NASA Technical Memorandum 109924 NASA Access Mechanism_ Lessons Learned Document Judy Hunter Denise Duncan Curtis Generous Lisa Burdick Rick Dunbar John Lycas Ardeth Taber-Dudas National Aeronautics and Space Administration Washington, DC July 1994 STI PROGRAM SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL INFORMATION This publication was prepared by the NASA Center for AeroSpace Information, 800 Elkridge Landing Road, Linthicum Heights, MD 21090-2934, (301) 621-0390. Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE - Background I.A. WHY A GATEWAY PROTOTYPE? ......................................................... 1 I.B. PROJECT HISTORY .................................................................................. 1 I.B. 1. NASA STI Program Overview ..................................................... 1 I.B.2. User Requirements ........................................................................ 2 I.B.3. Conceptual Design ........................................................................ 4 CHAPTER TWO - Prototype II.A. SYSTEM DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS ................................................. 7 II.A. 1. Hardware Factors ......................................................................... 7 II.A.2. Operating System Factors ............................................................ 8 II.A.3. Graphical Interface Factors ......................................................... 8 II.A.4. Development Tools Factors ......................................................... 9 II.A.5. XWindow Development Toolkit Considerations ........................ 10 II.A.6. Networking Considerations ......................................................... 10 II.A.7. Z39.50 and POSIX ...................................................................... 12 II.B. ALPHA DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION ......................................... 12 II.B. 1. Time Constraints .......................................................................... 12 U.B.2. Technical Design ......................................................................... 12 II.B.3. NAM Modules ............................................................................. 14 II.C. BETA IMPLEMENTATION ..................................................................... 16 II.C. 1. System Redesign .......................................................................... 16 II.C.2. Hardware/Software/Network Requirements ................................ 18 II.C.3. Beta Test Participants .................................................................. 19 II.C.4. Schedule ....................................................................................... 19 II.C.5. What Did We Provide? .......................................................... ....... 20 II.C.6. Statistics on Responses ................................................................ 20 CHAPTER THREE - Lessons Learned III.A. DEVELOPERS' FINDINGS ..................................................................... 21 III.A. 1. Findings During Development and Testing ............................... 21 III.A.2. Findings From Log Files and Monitoring .................................. 22 III.B. USERS' FINDINGS .................................................................................. 22 III.C. PUBLIC DEMONSTRATIONS AND TRADE PRESS ......................... REACTIONS ...................................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER FOUR - Options IV.A. CREATE NAM-Lite ................................................................................. 26 IV.B. USE WORLD WIDE WEB FORMS ........................................................ 27 IV.C. CREAT NATIVE CLIENTS WITH SMALL REWRITE ........................ 27 IV.D. CREATE FRONT END FOR INTERNET TOOLS ................................ 27 IV.E. NAM - THE NEXT GENERATION ........................................................ 27 IV. F. THROWAWAY NAM ............................................................................. 27 IV.G. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS .................................................................. 28 CHAPTER FIVE - Recommendations V.A. SHORT TERM ........................................................................................... 29 V.B. LONG TERM ............................................................................................. 29 V.C. MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................. 29 GLOSSARY .................................................................................................................... 30 I.B. PROJECT HISTORY CHAPTER ONE- Background I.B.1. NASA STI Program Overview The NASA Scientific and Technical I.A. WHY A GATEWAY Information (STI) Program was PROTOTYPE? established as a result of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 to The National Aeronautics and Space identify world-wide sources of scientific, Administration (NASA) Access technical, engineering, and related Mechanism (NAM) was initiated to information; develop required policy demonstrate the feasibility of using a statements; facilitate authorized access; graphical user interface (GUI) and and manage delivery of the information to intelligent gateway technology to NASA and its customer base. STI is basic streamline access to sources of Scientific and applied research results from the and Technical Information (STI). efforts of scientists and engineers. It includes new theory and information The NAM project is based upon a obtained from experimentation, technology known as the Intelligent observations, instrumentation, or Gateway Processor (IGP). The IGP computation in the form of text, numeric concept was pioneered by Lawrence data, or images. STI may be further Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) transformed, described, evaluated, and/or in 1983 in a joint effort sponsored by synthesized and recorded in print, digital, NASA, the Department of Energy (DOE), magnetic, or other media to enhance its and the Department of Defense (DOD). communications and its usefulness and They adopted a national bureau of value to a wide spectrum of users and standards project known then as the USES. Network Access Machine. From a historical perspective, NASA was The purpose of the NAM prototype was to a leader in acquiring and processing STI in demonstrate to the NASA user community the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. The user the concept of a system of this type is to requirements and the services and products streamline access to diverse sources of provided by the Program were in harmony. information in the NASA environment. To The REmote CONsole (RECON) retrieval measure the applicability of the system, it engine was the first of its kind to provide was necessary to obtain feedback from users access to NASA's bibliographic selected users in various occupations. This database system. In fact, RECON was a was accomplished by fielding the system model for commercial companies and at user sites for a six-month testing period. other Federal agencies. From the late 1970s to 1990, the NASA user The members of the NAM Development requirements became unknown and Team had experience with intelligent NASA's operation remained unchanged gateway and GUI technologies. The team while other Federal organizations moved brought the lessons learned from their ahead. In 1990, NASA was still using the previous experiences to NASA. The first system that was developed in the 1960s step was to evaluate the strengths and with few changes. Beginning in 1990, new weaknesses of the previous management began to implement Total implementations and to make decisions Quality Management (TQM) about what would and would not meet the methodologies to improve the current NASA requirements. operations while planning to modernize the fragile Program. One of the projects initiated during this period was the NAM effort. A strategicvisiondocumentpreparedby information. The NASA user community theProgramstated,"thefocusof oureffort consists of NASA researchers, engineers, will be thedevelopmentof aglobal librarians, managers, and the broader programto encouragethecreationand university and aerospace industry exchangeof STI andfacilitateits use."To communities. implementthiseffort theProgramneeded to knowthefollowing: The primary objective of the study was to assess the potential for an intelligent • Theinformationrequirementsfor the gateway to meet NASA users' R&D community requirements for online STI retrieval. The study was limited to a sample of the user • Therelevantinformationsourcesto community and included NASA's Ames meetthoserequirements Research Center (ARC), Langley Research Center (LaRC), Lewis Research Center • Waysof facilitatingaccessto those (LeRC), and Goddard Space Flight Center informationsources (GSFC). A teamcomprisedof multiplecontractors After the results of the study were wasformed.CurtisGenerousof UUcomis gathered and examined, the NAM project theSeniorTechnicalManagerresponsible scope changed; the prototype's design was for thetechnicaldesignandoverall expanded to include internal databases to managementof theproject.Rick Dunbar NASA such as RECON, as well as of UUcomis theSeniorAnalyst external databases such as STN and WAIS responsiblefor programmingandporting sources. In addition, the prototype design thecodeto otherplatforms.Denise was changed to include peer locating tools. Duncanfrom LogisticsManagementInc. This feature was added in response to the (LMI) is theInformationSpecialist users' expressed need, identified during responsiblefor performinguserstudies, study interviews. identifying