AASHTO RAC TKN Task Force

Meeting Notes

April 3, 2014

Present: Betty Ambler, Camille Crichton-Sumners, Carol Paszamant, Daniel Yeh, Jane Minotti, Leighton Christiansen, Lynn Matis, Mary Moulton, Mitch Ison, Shashi Nambisan, Dale Peabody, Sandy Brady, Cindy Smith, Louise Rosenzweig, Sue Sillick, Dawn Vanlandingham, Andy Everett.

Leni Oman, Chair; Kathy Szolomayer, Notes

Agenda

  1. Roll call and changes to the agenda – no changes offered
  2. Approve/Modify February Meeting Minutes – minutes approved for posting
  3. NCHRP problem statement selection –
  4. Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Information Portals awarded funding at the SCOR meeting. No discussion/comments; a panel will be formed soon. Please review and think about competencies needed and let Leni know your thoughts. (Document attached at the end of these meeting notes)
  5. Capturing Project Knowledge Developed with Consultants awarded funding at SCOR meeting, as well, for $250,000. Comment from SCOR was that there needs to be some refinement on what problem(s) this is actually trying to solve.

April 19 is the SCOH deadline for problem statements. SCOP deadline was 4/1 and Leni submitted a statement regarding business needs for information.

Leni would welcome input on problem statements we should be submitting. FTA and NCHRP deadlines are coming up later in the year.

FHWA has a broad agency announcement out regarding information and Leni will look at it to see what opportunities it might provide.

  1. TKN TF Workplan – Leni created a draft work plan with the focus of “what are the problems we are trying to solve?” She went over the draft with the group and asked for feedback. (She sent TF members the plan just before the meeting, and it is attached at the end of these meeting notes.) Safety and business requirements for information will be focus areas of the work plan. The “business analysis body of knowledge” is a framework for the plan.

Related to the “Outreach” section of the plan, Carol mentioned the newly developed TKN brochures, sponsored by the Pooled Fund. They are general marketing tools targeting potential new members and stakeholders. Leni asked whether the brochures provide information on knowledge networking, or whether they are more about library networking. Carol replied that the distinction is not really defined/addressed in the brochures, but acknowledged they might be more library-focused. The diversity of membership of the parent organizations is emphasized.

Leni thinks library networks are a subset of knowledge networks. She asked if the group thinks there is confusion between the two concepts. Libraries are a critical element of knowledge networks. Betty commented that one of the requirements to be a member of ETKN was to have a collection of some kind; perhaps that needs to be reexamined. There is a continuing need to explain KM and that also includes the roles of library networks in KM. Dawn sent a link to the Wikipedia entry on KM.

Shashi asked whether this group would be interested in participating in a meeting of CUTC (Council of University Transportation Centers) that will take place in early June in Lincoln, Nebraska; he will need to know within about a week or so. Leni thought there would be some interest there in the Pooled Fund project about research reports distribution/technical documentation page. Leni asked if there would be sponsorship opportunities for attendance and/or remote participation. Shashi will find out. We can check with Maggie at the Pooled Fund as well, to see if the PF can send a member.

Regarding the safety focus for knowledge management, Daniel commented that our work plan targets only a fraction of folks involved in these efforts. As Leni said, however, it builds on previous efforts of the community we engage with regularly, so it’s a start. There was agreement with Daniel’s comments; Leni said perhaps we can agree to start by asking what the business needs are relating to safety at state DOTs. Clarifying business needs should come before defining stakeholders, or inventorying sources, Leni stated. Daniel pointed out that even among state DOTs there are significant differences, so it might help to narrow the focus to something that all/most DOTs have in common (Highway safety plan, roadway engineering, as examples). Leni will talk about this with John Milton and Ida van Schalkwyk at WSDOT, as they are very involved in the safety arena.

Leni asked if folks needed more time to contemplate the work plan. Louise said she thinks the plan is on the right track. Dawn said she likes the plan idea, but it would be helpful to have a problem statement. Again, Leni asked the group to get comments to her on the plan, as there are definitely areas needing more work. She also asked for volunteers to work with her on refining the plan, and Mary stepped up.

  1. Task Discussions
  2. Data management – open data

According to Mary, USDOT has heard back from OSTP (White House Office of Science and Technology Policy) regarding their data management plan and other responses to the OSTP memo from about a year ago requiring research data to be open to access by the public. USDOT has 90 days to respond to OSTP’s response to their plan. She expects the plan will be implemented in about a year (Spring 2015). This will impact state DOTs, as federal research dollars flow to states for research. There is work going on right now for a data repository at the federal level. States are also working on open data management issues.

KM and open data will be discussed at the TRB meeting and AASHTO state reps meetings this summer.

  1. Ongoing research
  2. Report distribution and technical page project – Daniel said TransAnalytics has been selected as the contractor on the project. The Draft Action Plan is being worked on now. The work should start this month.
  3. NCHRP 20-96 and 20-97 – contractors have been selected for both (and it’s the same contractor). Contract negotiations in progress. Leni could not release who the contractor is yet.
  4. Calendar – Laura is not on the call today.
  5. RPPM Calendar –

Sue showed us the calendar created for the AASHTO Research Program and Project Management website. It’s a very rough draft and is not fully developed yet, but some content is available. There are categories for types of events, modes, and organizations, as shown in the screenshot below. Sue is especially interested in feedback on those categories. Additionally, there are different views that can be selected (different ways to show the information); the default is the calendar.

Although Sue stated that the calendar was not viewable without a login, it was discovered that by following these steps anyone is able to see it: Click on the RPPM Calendar hyperlink above, and a login screen pops up. Close out of the login screen and the calendar should open, after a slight delay. To change views, go to the Calendar Tools tab at the top and click on Calendar. This will allow you to change the current view to different formats.

Sue invited the group to check out the calendar and said if anyone has comments, to please let her know:

  1. Best Practices
  2. Improving search draft

Leni and Mary will review this and then distribute for our comments.

Other efforts regarding lit searches/reviews/etc. are wrapping up soon (LIST committee)

  1. Broadening the partnership – SCOP Data Section Chair and Leni will talk again soon. Any thoughts on actions to work on together?

Perhaps their interest in safety data is an area we can partner on.

  1. Regional TKN updates &/or needs from RAC TKN TF

Mary announced that NTL is working with Denise Bedford to host another Knowledge Summit at USDOT. The sessions are open to the public, free, and will be webcast. This summit is focusing more on the business case than the theoretical aspects covered in the past. As plans firm up, details will be shared.

  1. Other items?

Transportation Librarians Roundtable in April (4/10/2014) – Andy Everett of WSDOT will talk about the redesigned WSDOT Data Catalog

Next meeting: May 1, 2014 at 8:30 am Pacific Daylight Time

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