Umbrella 2011
Ministry of Defence ATHENA Reports Collection
These are my notes on a presentation on exploiting science and technology research in the Ministry of Defence to avoid duplication, know what had already been done, enable access to Reports and who to approach for information on.
ATHENA
ATHENA is about knowledge sharing and accessibility of research and increasing awareness of the content of the collection of around 200,000 full-text Reports and 470,000 records.
We were talked through the process the original hardcopy reports go through from arrival in the document handling centre to going on the secure intranet – sifting, preparation, scanning, quality checking, indexing, coding, release, destruction of hardcopy.
MoD uses Microsoft SharePoint 2007 for all the various different ATHENA sites which allows desktop access to full-text reports, browsing and downloading within MoD.
Access
Various issues when it comes to allowing access to material beyond the MoD (e.g. to industrial and academic research partners) re the security and intellectual property issues. Security is by clearance, for IP they work with own IP Group which advises on the balance between protection and exploitation and they can create different cuts of information for different audiences depending on security rating e.g. Defence Reporter is unclassified re security clearance and contains titles and abstracts.
Statistical information
They keep a range of statistics but they don’t show key things such as whether the service saves the MoD money or improves the life of its staff so they ask for feedback and use success stories of ways the information has been used by the wider organisation to show they are making a difference and an impact.
Future
Looking at developing a wider government version of their own gateway using SharePoint 2010 and things like tailored email alerts. There are limitations to do with technology, security, intellectual property rights etc but the aim is to exploit the assets within that.
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