www.osti.gov/stip/about/stip-community#STIManagers.

Using a Lab's processes for STI submission, the researcher provides metadata for a technical report or workshop report as well as a full-text document in searchable PDF format or a link to the document hosted on the institutional repository, if it is publicly accessible. Technical reports with any type of access restriction must also be submitted to OSTI.

For technical reports that have no access restrictions (i.e., are publicly releasable), OSTI.GOV (http://www.osti.gov) includes metadata/citations and full-text documents, as well as the other types of STI products STIP has collected historically. Technical reports are full-text searchable.

For technical reports that have a specified type of access restriction {such as SBIR https://www.osti.gov/stip/submit/submission-basics/protected-sti) or CRADA protected (https://www.osti.gov/stip/submit/submission-basics/protected-sti/crada)}, the documents are accessible by DOE staff via the Science Research Connection tool. Access must be approved. Contact OSTI for more information, stip@osti.gov.

Reports that are Classified or Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information are handled separately. Contact OSTI for guidance, stip@osti.gov.

STI AVAILABILITY

OSTI.GOVis the primary search tool for DOE science, technology, and engineering research and development results and the organizational hub for information about the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information. Launched in 2018, it consolidates OSTIs home page and the previous search tool SciTech Connect.OSTI.GOVmakes discoverable over 70 years of research results from DOE and its predecessor agencies. Research results include journal articles/accepted manuscripts and related metadata; technical reports; scientific research datasets and collections; scientific software; patents; conference and workshop papers; books and theses; and multimedia.OSTI.GOVcontains over 3 million records, including citations to 1.5 million journal articles, 1 million of which have digital object identifiers (DOIs) linking to full-text articles on publishers' websites.OSTI.GOVprovides access to this DOE STI by offering numerous easy-to-use search capabilities and customization options; and for the DOE community, additional citation information is available to help researchers evaluate article impact and find related research.

OSTI.GOVis included in the Federal science portal Science.gov and the international science portal WorldWideScience.org.Science.gov, hosted by OSTI, offers free access to research and development (R&D) results and scientific and technical information from more than 60 databases from scientific organizations across 13 federal agencies.WorldWideScience.orgsearches over 100 STI resources including national libraries and information centers from more than 70 countries.

OSTI also works in close collaboration with Google and others, using Sitemap Protocols and other information industry standards to facilitate the discovery of DOE STI through widely used search engines.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION/CONTACTS
The STIP website at https://www.osti.gov/stip/
OSTI staff will respond to questions/suggestions sent tostip@osti.gov
Questions related to E-Link may also be sent toelink_Helpdesk@osti.gov