The U.S. government technical report is a primary means by which the results of federally funded research and development (R&D) are transferred to the U.S. aerospace industry. However, little is known about this information product in terms of its actual use, importance, and value in the transfer of federally funded R&D. Little is also known about the intermediary-based system that is used to transfer the results of federally funded R&D to the U.S. aerospace industry. To help establish a body of knowledge, the U.S. government technical report is being investigated as part of the NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. In this paper, we summarize the literature on the U.S. government technical report and present the results of a survey of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists that solicited their opinions concerning the format of NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)-authored technical reports. To learn more about the preferences of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists concerning the format of NASA LaRC-authored technical reports, we surveyed 133 report producers (i.e., authors) and 137 report users in March-April 1996. Questions covered such topics as (1) the order in which report components are read, (2) components used to determine if a report would be read, (3) those components that could be deleted, (4) the placement of such components as the symbols list, (e) the de-sirability of a table of contents, (5) the format of reference citations, (6) column layout and right margin treatment, and (7) and person and voice. Mail (self-reported) surveys were used to collect the data. The response rates for report producers (i.e., authors) was 68% and for users was 62%.


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    Title :

    NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Greyworks 1996 ; 1996 ; College Park, MD, United States


    Publication date :

    1996-11-18


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project

    T. E. Pinelli / R. O. Barclay / J. M. Kennedy | NTIS | 1996


    NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project

    Pinelli, Thomas E. / Barclay, Rebecca O. / Kennedy, John M. | NTRS | 1996