Defense Technical Information Center
Abstract
The Defense Technical Information Center’s (DTIC) unique mission is to provide rapid, accurate, and reliable access to essential research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) information, supporting all DoD users. DTIC, a DoD Field Activity, is the DoD’s singular executive agent and designated source for DoD-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and industry-related information. DTIC is an information delivery house that delivers technical information nearly instantaneously to all DoD users. DTIC also operates DoD Information Analysis Centers (IACs) focused on Defense Systems, Cyber Security and Information Systems, and Homeland Defense and Security. DTIC captures, preserves, protects, and shares research and development (R&D) information assets, and encourages collaboration to connect user communities. DTIC seeks to provide a department level mapping of R&D activity. This activity and its results advance research by providing researchers, warfighters, research and engineering (R&E) management, and decision makers with insight into current and past research conducted, highlighting progress made and by whom, and, just as important, where research leads to dead ends. As new capability needs are identified, technical challenges arise--rather than starting anew--work can pick up from the point of most recent results. Through the preservation and sharing of the results of billions of dollars of past DoD investment, DTIC increases the return on past investments and accelerates current efforts. Through its collaboration tools and outreach to the R&E community, DTIC connects researchers across the lab enterprise, to include research and engineering, warfighters and DoD’s industry partners. DTIC operations focus on six key areas: 1) Collect, document and preserve what works, what has promise (for reuse and additional investments). 2) Provide results that identify dead-ends that do not merit additional investment (avoid waste). 3) Facilitate and encourage engagement among cross-cutting communities of interest (bring together experts across the acquisition enterprise to meet warfighter needs). 4) Present overarching picture of research investment that enables decision-makers to link multiple efforts with integrated capabilities (employ resources to highest priority efforts and coordinate efforts across Services). 5) Protect intellectual property (IP) and industry proprietary data assets entrusted to DTIC’s stewardship (protect information access). 6) Provide industry and citizen scientists the results of unrestricted research. DTIC recognizes the need to accomplish its mission while increasing the value of the services and products we provide in an environment of Department-wide budget reductions. DTIC has reduced its headquarter staffing, physical footprint, civilian personnel and contract support; restructured the IAC program; and continues to consolidate its data center. At the same time, DTIC has taken on additional programs, to include its new role in leading the Department in efforts to provide public access to DoD-funded journal articles and research data and increase outreach to industry through the Defense Innovation Marketplace. Moreover, DTIC activities promote Citizen Science, which mobilizes the public to participate in the scientific process to address real-world problems, in ways that include identifying research questions, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting results, making new discoveries, developing technologies and applications, and solving complex problems. DTIC continues to ensure its activities are efficient and effective, meet users’ expectations, and employ industry best practices and standards, while protecting from cyber threats. DoD’s $120 Billion annual investment in research, development and procurement, support current and future capabilities. The results of these efforts are a national asset that DTIC must preserve for reuse across the acquisition enterprise. Approximately 23 percent of the four million records in DTIC’s information holdings are sensitive DoD only, federal government only and industry proprietary. DTIC is the only enterprise source for both publicly accessible and DoD sensitive material. DTIC's Information Analysis Centers (IACs) drive innovation and technological development by anticipating and responding to the information needs of the defense and broader community. The IAC Program Office provides core funding, management and oversight of three IACs, which are chartered by DoD to collect, analyze, and disseminate worldwide scientific and technical information in specialized fields. IAC multi-award task order contracts maximize use of the knowledge within the centers, ensuring that new research, analysis, and development builds on prior investments and best practices of government, industry, and academia. The IAC approach is deemed a "best practice" by the Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy in a Jan 2015 memo promoting maximum use of the IAC contracts across DoD. IACs are structured into three technology groupings: Cyber Security and Information Systems, Homeland Defense and Security, and Defense Systems. As part of the Department's Better Buying Power initiative, the IAC multi-award contracts enhance competition, increase outreach to and usage of small-businesses, and reduce government costs. The IAC model has demonstrated cost savings of 17-25%, delivering vetted technical expertise to address many of the complex challenges DoD faces. An independent assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported that the IACs improve affordability, productivity, and standardization within defense acquisition programs. Providing the acquisition enterprise access to thousands of industry subject matter experts, DTIC's IACs perform over $1 Billion of customer funded research and prototyping support annually. The results of the work are a rich source of material in DTIC's information asset collections and are available to users across the Department (and other federal agencies, e.g., Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security). This Program Element (PE) supports DTIC mission operations. DTIC focuses on three core mission areas (Collection, Dissemination and IACs) and purchases space and shared services (e.g., human resources (HR); financial management; contracting; IT security; communications; and civilian payroll services) from expert and efficient DoD providers. DTIC’s role in the Department is to deliver the tools and collections that empower the research and engineering enterprise to accelerate the development of the technologies that will maintain U.S. technical superiority in the future; preserve and disseminate the research that led to the technologies our warfighters use today and will use in the future, and stimulate innovation with public/industry access to journal articles and the digital data that supports research conclusions funded by DoD. These activities maximize the value of each dollar the DoD spends through the analysis of funding data, work in progress and IR&D to identify gaps, challenges and the way forward. DTIC’s FY 2015-16 efforts support the Agency’s evolution from data dissemination to information dissemination. Laying the groundwork through the exploration of semantic technologies, and updating DTIC’s Thesaurus to provide a basis for semantic analysis, will result in applying semantic linking and tagging technology to new collections, such as grant journal articles, data set metadata and acquisition data and pilot a solution to consolidate multiple organization name taxonomies to enable consistent and comprehensive organization search, browse, and linking across DTIC content. FY 2017 funds support the launch of information products that will take advantage of information architecture improvements to support U.S technological superiority with advances in warfighter technologies.
Document Details
- Document Type
- R2 Budgetary Justification
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2017
- Source ID
- 0605801KA_6_0400_PB_2017
- Change Summary Explanation
- Specific changes to the FY 2017 program (net decrease of $12.941 Million from the FY 2016 “Current President’s Budget” funding level; $6.576 Million less from the previous FY 2017 PB Base) are outlined below: FY 2016 Congressional Adds: $5.000 Million one-time congressional add to the FY 2016 DTIC program element. The omnibus language cites “Program Increase: National security technology accelerator technology knowledge exchange.” This has not been programmed as an enduring increase; as such, this appears as a $5.0 Million decrease in the FY 2017 PB position. Previous President’s Budget: The $1.365 Million reduction from the FY 2016 position to the FY 2017 Base reflects the curtailment of operating activities across the enterprise, and the deferment of modernization and development of DTIC tools and applications slated for DTIC’s various user communities. Reductions to civilian FTEs and the streamlining of DTIC contract requirements continue in FY 2017. FY 2017 Program Changes: The DTIC mission serves as an efficiency enabler to the Department. Funding reductions to the DTIC program, as necessitated by budget realities, reduces opportunities for the Department to gain efficiencies and cost reductions across the enterprise. In FY 2017, there is a $2.044 Million budget reduction from the FY 2016 funding level. As a result of this reduction, the following DTIC efforts and program content will be down-scoped in FY 2017: - Public Access program/Public website capabilities. -- The collection of data sets associated with Public Access will be limited to a pilot in FY 2017. Activities will be limited to current capacity. The procurement of additional storage capacity and bandwidth will be delayed to FY 2018. -- Development of advance search capabilities related to public search of Technical Reports (TRs) will be delayed. -- User training, along with the establishment of compliance and enforcement measures within the Department, will be deferred to FY 2018. -- Search capabilities associated with DTIC’s public website will not be expanded, limiting site utility to the user community. - Development and capability upgrades planned for the Defense Innovation Marketplace will be deferred, limiting access and utility by both Department and industry users. - Reduce efforts focused on the integration of data, communities and analysis across the Acquisition and Science and Technology (S&T) enterprise. Development of product enhancements that support visibility of--and integration across--existing acquisition data sources will be limited. - Limit the introduction of unclassified material available to users on the Department’s SIPRNET. The updating of SIPRNET data content and capabilities will be delayed, thereby creating a parity lag with comparable NIPRNET applications. - The funding reduction will limit DTIC’s responsiveness in addressing emerging requirements and mandates, and degrade our ability to enable efficiencies to offset Management HQ reduction impacts in OSD and the Services. FY 2017 Economic Assumptions: $.132 Million represents pricing adjustments based on revised economic and inflation factors. FY 2017 Reprogramming: $4.400 Million was reprogrammed by the Department from the DTIC PE 0605801KA to create a new DTIC Management Headquarters PE 0605998KA. The newly established PE and accompanying funding will support the HQ staff element assigned to DTIC.
- Service Agency Name
- Defense Technical Information Center
Entities
Organizations
- Defense Technical Information Center
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