Fire Re-Search Hub

Overall Outcome Provide succinct access to relevant fire research materials. Overall Objective To provide a successful tool at one location that provides intuitive, concise and useful access to identifying and locating publications and other literature that are relevant to research within the international fire research community, as represented by the Consortium. Scope of the Fire Re-Search Hub A further-refined search tool (developed from the demonstration of concept example provided by the Federated Fire Research Tool) that forms a hub of all relevant fire research publications, utilizing relevant search-engine technology and presenting search results in a succinct and useful manner. Development and implementation of other fire research community related tools would be done separate to this. However consideration of these developments and how to best utilize them within the scope of best implementation of the Search Hub is recommended. 2 Year Objective : Fully operational search hub tool for fire research publications 5 Year Objective : Search hub tool with an expanded range of relevant searchable fire research information Intermediate Objectives of the Fire Re-Search Hub be the primary place fire researchers use for locating relevant information fire researchers use it and find it helpful be a tool that contributes to the international fire research community to promote efficient and relevant connections between people and information be robust and future-orientated assist international cooperation and communication be a useful component/tool for the international fire research community that is aware and integrated, where appropriate, to other community tools in order to leverage access to and by the community Implementation Objectives of the Fire Re-Search Hub be a central hub for fire research information from a wide range of repositories for research information - reports, papers, experimental data sets, etc the implementation and on-going support of the Search Hub is not for profit be freely accessible access to the Search Hub is not restricted by provision of personal information of users or any other requirements of the user utilize a distributed network, such that relevant information is accessible for a range of possible outcomes (e.g. change of an organizations focus from research to other areas, etc.)

utilize appropriate and efficient technology be a framework that interfaces with information in a large number of repositories assist in the rapid and useful dissemination of recently completed research project results/outputs user feedback is collected and used in on-going development of the Search Hub information on which Search Hub metrics are collected and the usage of the results are transparent and publicized on the website in plain English

Current State Fire research publications and information is organizational or group based and decentralized. This is inefficient and ineffective. This can be better.

Overall Outcome

Provide succinct access to relevant fire research publications and information

Overall Objective Provide a tool that connects fire researchers and publications and information

Intermediate Objectives

be the central hub for fire research information

be a tool that contributes to fire research effectiveness

promote connections between people and information

be robust and futureoriented

Elements to be Implemented

Search capabilities

Connection to information repositories

Security

User access

Integration with broader community

Measuring success

Core Design Principles integrity, connecting people and information, easy to use, not for profit, inclusive, sciencebased content, intuitive Core Values integrity, contributing, connected, respectful, enthusiastic

Stakeholders 3 Levels: 1. Consortium 2. Implementation team On-going maintenance and development team 3. Users/Members Core Design Principles of the Fire Re-Search Hub integrity connecting people and information communicative easy to use intuitive not for profit inclusive science-based content accessible Core Values of Fire Re-Search Hub Community integrity contributing connected respectful enthusiastic

People, Values, Culture and Commitment

Money Invested Consortium

Heads/delegates of interested and Provide governance participating Provide delegates for the organizations Implementation Team
1 member charged as custodian of the tool hosting infrastructure provide access to their own organizations information repositories

Implementation Team

Fire Re-Search Hub

integrity contributing connected enthusiastic not for profit respectful

The workgroup formed of consortium delegates and selfvolunteering interested parties and individuals design and implement the tool

Users of the Search Hub

Teams and employees of the consortium organizations and use the tool other interested parties provide feedback to the and individuals Implementation Team

Time Invested

Appendix 5 Year Plan Date 30 July 2010 31 August 2010 30 September 2010

Milestone 0 1 2

31 January 2011

31 July 2011

31 July 2012

31 July 2015

Brief Description Scoping of Project Identify all groups to be involved at all levels. Participants Confirmed Recruited and confirmed the Consortium members. Recruited and confirmed the Implementation Team members Guidance for Future Information Structure Provide guidance for the structure and formats of publications that will be searchable by Fire Search Hub, and a description of the intended functionality and potential limitations of the tool. Working Demonstration of Tool The Fire Search Hub is a working demonstration of the intended tool, providing a succinct, easy-touse, and useful way to search a range of publications from groups and other sources relevant to fire research performed by the member organizations of the Consortium. Fully Operational Tool The Fire Search Hub a fully operational tool that provides a succinct, easy-to-use, and useful way to search electronically searchable publications and databases of other publications from all groups and other sources relevant to fire research performed by the member organizations of the Consortium. Expansion of Searchable Information The Fire Search Hub provides a succinct, easy-touse, and useful way to search publications, repositories of experimental data, researchers biographies and current research project descriptions from all groups and other sources relevant to fire research performed by the member organizations of the Consortium.

List of Intended Users Organizations Organization First Point of Secondary Name Contact Point of Contact

Organization Representation on Consortium

NIST BRANZ VTT SP NFPA IAFSS SFPE Combustion Science Society WPI U Maryland U Canterbury U Illinois Hughes & Associates Thunderhead Eng

Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N

Organization Representation on Implementation Team Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N

Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Bryan Klein Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N

Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N

Elements of the Fire Re-Search Hub for Consideration Search capabilities: o How is the search accessed? i.e. multiple users at the same time, etc. o What search engines, web-crawlers, etc. are relevant and available? What search functionalities are best to utilize? How does it access information? What is required of the repositories that we want to search? o What is the best format for the presentation of results? o How is the best way to suggestion of other related search terms to the user? o How best to personalized filtering/selection of areas of interest? o What are the best strategies to integrate a future focus into the design and implementation of the search hub? o What end-connections do we want? E.g. Endnote, etc. Connection to information repositories: o What are all the available and relevant repositories? What state is their contents in? o Who owns each repository and do we have their permission to search their information? o What is currently available in terms of: What structure is used? What file formats are used? What strategies are in place for future development of these? o How will these be integrated/linked? Can a remote standard query be activated each month & electronically reported back? o What method is there for alerting the appropriate person to update the system if changes are made to a repository? o How are the links checked that they are still working and useful? o What is the most appropriate way to connect to, search and handle free versus commercial information (i.e. journal papers, etc.)? o What is the potential for each of the repositories for Security: o What are the security risks and how best to remove or mitigate these? o Are there any issues with Personal Information? o Are there any issues in permissions and access method of repositories that are not publically freely available? User access: o What is the best approach for users to have access to the tool? E.g. Known membership base versus anonymity versus a virtually anonymous login, and how these relate to aspects including as: login access membership via invitation by other members personal portals Integration into the broader international fire research community:

o To what extent to relate to and integrate with other fire research

community tools/strategies?
o Future proofing this/ building in flexibility

Measuring the success of the Search Hub: o What metrics provide the best estimating of the success of the Search Hub? o How to collect data on the usage of the Search Hub? o How to implement these metrics? o How to communicate what metrics are being collected, how and what they are being used for? What are all the issues for future-proofing? o How do these affect each aspect of the Hub? o What mitigation strategies will be most effective? o Are there identifiable point where the Hub will be required to be reassessed as to its appropriateness, etc.? Who is responsible for the Hub overall and for each section? o How is this handled so that no one person is relied on solely?

The Five Biggest Challenges to having this Succeed 1. Starting 2. Managing peoples expectation, so that they support it, are happy with the output and use it 3. How to present the results in a meaningful way to the user 4. What shape the data is in compared to presenting it meaningfully 5. How to future-proof it

CONSORTIUM Overall Outcome Provide succinct access to relevant fire research materials. Overall Objective To provide support and guidance for the initial and on-going development of a successful Fire Re-Search Hub. Scope The Consortium is the body that provides governance to the overall project. Each organization of the consortium contributes: providing two (2) delegates or proxy delegates for participation in the Implementation Team (that is responsible for the design and implementation) ensuring access to their publications and information, with an active in-house policy to maintain and provide appropriate levels of access to their own relevant publications elect a chair with the final right on decisions, to ensure immediacy of potential actions of the Implementation Team charge one member organization as custodian of the tool hosting infrastructure Each organization of the consortium receives: input to the overall governance of the Implementation Team access for their fire research teams and employees to a tool that will streamline the process of finding relevant publications and information from Intermediate Objectives spur the development of the Fire Re-Search Hub provide guidance to the Implementation Team during the design, development and implementation of the framework Implementation Objectives provide funded support for the development of the Fire Re-Search Hub by providing two (2) delegates from each organization of the Consortium for the Implementation Team charge 1 member organization with ownership of the web-hosting infrastructure ensure continuity of the project by: o developing a handover procedure for the web-hosting infrastructure in the case where the custodian must change o developing a handover procedure for each organizations publication and information repositories in the case where an organization significantly changes focus and will no longer maintain their interest in fire research have at least passive support from all FORUM member organizations promote and champion the international Fire Re-Search Hub maintain responsibility for the timely implementation of the international Fire ReSearch Hub by the Implementation Team maintain a future focus for the usability and evolution of the International Fire ReSearch Hub

maintain a future focus for the use of the International Fire Re-Search Hub for the application of the framework to other fields/areas of research

Consortium Members Organization Point of Name Contact IAFSS NIST BRANZ Thunderhead Eng

First Delegate

Second Delegate

Primary Interest Regarding Search Hub

Bryan Klein

Bryan Klein

Development

IMPLEMENTATION TEAM Overall Outcome Provide succinct access to relevant fire research materials. Overall Objective Design and implement the successful Fire Re-Search Hub. Hand over the successful Fire Re-Search Hub to the On-Going Maintenance and Development Team. Scope The Implementation Team will take the Federated Fire Research Search Tool as a demonstration of concept and develop and implement a further-refined search that forms a hub of all relevant fire research publications, utilizes relevant search-engine technology and presents search results in a succinct and useful manner. The Implementation Team is formed of the delegates from each of the member organizations, institutions, etc. of the Consortium and other interested parties and individuals. The implementation team is responsible for the design and implementation of the Fire Re-Search Hub and communication of the current status, functionality and future of the Fire Re-Search Hub to the Consortium and Fire Re-Search Hub Users. Intermediate Objectives create a tool that is a central hub for fire research information from a wide range of repositories for research information - reports, papers, experimental data sets, etc design and implement a tool that contributes to the international fire research community create a tool that promotes efficient and relevant connections between people and information design the tool to be robust and future-orientated assist international cooperation and communication integrate the tool with other international fire research community tools, where appropriate, in order to leverage access to and by the community Implementation Objectives identify the intended-user base identify the repositories desired for incorporation o determine the current state of the contents of each repository and the intended direction of the owner organization o recruit the participation of the organization solicit, collect and collate intended-user data for use in designing the framework of the Fire Re-Search Hub formulate the scope and objectives of the Fire Re-Search Hub identify need for specialist input required for design or implementation, then identify potential sources of specialist knowledge and recruit determine and implement the appropriate level of security (particularly pertaining to PI, if any, etc.)

develop and implement a strategy to check the status of the Fire Re-Search Hub (e.g. the links to each of the federated banks of data, etc.) identify metrics to assess the success of the Fire Re-Search Hub develop an implementation strategy execute the implementation strategy maintain contact with intended-users during the design and implementation phase of the Fire Re-Search Hub maintain communication of progress with Consortium develop the scope and objectives of the On-Going Maintenance and Development Team in preparation for the handover of the Fire Re-Search Hub at the 2 year milestone Key Elements for Implementation search capabilities and functionality connections to information repositories security ser access integration with the broader community measuring success of the Search Hub

Implementation Team Members Team Member Email Contact

Organization Name

Organization Representation on Consortium Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N Y/N

Thunderhead Eng

Bryan Klein

Primary Interest Regarding Search Hub Development

ON-GOING MAINTENANCE AND DEVELOPMENT TEAM Mission Statement Provide succinct access to relevant fire research materials. Scope The On-Going Maintenance and Development Team will take over responsibility of the Fire Re-Search Hub from the Implementation Team at the 2 year mark. The On-Going Maintenance and Development Team will be responsible for the continuance of the successful Fire Re-Search Hub. The structure and objectives of the On-Going Maintenance and Development Team will be developed by the Implementation Team.