RAC TKN Task Force

RAC TKN Task Force March 1, 2012 Meeting Notes New meeting time: 8:30 – 9:30 Pacific Time

Attendees/Absent: AJ Million, Hank Zaletel, Jane Minotti, Mary Moulton, Jeff Mixter, Andy Everett, Dale Steele, Daniel Yeh, Laura Wilt, Lynn Matis, Janet Coles, Louise Rosenzweig, Sue Sillick, Lisa Loyo, Dawn Vanlandingham, Rita Evans, JT Rabun, Ida Van Schalkwyk, Betty Ambler, Sena Loyd, Ron Curb, Bob Cullen, John Cherney, Karen Perrin, Cynthia Gerst, Leni Oman, Chair Notes: Kathy Szolomayer

Discussion items At our last conference call we agreed to reduce our meeting time to one hour. To manage to this time length, Task Leads have been asked to share a brief verbal update if their group has had substantive action and, if discussion with the Task Force is needed, to let the Chair know so we can plan for that. Written reports can also be used to alert us to actions that don’t require discussion.

AGENDA

Roll call of attendees Corrections or changes to minutes of last meeting? None submitted

NTKN Update – info from meetings of TKN Chairs – Leni & Regional Chairs Amanda convened 2 calls within the past week, and there are a couple of images under consideration to represent the NTKN concept; Leni shared one that involved pipes. There’s a plan to have an NTKN meeting after the SLA annual conference in July (Chicago). Planning is also underway for a TRB workshop on collaboration in information sharing that would focus on vision, etc., July 12-13 (Irvine), before SLA. Perhaps we should pull together a working group to contribute to the vision of the NTKN; we’ll see how things develop. Karen: regarding the NTKN meeting in July, there may be some folks from this group who should attend. Leni: If the NTKN meeting time does not work, there’s an opportunity to contribute at the TRB workshop. Janet: One idea voiced during the calls was for the NTKN meeting to build on the momentum of the TRB workshop, to identify key stakeholders to be involved in the continuing development of the NTKN. Karen: The NTKN meeting will be future-focused, not just a rehash of regional TKN activities as was done at past NTKN meetings. Jane would like to know more about the TRB meeting in July; we’ll discuss next month. Leni recognizes we have a role in shaping the agenda of the NTKN, and is trying to help define what that role is.

TASK UPDATES

Research Reports 1. Distribution – Sena Sena was not on the call, but Leni reported that she is just getting started as the lead on this, and is gathering information.

2. Repositories – Dale At their recent meeting Dale’s group concluded that NTL is the primary repository and the group will work with Mary Moulton to coordinate distribution of reports to NTL’s digital repository, and also to state libraries. Mary is gathering info on what the current requirements are for submitting reports to NTL. Leni said we can advocate for language in the reauthorization bill, as needed, to expand NTL’s mandate in support of this effort.

3. Repository paper – Laura Laura reported the paper is complete, unless there are still comments from folks. Leni’s had feedback that the paper is very helpful. This will go on our TKN TF website, and be targeted to other appropriate audiences, such as the AASHTO Conduct of Research committee; perhaps also NTL and TRB? Mary said she will work to make this information available via NTL. Laura asked what other details should be added to the paper, such as date, contacts for various aspects, etc.? Mary volunteered to be NTL repository contact. Laura will contact Lisa Loyo to see if she would be the contact for TRB. Leni asked how we want to “brand” this partnered effort. For example: “Prepared by the AASHTO RAC TKN TF, for the NTKN” was suggested and folks liked that. Contributor and contact information could be added, as well. Leni said it would be nice to have a TF logo to put on this, and other products. Dawn volunteered to work up some ms Word document template samples for our next meeting, and can add a logo if someone can provide that. This would help us have a consistent format for information we produce. Cynthia asked Jeff to attempt a logo.

4. Format (Research Reports) – PMQ has asked us to take responsibility for this task – any volunteers to lead this? There are some ideas afloat for improving the technical page. Leni would like to take this to the RAC-CUTC group next week to see if someone from that community would lead; would still need to have librarian input. She’ll report back next meeting.

Portal paper – AJ/John/Bob AJ – paper is done, with the exception of a brief introduction, and branding/formatting tweaks. After final clean up (will work with Dawn on the template), need to figure out who to direct this to. Potential audiences we’ve talked about are TRB communicators, RAC and library communities. Others?

From Dawn, via the chat log: For the Portal Discussion, we created a quick test to show an aggregation engine which is populated automatically with RSS feeds. Here is a sample: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/temp/rssfeed/syndication.cfm

Leni will work with Dawn to try to figure out ways to automate getting documents into the portal. This will be a topic for a future meeting; it’s a complicated issue and may need a separate document.

Webinar organization – Laura and Jeff

Possible calendar format: WY State Library http://will.state.wy.us/ldo/planningcalendar.html .

Some issues to consider as we develop a concept for making this information available:  What exactly do we want to be able to access (upcoming webinars, new publications, archived webinars, proprietary webinars, slides and handouts from unrecorded webinars, etc)?  Some sites - such as TRB - are available to some, but not all, of the community. The TRB links that are listed in the document are the public pages, containing links to the actual materials. What's the best way to handle this type of information?  How do we determine the permanency of the links (are links to some archived webinars active for a set time)? How do we overcome this (or not)?  Who can/will add content? How?  It would be nice to have an area for suggestions for future webinars.  On another note - I monitor TRB and NHI for free webinars that offer Professional Development Hours (PDH) for our engineers. Is this a feature we would like to include? Comments on the above list of issues had been requested by Friday, February 17th, to Laura at: [email protected] and/or to Jeff Mixter: [email protected].

No comments were received.

Laura has sketched out a framework that could be a template, and would like to post it on the WTKN website for now, as a concept test, to see what kind of feedback would come in. Jeff thought the other TKNs might like to have their own pages, but suggested pooled info could go on the NTKN/NTL website. Leni asked what the scope would be, and who the steward(s) would be, of such a site. Laura asserted that contact information and responsibilities for maintenance of the information is important. Laura also asked if having webinar information is important to people? The group agreed it is important; archived presentations could be especially valuable. A question was whether the main site would be searchable/sortable, especially important for retrieving archived webinars. Jeff mentioned assigning keywords would help with findability, especially if the site was SharePoint based. Leni asked Dawn to work with Laura & Jeff to figure out some of these web issues. Laura will work with Jeff in the next few days and will send something out for comment (short window for that).

Climate Change Clearinghouse – Guidance document update and usage reporting – Mary Moulton Aileen Marshall is working on this and will make a call for input, via TRANLIB, once she has it shaped up.

2012 International Transportation Research Information Access Workshop – Lisa or Jennifer No update.

TRB Workshop on Collaboration in Information Sharing (July 12-13) – Amanda or Mary

Still called Transportation Knowledge Networks – Broadening the Base on the TRB Calendar but I understand from Amanda that the name is changing Discussed earlier; see notes under “NTKN Update”.

Research Report Quality (draft paper will be reviewed by the RAC-CUTC group next week) - Leni

WRITTEN UPDATES

Communication plan for video - Kathy S. and Lynn had a teleconference 2/29 and have drawn up a “to- do” list related to marketing the TKN video. The list includes things such as making sure credits/copyright are covered, methods of distribution, accompanying information, options for additional sites where video can be posted and making it most “findable” by Googling, etc. Some of the items are things we’ll take care of, but for some we’ll need input from this group. For the latter, we’ll probably send out a short survey to make sure we’re covering all the bases, and to solicit input if we missed something. We hope to have the survey out within the next couple of weeks. In summary, we’re working on it, and you’ll be hearing more soon.

Future meeting times

Alternate times on the first Thursday of the month have been requested and an afternoon meeting was specifically requested from someone in Central time. Proposed: 11 am Pacific, 1 pm Central, 2 pm Eastern on the first Thursday of the month. Responses have been limited but positive. Leni will send out a more specific request, and asked how the hour-long time frame worked today. The response was positive

NEXT MEETING: April 5th, time TBD

Topics for next meeting, and beyond:

Discuss TRB meeting in July -- more information should be available

Update on NCHRP 20-90 – Anita Vandervalk

Data Management and the TKN – Andy, Frances and Mary

New issue proposed for discussion: data and survey information access

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