TECHNICAL REPORTS

Technical reports are often a very first time we learn about a particular work, especially in engineering fields. If federal money has been involved in a research project, then a report of that research must be sent to the US governmental agency that funded the project. In fact, every project that is funded by an agency, either public or private, must report its findings to the sponsoring agency. These writings are traditionally called technical reports. Technical report becomes an official document of the end product that may manifest itself in a form of research, pilot or demo system, or program. To see a wider landscape where technical reports fit, visit ATEIS.

Technical reports are typically searched by the following data or access points:

ACCESS POINTS: Authors' names, affiliations or departments involved, sponsor name, project manager, title, date, descriptors (from various thesauri), keywords, report number, project number, contract number, etc. Since funded project may evolve through years, there are often different versions of reports written by people who report their progress to funding agencies (e.g., every quarter as well as final report at the end of funding period).

Technical reports are typically not peer-reviewed and often include voluminous support documentation, such as statistics, illustrations and other graphical material, software programs, lengthy bibliographies, and other data. Therefore, reports may be lengthy running several volumes. Because reports are not peer-reviewed, they are typically timely, free of charge and detailed. For you, this means that if you wish to find who has done what recently, start off by searching the technical report literature.

FINAL WORD: many researchers, especially in academia and research laboratories, have extensive reference lists of their own work on their personal Web pages. If you know names of researchers or research labs and universities, visit their Web pages.

TOP

To get you started in accessing technical report literature, familiarize yourself with the following databases and servers including:

Government Reports Announcement & Index. (GRAI)  1946- . Springfield, VA: US Dept of Commerce, available through the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). 
http://www.ntis.gov/index.html
 

>>Note that the Announcements paperbound issues are biweekly and contain abstracts. National Technical Information Service (NTIS) puts out GRAI. The source has 5 sections: keyword, personal author, corporate author, contract/grant number, and NTIS order/repot number. Subject categories include civil engineering, combustion, engines, and propellants, computer, control (informaiton theory, energy, environmental pollution & control, industrial & mechanical engineering, and others. NTIS is also available as CD-ROM and as online database on several retrieval systems.

NTIS uses several vocabularies for indexing and searching report literature: The Thesaurus of Scientific, Technical, and Engineering Terms is based primarily on the indexing vocabulary developed by NASA for their Thesaurus. Others are DOD Thesaurus of Scientific and Engineering Terms, as well as the Defense Technical Information Center Thesaurus.

NASA has its own Technical Reports Server that is an experimental service. It allows users to search many different abstract and technical report servers maintained by various NASA centers and programs. It offers a unified interface to many separate WAIS servers. Participant NASA centers include Ames Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, etc. Technical reports are searchable in specified databases (research centers repositories) or all NASA centers.

COVERAGE: technical reports include topics that pertain to space research, space flight, aerospace, fluid mechanics, materials, facilities, launching, propulsion science, life science, computer science, computational science, environmental science, global change, astronomy and astrophysics.

SEARCH TEMPLATES:

turbulent flow searches turbulent OR flow

global AND positioning AND system

tubule* searches for turbulent as well as for phrases that include the word turbulence

NASA hardcopy reports are available from public and academic libraries, NASA Center for Aerospace Information (CASI) http://www.sti.nasa.gov/ and NTIS http://www.ntis.gov/
 

TOP

Networked Computer Science Technical Report Library (NCSTRL) http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/NCSTRL/, an international collection of computer science technical reports library, has assembled reports from CS departments and industrial and governmental research labs. The Repository has been integrated into the collection of over 20,000 computer science technical reports. To see a list of publishers, ranging from ACM and Brown University to Weizman Institute of Science and Xerox, see http://cs-tr.cs.cornell.edu/Dienst/UI/2.0/ListPublishers  Through a partnership of ACM, the Los Alamos e-Print archive, and NCSTRL, an online Computing Research Repository (CoRR) is being established.

Technical report literature is also available  Unified Computer Science Technical Report Index (UCSTRI) http://www.cs.indiana.edu:800/cstr/search.

Numerous research laboratories have their own servers for TR literature. Hewlett Packard Laboratories Technical Reports are at: http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports. This HP server uses the Excite search engine to search abstracts to technical reports since 1990 to present. 

SEARCH TIPS:

use only words that are relevant to your query; omit common words (e.g., a, an, the);

use synonymous terms (e.g., CDROM, CD-ROM)

Technical Reports in ENERGY:

The Department of Energy DOE Reports Bibliographic Database http://www.energy.gov/ includes references and many full text reports covering the period of January1, 1994 to present. DOE reports are available from NTIS http://www.ntis.gov/

TOP

Energy Research Abstracts (ERA), 1975-

{Oak Ridge, Tenn.} Technical Information Center, U.S. Dept. of Energy; {Washington, available from the Supt. of Docs., U.S. GPO}

The citations presentaed in ERA are a subset of the worldwide energy information provided to the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) through exchange agreements with foreign sources and though exchanges or contracts with US organizations.

Subject categories include: coal lignite, petroleum, natural gas, nuclear fuels, hydrogen, solar energy, engineering, environmental sciences, health and safety, etc. Each of these is subdivided into narrower disciplines. For example, the category of engineering is subdivided into facilities, equipment, and techniques; heat transfer and fluid flow; materials testing; combustion systems, etc.

ERA's information sources are ETDE and INIS:

The Energy Technology Data xchange (ETDE) was established by the International Energy Agency to promote cooperation among members in conducting appropriate energy-related research and development programs through the development of a formal central informaiton sharing system.

The International Nuclear Information System, 1969- (INIS) was established to promote the exchange of information on nuclear science and technology.

The main indexes are: subject, corporate author, personal author, contract number index, and report number index.

Notes:  Continues: United States. Energy Research and Development Adminisration. 

ERA covers all forms of materials -- not just journals -- generated by the U. S. Energy Research and Development Administration and its contractors, as well as some other US governmental agencies. In addition, it covers reports produced by non-ERDA sources, including foreign governments. ERA covers work on all sorts of energy--solar, coal, etc., not just nuclear, and so is of great value in this energy-conscious age.

GrayLIT Network makes gray literature of U.S. Federal Agencies (e.g., DOE, EPA, NASA, DOD) accessible without first having to know the sponsoring agency.

Federal Research in Progress Sprinfield, VA: National Technical Information Service (NTIS), 1983-  . Information about federally funded research projects in the fields of physical sciences, engineering, and life science http://www.fedworld.gov/

Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, 1895- . Washington, DC: GPO.

This monthly index lists publications issued by all branches of the government. Entries are arranged alphabetically by issuing agency. Information includes title, author, date, paging, price, availability, and report number, where applicable. Each issue has a subject, and a series/report index. The indexes are cumulated semiannually and annualy.

Describe a two-step procedure you need to take to locate a publication:

What types of government material are included in this source?

TOP

Congressional Information Service, CIS Annual. Washington, DC: CIS. 1970- .

Examine any CIS/Four-Year Cumulative Index (e.g., Volume 18-21, 1987-1990)

Using the CIS Abstracts involves a four-step process: (a) search the CIS Index  to identify publications of interest; (b) note the accession numbers of relevant abstracts; (c) locate and review abstracts in the CIS Abstracts (make sure that publication date of Index and Abstract match) to evaluate the contents of publications; (d) obtain publication from the MGI library.

Using this 4-step process, try your own search (e.g., discrimination in employment, dioxin)

Other useful and related links are:

The National Tech Transfer Center site http://www.nttc.edu/gov/other/tech.html inclides listings to corporate, academic, and government tech transfer centers, in addition to many other career and job opportunities.

For the National Institute for Science and Technology, visit their Web homepage at: http://www.nist.gov/welcome.html

TOP