AASHTO RAC
Transportation Knowledge Network Task Force
July 15, 2013
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
3:00 – 4:30 pm Central Daylight Time
Capital Room [In person and via GoToMeeting]
Thanks to Sandy Brady for contributing to these notes!
3:00 Welcome & Introductions
Present in Baton Rouge: Leni Oman/WSDOT, Chair; Sandy Brady/LTRC, Daniel Yeh/WisDOT, Mary Moulton/NTL, Bill McLeod/TRB-TRID, Jennifer Dill/Portland State U/OTREC, Jason Bittner, U. of Southern Florida CUTR, Cindy Smith/MS DOT, Bill Stone/MODOT, JT Rabun/GA DOT, Billy Connor/U. of Alaska-Fairbanks-AUTC, Rick Kreider/KS DOT, Dawn Vanlandingham/FHWA/TFHRC, Mary Stringfellow/FHWA-LA Division, Jamie Setze/FHWA-LA Division, Anne Scholz/NHDOT, Brian Hirt/CTC & Associates, Kevin Gaspaul/(?)-CTRC, Soumya Day/DC DOT, Pat Casey/CTC & Associates, Anne Ellis/AZDOT, Rick Zeringue/LA DOTD/LTRC, Peggi Knight/Iowa DOT, Camille Crichton-Sumners, NJDOT, Dale Peabody/MEDOT
Present online: Louise Rosenzweig/U. of Texas-Austin/TxDOT, Lynn Matis/MassDOT, Renee McHenry/MODOT, Ron Curb/OKDOT, Jane Minotti/NYSDOT, Katy Callon/MT DOT, Laura Wilt/OR DOT, Karen Perrin/IL DOT, Carol Paszamant/NJDOT, Dale Steele/AZDOT, Leighton Christiansen/IA DOT, Mitch Ison/NV DOT, Bob Cullen/AASHTO Info Center, Kathy Szolomayer/WSDOT, and Sandy Brady/LTRC, Notes
3:10 What makes your information findable? Leni/Mary/Dale
· Finding and being found
· Repositories, bibliographic databases, the Internet
· Review of TRID, NTL, and NTIS
· NCHRP 20-97 Improving Findability & Relevance in Transportation Information
Leni kicked off the discussion and covered some aspects of findability, such as terminology and how it changes over time (e.g., accident to crash to collision), metadata and its importance, and how library science can help with organizing information to be findable over time (e.g., by linking terms that change over time).
Differences between repositories, bibliographic databases; TKN TF paper by Lynn Matis and Laura Wilt on these topics helps explain the characteristics of these and why they are distinct, and important. Securing repositories is critical to preserve information for the future. For example, think about historical information on infrastructure that will be needed for future maintenance/rehabilitation of structures such as bridges that were built 50 years ago.
TRID, National Transportation Library, National Technical Information Service. Recipients of federal funding are required to send research reports to NTIS; it functions as a document delivery service. The NTL is an open access digital repository.
NCHRP 20-97 is 1 of 3 research problem statements that has been funded. The project, which specifically addresses findability, will kick off in the fall. Research objectives include looking at metadata, content description, networking protocols across changing technologies, and so on.
It’s not just research and libraries, but the business side of transportation that should be included in knowledge networking/management of content (information and data).
There followed a brief discussion of Google and other search engines and what “findability” means in that arena, and how to optimize publications for discovery. As an example, Google prioritizes newer results, but government research has a long history, and how do we work within those parameters? Leni commented that the TKN TF hasn’t really addressed this. Related issues: Hard copies of reports; reports that are older and only available in print. Daniel asked if the TF would want to talk about effective digitization of documents? Mary mentioned that the NTKN Coordinating Committee was working on report digitization projects and should be consulted. She said we need to communicate within the community to make sure we don’t duplicate efforts.
Do a survey to see what is being done to manage these?
RAC has an obligation around research reports, but most of the efforts being mentioned today apply to transportation information in general. Focusing on research now allows us to learn what works moving forward into the bigger world of all kinds of transportation information and data.
3:20 Research Reports Technical Page Project (handouts attached at end of notes)
o Project Description & current status – Karen/Daniel
· Purpose of the form, how it helps
· What are the fields – Show page
· Early Resource: NISO Abstract Standard
Daniel Yeh introduced the projects being implemented by the Library Connectivity & Development Pooled Fund study that originated in the TKN TF. The Technical Report Documentation Page is the focus of 1 project (project proposal attached below). The form has not been updated in decades, and there is a lot of variation in how the form is being used/filled out. Daniel showed some examples illustrating the inconsistent practices around filling out this form (attached below), especially in the key word field. Karen Perrin commented that how the form is filled out directly impacts findability; language is important. Catalogers use the form as a source of information when cataloging reports.
Open questions: who is filling out the forms? Is it understood what information is needed for the various fields?
AZ DOT has some guidance for how to fill out the page in their research manual (attached below) and perhaps this could be a model for broader guidance for the community.
Jane Minotti commented that the project RFP is just about ready to go out.
From the chat box, Leighton asked if folks using the form are familiar with the Transportation Research Thesaurus (TRT), and suggesting terms for inclusion in it, when they cannot find appropriate terms in the TRT? Daniel commented that all sorts of folks are filling out the form, so many may not be aware of the TRT.
Similarly, are people using/aware of the NISO standard, “Guidelines for Abstracts”?
Mary said NTL catalogers copy the abstracts so they are VERY important for cataloging, and they need to be good to help users decide if they want to download the entire report.
Abstracts are sometimes written before a project is implemented and can be in “future tense” and sometimes are not fixed when reports are published. As a consequence, results of the research may not be mentioned. Including results would be helpful.
o Who’s completing the technical page today – poll of the room
State DOTs: Researchers/Principal Investigators; if some are received that seem lacking, they might be revised. Can cause problems if researchers publish their versions separately, as discrepancies occur. Also, sometimes there are different covers for the same content but different audiences. In some organizations, such as Shashi’s, reports go through a publications office, so they have a consistent look/style. Karen Perrin commented in the chat box that as long as Title, Authors and Date are the same in different versions, at least a connection could be made between them.
UTCs: Various people, including researchers, grad student assistants . . . .
o Key wording & Indexing
· Indexing - Bill McLeod, Database Librarian/TRID
On TRID homepage, there’s a link to the Transportation Research Thesaurus (TRT). When TRID reports are indexed only terms from the TRT are used. TRT is a hierarchical thesaurus with broader to narrower terms; also related terms that are on the same level hierarchically. Browsing the TRT is very helpful to establish context and find relevant terms. Bill typed in “elderly” to illustrate how that is not the preferred term (“aged” is); the “Use For” list also is helpful because it shows synonyms (e.g. “older adult”, “senior citizen”).
Bill was asked how the TRT handles proper nouns, brand names, etc... Some have been used so long that they are in there (e.g. Portland cement), but the practice has been not to use those for terms.
There’s a link to “Suggest TRT Terms” on the TRT page.
In NCHRP 20-90 – a project about best practices in information management that is wrapping up -- “micro thesauri” were mentioned as possible ways to update/modernize the TRT in various subject areas, as they are subject-specific. In the general discussion that followed, other issues were noted that impact findability, such as sparse coverage for various topical areas, such as safety, in the TRT (although glossaries exist, if we could figure out how to incorporate the terms); full-text searchability; ADA Section 508 compliance.
3:50 Distribution of research reports
o Project Description & current status – Karen/Daniel
This is another project that will be implemented by the Library Connectivity & Development Pooled Fund.
o Requirements for distribution for RAC members and UTC Directors
Although DOTs and probably UTCs have some idea of where to send finished reports; it is still unclear exactly where reports are required to be sent; also unclear where it would be useful to send them. Daniel gave an overview of the Pooled Fund document that will guide the project. The objectives are to get a definitive list of where to send reports (required and recommended), explain archival functions, and streamline the process (send a report once to all locations, in one format).
o What information do you want?
§ Do you want to receive reports from all orgs?
§ Do you want access at the time of need?
§ Specific types: Topic, Series,
§ Key outcomes?
§ Alerts versus full content
Is anyone using social media to send alerts? Some orgs have started to do this (on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, for example). Engineers do use social media. Leighton (via chat) volunteered to continue the conversation on who is using social media, and how.
On RAC website, there’s a place where folks can sign up to receive alerts from those states that send them: SCOR/RAC – “Publications Subscriptions”: http://research.transportation.org/Pages/Publications-Subscriptions.aspx
§ Social media is fine for letting folks know about reports now, but 15 years from now where will people find this information? Issues of persistent URLs, secure repositories, etc.
NOTE: At this point, we skipped ahead to the calendar overview due to time constraints
o How research programs use the published research reports – our own and others
o Where do you look for information
o Process information (how do you process distribution?)
4:20 Overview of calendar project – Laura Wilt
Laura gave a brief overview of the portal that would allow folks to post information about webinars, resources, etc., of interest to the transportation community in a centralized calendar format. The idea is that the calendar would be searchable and browsable (by topic, etc.). Although this project was not funded by the Pooled Fund, some volunteers are working to set this in motion as a prototype to be hosted on the Western TKN website, at least to begin with.
4:30 Adjourn meeting -- Adjourned at 4:35 Central Time
Contingency topics: If the conversation moves more quickly than we think it will
o Intellectual property
· 20-89
· Staying cognizant of copyright
o Information that moves through research offices
Handouts/attachments referred to during discussion of Research Reports Technical Page Project: