A slidedoc created to brief managers on the research findings of colleagues at another institution who are working to overhaul their intranet.

1. Aligning
Information Technology
with Brookhaven’s
Research Mission
Prepared by Gary Schroeder
July 28, 2014

2. 2|
Introduction
​An initial assumption was made that
overhauling the user interface to the
Lab’s Standards Based Management
System was the most direct way of
achieving this objective. However,
following discussion among owners of
the effort, a different consensus was
reached, summarized by three points.
​These points redirected efforts toward
planning for interviews with research
staff with a view towards a redesigned
intranet. In planning for an intranet
overhaul, outreach was made to other
national labs that had already
conducted user interviews in
furtherance of goals similar to ours.
​
​Brookhaven Science Associates has made a
commitment to DOE to use IT tools to better support
researchers and facilitate their daily work.
Locatingsubjectareasisnota
significanthurdleimpeding
researchersintheirwork.
Other,moresignificantimpediments
exist.
Theproperwaytodeterminewhat
improvementeffortwouldbest
supportresearchersistodirectlyask
themtosharetheirexperiences.

3. 3|
Benchmarking
​<REDACTED> Laboratory conducted
user surveys in 2012 as part of their
Intranet Realignment project. The
project was begun in response to a
general recognition that their
intranet was (in their words) “tired,”
link-heavy, and largely static. Lab X
organized a team of two in-house
user experience experts to conduct
interviews of research staff.
​Volunteers were solicited via an
online form and 32 people out of the
available pool of volunteers were
ultimately interviewed. Support staff
were excluded on the basis of
“biggest return” on the investment of
time as 50% of Lab X staff are
dedicated to research and research is
the Lab’s primary mission.
​What the Lab X interviewers learned during their Realignment
project is enlightening and highly instructive for Brookhaven.
​Lab X interviewers found that what researchers actually want in the way of
information technology support is quite different from what might be
presupposed. Interestingly, their results could just as easily have been
obtained from the Brookhaven community. There are many themes that we
have in common and all of them will be familiar to anyone supporting IT at
Brookhaven.

4. 4|
Top Impediments
​Researchers want a
unified search tool that
supports search across
all internal online
resources, without the
need to resort to
multiple, disconnected
search tools.
​They would prefer
suggestive results in
which search strings are
auto-completed mid-
string (so as to suggest
meaningful content
that they aren’t
necessarily even aware
of).
​The number one complaint is that online search does
not meet user needs and expectations.
​They want a search tool
that accurately ranks
results by relevancy (a
common complaint
was the inability of
their search engine to
distinguish old content
from new and rank
results accordingly).
​They want results which
are returned according
to the key concepts
contained in a
document rather than
just a simple word
match.
​Relevant Results​Unified ​Suggestive ​Conceptual
Search

5. 5|
Top Impediments
​Lab X supports SharePoint for
collaboration but respondents felt
that it did not meet the need for a
“flexible tool that supports the R&D
and academic publishing process.”
The general feeling about SharePoint
was that it “doesn’t work well” and
that there are a lot of barriers to its
use, e.g., it’s difficult to “get
information out of it”; the basic
features (document upload, surveys,
bulletin boards, wiki) have confusing
and inconvenient workflows; and
users are confused about how to
configure sites.
​Some participants noted that they
have used SharePoint’s wiki feature
to write documents as a team, but
that it’s difficult because only one
person can edit a file at a time. They
want revision histories with support
for simultaneous document editing.
Ideally, they want a tool that would
allow users to write articles and
reports collaboratively with internal
and external team members. Many
users should be able to edit the
document simultaneously from any
location or device, similar to Google
Docs.
​Researchers want a flexible tool that supports R&D and the
academic publishing process.
Collaboration
Collaboratingoutsideof
theLabrequiresaneasy
methodofexternally
sharinginformationand
data
Researcherswilluse
unapproved,cloud-
based commercialtools
ifthein-housetoolsfail
tomeettheirneeds

6. 6|
Top Impediments
​Participants had a low awareness of
the IT tools and websites available to
them. The problem is compounded
by the feeling that corporate
information is inaccurate, outdated,
and poorly organized, so it’s difficult
for users to look up information
about the "official" portfolio on their
own. Participants commented about
"stumbling over" tools that ended up
being essential for their work or
struggling for months and wishing
that a capability existed, only to find
out later (by word of mouth) that it
does.
​Many don’t know what tools they’re
encouraged to use. They’re unsure
whether a tool is a long-term
solution or one that might
unexpectedly go away. A common
issue was that users were unwilling to
invest the time to become a system
expert if they felt that the tool might
disappear. A cited example was
SharePoint MySites which
participants reported stumbling on to
but decided not to use because no
one else had filled in their
information, giving the impression
that it’s not an officially supported
tool.
​Communication is poor when it comes to making clear what IT
resources are available and supported.
Awareness of Resources
It’shardtofigureout
whattheLab’sofficialIT
portfoliocontains
Ifatoollooksunused,
staffwon’tinvestthe
timenecessaryto
becomeproficientwithit

7. 7|
Top Impediments
​It’s perceived that
official IT tools are
compatible only with
Windows/IE
configurations in mind,
and not the more
common Mac/Linux,
Chrome/Firefox
combinations seen in
research (leading PIs to
maintain auxiliary
Windows machines
strictly for using official
Lab tools).
​They found the intranet
to be cluttered with
poorly organized
information rendering it
near useless. “Insider
knowledge” is a
prerequisite for
successfully navigating
intranet content.
​Researchers want an
expertise locator that
allows them to search
by topic and maintain a
network of other
researchers with
common interests.
They didn’t feel
MySites were filling
that role for some
reason. (Possibly due to
lack of active
promotion by the Lab.)
​Authentication
credentials are not
handed off to other
applications, making
frequent credential
entry necessary.
​Finding Experts​Windows-centric ​Poor Content ​Authentication
Other Roadblocks

8. 8|
Conclusions
​User interviews are essential to
surfacing the true IT-related
impediments to research. Without
them, project managers attempting to
craft a solution are simply guessing as
to where to expend their valuable--
and limited--resources. Lab X’s
findings show that the true pain points
for researchers are rarely related to
anything associated with locating
procedures, but are instead related to
barriers that hinder quick, easy
information sharing.
​
​The best thing the IT Division can do to support
researchers in their daily work is to make it as easy
as possible to share information with colleagues.
​For Brookhaven, our best return on
project investment time is likely to be
realized by taking the time to talk to
our researchers and then choosing
one or two key problems to solve in
the near term. In the end, it’s likely
that the chief concerns of our research
staff will match those of the Lab X staff
but we’ll never know for sure unless
we conduct the necessary initial
research.