AASHTO Research Advisory Committee (RAC)/TRB Conduct of Research (COR)

Coordination and Collaboration Committee

Meeting Agenda

7/26/10

1:00 pm – 2:45 pm

Kansas City Missouri

Hyatt Regency Crown Center

Room Benton A

  1. Introductions/Housekeeping
  2. Introductions
  3. Note Taker – David Jared
  4. Changes/Additions to Agenda
  5. Corrections to 5/26/2010 Meeting Notes (attached to e-mail)
  1. Review of Ongoing Activities – Action Steps (See Attachment 1)
  1. Review AASHTO SCOR Strategic Plan (attached to e-mail) in Relation to Role for this Task Force
  1. Coordination and Collaboration with Other Task Forces
  1. Other Coordination and Collaboration Activities?
  1. Meetings – Next Meetings – Mark your calendars!
  2. Upcoming Meeting Dates for 2010 - 9/22/10, 12/2/10 (instead of regular meeting date during Thanksgiving week)
  3. 9/22/10 Meeting – Agenda Suggestions

ATTACHMENT 1

AASHTO RAC/TRB COR Coordination and Collaboration Committee

Action Items

UPDATED July 14, 2010 – Updates and action items are in red

Initiative / Action Steps / Who / Action Taken/Status
Research in Progress (RIP) / Need more marketing to increase participation, need to strive for 100% data entry for organizations required to use RiP, need to broaden organizations with access to enter records into RiP. / Sue Sillick, Barbara Post, TRB Information Services Committee / Barbara sent Sue a list on 2/23/10 of 22 SPR organizationsthat haven’t entered projects into RiP in 2009 or 2010. Sue sent an e-mail on 2/24/10 requesting those entities to enter data on active research projects into RiP.Eleven of these 22 have now added records to RiP. A reminder was sent to the remaining 11.Need to review gaps in organizations that enter data into RiP and close the gaps. A review of RiP project status categories was completed, along with a survey to RAC. Recommendations (ftp://ftp.mdt.mt.gov/research/OTHER/RIP_PROJECT_STATUS_CATEGORIES-DEFINITIONS.DOCX) for changes to categories and adding definitions were made to TRB.
Funding Guidebook / Maintain and add otherorganizations. / Sue Sillick, Kim Fisher / Sam noted that the TRB International Activities Committee completed the update on the COST and EU programs among others; these are now in the funding guidebook. Sue needs volunteers to contact federal agencies from a list she has and determine additional federal research programs that meet the criteria for the funding guidebook. Steve Albert and Sue prepared a survey to states to identify state research programs other than SPR that meet the criteria for the funding guidebook. Results to be presented (ftp://ftp.mdt.mt.gov/research/OTHER/STATE_RESEARCH_PROGRAM_SURVEY_RESULTS.XLSX). Leni sent out a schedule for problem statements that her area had developed. Sue noted she would request this beadded to the Funding Guidebook.
Improve – e.g., make more wiki-like / Possible future action.
Unfunded Research Needs Portal / Make unfunded TRB problem statements searchable. / Sue Sillick & Leni Oman / Roy Mesler (TRB) added a link to the NCHRP website and is waiting to see if Google indexes it.
Beta test with UTC’s to see if useful. / Sue Sillick / Pending TRB problem statements being indexed by Google.
Continue to add other research needs (e.g., 8-36 planning research needs, UTC spotlight conferences)
Improve search capability / Leni Oman? / Possible future action.
Public Roads Article / Write and submit article(s) on successful coordination and collaboration efforts. / Steve Albert and Sam Elrahman / Samreported that the article is tentatively scheduled for December or January in Public Roads. They may be asking for photos or quotes for the article.
RITA Transportation Research Collaboration (TRC) Website / Research Clusters / Linda Preisen, Nancy Chinlund, Pat Casey, Jason Bittner, Sue Sillick, Hau Hagedorn, Amanda WilsonRobin Kline, MJ Fiocco / Robin reported that RITA is discussing how to organize the site in the best way to make it useful. The plan is to have them all external at some point. RITA is taking a step approach; ‘Livability’ is the pilot section. Sue or Nancy will schedule MJ to provide an update on the Clusters for one of the next meetings.The Transportation Research Collaboration (TRC) website contains our “Research Program & Project Management” web pages as a high level Research Cluster on the TRC site. Sue will provide a Transportation Research Collaboration (TRC) website update.Leni suggested we look at the RAC website to identify information that should be on the TRC site in the future or how these would be coordinated.
The current pilot website can be found at
Work with International Scan Team for International Tab / Nancy Chinlund, Barbara Harder, Robin Kline, Deb Elston / Robin noted that she had received information from several UTCs on international collaboration. Robin will add this information to the RITA site when the final location for International Programs is identified.
Work with other task force chairs to develop TRC site. / Nancy Chinlund, Sue Sillick / Task force chairs and Coordination ad Collaboration Task Force members will be brought in to add content as soon as the basic layout is complete.
Use TRC sitefor committee team collaboration. / Linda Preisen, Nancy Chinlund, Pat Casey, Jason Bittner, Sue Sillick, Hau Hagedorn, Amanda Wilson / A committee Collaboration site was added to the TRC site.
Web 2.0 Tools / Plan TRB workshop. / Jason Bittner, Linda Preisen / There was discussion on a possible topic related to Intellectual property and social media. COR is lead.The session on IP is in the planning stages; it may or may not include social media aspects.
Increase membership with interest and skills in Web 2.0 tools. / Linda Preisen / A survey issued to AASHTO RAC found many states block Face book, NING, and other social network sites.The COR Committee has moved to Google Groups.
University Transportation Centers / Develop tool to identify themes, facilities, etc for each UTC / Sue Sillick, Steve Albert / Sue shared the efforts of a project to develop a web tool that contains information on all UTCs. She is a member of the advisory committee. She will keep the Task Force informed of progress and will most likely be asking the Task Force for input on the project. This project is based on the document where the 10 national UTCs were featured; see ftp://ftp.mdt.mt.gov/research/LIBRARY/NATIONAL_UTC_FACILITIESPDF.PDF. Sue will provide an update.
Leni shared that the NW is having discussions on how to help frame areas of expertise that are needed to assist in coordination and collaboration. Using the FHWA’s strategic goals or States strategic plans was considered. This also may be helpful to frame the UTC web portal currently in development Robin requested any information from these types of discussions.
Conduct webinars to share research results / Sue Sillick / The use of webinars to share research results was discussed and encouraged. Nancy reported that UTCs are starting to do more policy briefs and webinars focused on DOT hot topic areas.
Seed contact (by research topic area) for RITA TRC site / Sue Sillick, Nancy Chinlund / Sue will talk with Clark Martin about the FHWA communities of practice and how they relate to Rita’sresearch clusters.
RAC/CUTC Coordination and Collaboration Team / Leni Oman, Steve Albert / Leni will give an update from this group’s first meeting.
International Collaboration / Scan Team information on TRC site / Barbara Harder, Deb Elston / Barbara will work with Scan Team and Web Tools Team to post information. International collaboration will be added to RITA site. The final configuration is not set yet.
Barbara Post reported that TRB has added more international records to RiP and TRIS from FERL and IPTA. She also noted that ITRD and TRIS will combine.
TRB Session / Jason Bittner, Larry Orcutt & Sam Elrahman / A follow-up session for next year on the Hows and Whys of International Collaboration is in the planning stage. Jason and Larry are leading effort. Sam volunteered to assist in workshop.PeteZ will give an update.
ERA-NET NCHRP Project Panel / Jason Bittner, Chris Hedges / The problem statement can be found atftp://ftp.mdt.mt.gov/research/OTHER/ERA-NET_NCHRP_PROBLEM_STATEMENT.PDF. Jason Bittner was chosen to represent the Task force on this committee.
Coordination with Library and TKN Groups / Develop better process for disseminating duplicate materials. Develop more systematic approach for disseminating and storing research reports, newsletters, etc. / Leni Oman, TKN’s, Library Connectivity TPF / NCHRP 20-90 ( , Improving Access to Transportation Information is seeking panel nominations, due 6/4/10. They need someone with data experience. Rita Evans has been identified as the problem monitor.
Leni also noted that the National TKN/Special Library meeting is June 17th. The group will be developing a draft paper to share a common vision and clarify organizational roles. Leni also noted that the TKN group is working on a draft paper on knowledge management. The focus for the June meeting is on NCHRP Report 643, Implementing Transportation Knowledge Networks, especially the building blocks on page 12.Leni to provide an update?
TRKC / Develop webinar; Investigate feasibility of developing such a tool in the US. / Leni Oman, Sue Sillick, Nancy Chinlund, TRB LIST Committee / Leni, Sue, and Nancy edited a webinar outline written by Wes Lum. Ken Winters/TRB LIST Committee is taking the lead in developing the webinar. The webinar being planned for late summer 2010 has moved to the Fall due to some issues with the TRKC contract. Barbara Post has added the TRKC project records to RiP.
Award Programs / Determine award programs and relation to this committee. / Leni Oman