Language:
Search
 
National Science and Technology Information Service
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology

The Problem

The budget for National R&D in Korea showed a rapid increase from 1998 to 2006 by an average of 13.1% with the economic growth. However, there were more than 30 different ministries in charge of the National R&D projects without a centralized control tower, which caused many different problems such as duplicate R&D’s being performed year after year, lack of information being shared to researchers on past National R&D projects, and difficulty in setting the agenda or policies for the R&D activities in Korea by the government due to the lack of information. With the increase in the size and complexity of National R&D projects, a more strategic approach was required for the budget and coordination of the various projects being conducted under the different ministries and analysis and application of the result to future policy making was also becoming a greater issue for the government. For example, a government official would have to call or send an email to the research institute in charge of managing the project to submit the required information and then the institute would have to redirect the query to the researchers who are conducting the project to collect the information required.
On the other hand, researchers who wanted to participate in National R&D projects or students who wanted to lookup the information on National R&D projects on a specific subject that they were interested in would have to go through the many different systems that the information was dispersed to, go to libraries where the final reports were being submitted to and yet still not be able to get sufficient information. For example, they would have to go and lookup the general information of a project through the library of congress, where the final report of the project was submitted to, and then go to the website of the Korea Institute of Patent Information to lookup the information on the patent, and then go to the website of Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information to lookup the information on the papers which came out as the result of the project.
Promoting the effectiveness of National R&D through the sharing and utilization of information was the key issue and the Korean government setup the Office of Science and Technology Innovation within the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2003 to coordinate all the National R&D projects. The first major project by OSTI was the construction of the National Science and Technology Information Service(NTIS). NTIS is an on-line service that collects and services National R&D information from the general project information, participating researcher information, result information and equipment and facility information from all the 15 different ministries in charge of National R&D projects.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
NTIS, explained above, provides 340 different types of information on a project that are inter-connected based on the project. For example, when a researcher or student looks up the information on a project through a search, NTIS returns the general project information and also provides a list of the researchers who participated in the project. The information of the researcher such as affiliation, degree and projects that he/she has participated in are provided by clicking on the researcher’s name. The result information such as patent and paper is also provided on the same page as the project information which leads up to the full paper or actual document. The information on the equipments bought through the project is also provided. All of this information is connected around the project information. The information on the participating researcher, results of the project such as the paper and patent, and the equipments bought through the project can be viewed from the project information page.
Through NTIS, researchers can access information on National R&D projects to start a new project or find partners for a research project. Medium and small enterprises can gain access to equipments that are too expensive to buy, but have been bought through a National R&D project and actually use the nearest available equipment through searching through the system.
R&D Management institutes can use the budget more effectively through preventing redundant R&D projects through the information provided by NTIS. They also utilize the information and statistics for the planning of new projects as well as for the evaluation and analysis of projects.
Government officials utilize the information for the mediation and evaluation of projects. The result information and statistical information is also applied to the actual policy making process.
The impact was measured by many different criteria. The first criterion is the number of registered users which exceeds over 50,000 users. Most of the users are researchers from the industry, university and research institutes, government officials and students. A large number of the researchers from the industry are working for Medium and Small enterprises who want to participate or initiate a national R&D project, but lack the information, personnel or equipment and want to find the suitable information through NTIS.
The second criterion is the number of page-view on the service of over 8,450,000 since the opening of the service in March of 2008, which is an average of 380,000 page-views per month. Average page view by a single registered user is about 231, which is quite a large number even compared to that of commercial portal services in Korea.
These numbers prove the level usage of NTIS by Korean researchers.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The project was initiated by the Office of Science and Technology Innovation and was implemented by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, along with the help of other institutes such as the Korea Institute for Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning(KISTEP) and Korea Basic Science Institute(KBSI).
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is in charge of coordinating between the different stakeholders such as the ministries and project management institutes and also making and setting the overall plan and agenda of the project. It is also in charge of operating the National R&D Information Management Council which is in charge of approving all the major R&D policies in Korea. Another major role is the making and amendment of the related laws and regulations. The regulation on the management of National R&D projects has been amended so that all the researchers participating in National R&D projects are to submit the information to NTIS.
KISTI is the coordinating organization in charge of constructing the service as well as the operation and management of all the information being collected from the 15 different ministries and offices in charge of National R&D projects. KISTI was selected as the coordinating organization in charge of constructing the project based on the experience and expertise in collecting and providing science and technology information as well as its expertise in constructing on-line information systems.
KISTEP is a participating organization in charge of constructing and operating the R&D project information service.
KBSI is also a participating organization in charge of constructing and operating the R&D equipment and facility information service.
There are over 125 R&D project management institutes that provide their information to NTIS through the 16 different institutes in charge of collecting and managing the R&D information under each ministry or office. 16 different major R&D project management institutes were designated by the ministry in charge to collect the R&D information from each ministry and upload the information to NTIS. There are also 8 different institutes in charge of collecting and providing the result information of National R&D projects.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The main objective of the initiative was to collect all the National R&D information in Korea that were being conducted and managed by different stakeholders under a single system of NTIS. The main strategy was to mediate and coordinate the many different opinions and requirements of more than 130 different stakeholders.
Committees and discussion groups were setup at each level to keep our ears open to the voices of the different stakeholders and also to make the process for coordinating the technical aspects of the systems. Decision makers from the different ministries and offices in charge of National R&D projects were put together into the National R&D Information Management Committee to discuss and approve the major issues in constructing the system. Experts on the information and system from the main R&D information management institute under each ministry and office were put together to make decisions on the construction of the system as well as the sharing of information and a working level group of experts from these ministries were put together to support them in the technical level.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology(MEST) was in charge of coordinating between all the different stakeholders and KISTI was in charge of actually executing all the technical aspects of the system as well as designing the service. MEST and KISTI work closely together throughout the year to make the major decisions on the operation of the system.
Standardization of the information was also one of the major strategies behind the implementation of the service. Before the initiative, the National R&D information was being collected and managed through a different standard by each institute in charge of managing the project and there was not a single standardized format of information. Therefore, KISTI worked closely together with all the different stakeholders to make a standardized format for collecting and managing National R&D information through the different committees and working groups.
The other key strategy was the setup of the laws and regulations required to collect and manage the information from the different ministries. Amendment of the regulation on the Management of National R&D program to be able to collect and service the information was a crucial factor behind the success of our whole initiative.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In December of 2003, the plans for ‘Promoting R&D budget effectiveness’ was reported to the president of Korea. The National Science and Technology Committee approved the plans for constructing the National Science and Technology Information Service(NTIS) in July of the following year and it took about a year to make the specific plans and objectives to lay the foundation for the project. We performed the Information Strategic Planning(ISP) for NTIS in 2005 to specifically design each service and also make the layout of the infrastructure for collecting all the R&D information from the different ministries. The committees and working groups were setup in March 2007 and in the July of the same year, the rules and regulations for the collection and dissemination of National R&D information and the construction of the infrastructure was passed by the National Science Technology Committee. The process for developing the system and collecting all the information from the different ministries took about two years from 2006 to 2007 before the service was opened to the public in March 2008. Plans were made for the service of value-added service in 2009 and we are currently in the first year of the second stage of the development process.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacle was neither a technical problem or financial problem but rather a problem of putting together all the different views, opinions and requirements of the many different stakeholders. Since the information had been managed by more than 125 different institutes under the 15 different ministries and offices in charge, there were about 125 different ways for managing and servicing the information and the level of maintenance was also very different by each ministry. In some cases, just a little change was required whereas in other cases the whole system had to be overhauled to reach the level of expectation required to construct the service. The willingness to participate in the initiative was also very different by the stakeholders.
As explained above, committees and working groups were setup at each level to hear the different opinions and requirements of the different stakeholders. Committees at the decision making level worked together to find a policy-level solution to all the different problems and the experts from all the different institutes worked on the details of the solution before the working-level group provided the technical and working-level support for the actual implementation. At the beginning, it was difficult to mediate between the various different voices raised on a single issue by the different stakeholders, but with time and effort put into resolving the issue, we were able to reach an agreement on the solution of each issue. After that, the technical aspects were followed for the actual implementation. Most of the time and effort was put into sharing the goal of the project and after all the different stakeholders became aware of the initiative, the rest of the process such as the technical issues was resolved easily.
Other obstacles such as the technical issues or issues on the maintenance of the data and system required for constructing the system was dealt through the weekly meeting between the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and KISTI. A close channel is always open to discuss any major or minor issue surrounding the service.
The obstacles could be overcome by letting all the stakeholders participate throughout the whole process of the development of the service from listening to user requirements, designing the service, decision making and operation of the service. The information collected from all the different stakeholders are returned to them in a standardized format after processing the data for their own utilization. The stakeholders are also able to compare their information with those of the other stakeholders from different ministries and institutes to be able to refer to the information in making plans and policies.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The total budget spend on the construction of NTIS from 2006 to 2009 is 39,155,000,000 Korean Won, which is about 34,361,562 US dollar. It is an average of about 8,590,390$ annually in budget. The budget includes the cost spend on buying all the servers and equipments required to collect and manage all the R&D information. This budget also includes the personnel expenditure for the researchers who participated in the project, which is about 60 researchers per year participating in the project. However, this does not include the personnel expenditure of the personnel from the other stakeholders such as the R&D project management institutes and ministry. The 60 personnel per year includes the researchers taking part in developing the service and operation of the service such as the helpdesk personnel.
The budget was supplied by the Korean government through the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The budget plans for the second stage of the development program, starting from 2010 until 2012, is expected to be an amount of 33,114,000,000 Korean won, which is about 29,060,114 US dollar.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
We have constructed a governance system for the planning, execution and evaluation throughout the whole life cycle of the project based on Enterprise Architecture. We have build and adopted a Standard Operation Procedure(SOP) for the planning, operation and maintenance of the service, and also acquired the ISO 20000 certificate, which is an international standard for system operation in 2008. In 2009, we also acquired the ISO 27001 certificate, which is the international standard for system security. The SOP, along with the two international standards on the operation and security of the system are applied throughout the whole cycle of planning, operation and development of the project tightly to prevent and deal with any type of failure such as system crash. It also specifies the role and responsibility of all the stakeholders involved from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, KISTI, and all the institutes in charge of managing R&D information. The SOP has been written in reference with other international frameworks such as CoBIT and ITIL.
NTIS has also settled in as the service to use by government officials and researchers for acquiring information and statistics on National R&D projects, with over more than 50,000 registered users. It has become almost impossible to participate in a National R&D project without accessing NTIS throughout the whole process. To promote the user satisfaction, we perform a user survey to make improvements to our system to enhance the system’s user friendliness.
We are also currently in the process of sharing this valuable information with researchers overseas to promote international co-operation through sharing R&D information with similar systems overseas such as EU’s CORDIS.
For the dissemination of information, we have made the system transferable in the technical aspects as well.
Services that can be adopted by other institutes were developed with Open API which makes it applicable to any other web service. For example, Open API was applied to the development of the service for viewing sanction information and for the result verification system and has actually been adopted by other institutes in Korea such as the Korea Research Foundation. Such Open API based system can be used in the future in other countries by simply changing the language option. RSS feed was also applied to some of our services for making our contents transferable as well.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The major lesson learned from the initiative was on how to develop a service with a large number of stakeholders on hand.
First of all, we have standardized the whole workflow of the project based on international standards such as CoBIT, ITIL, ISO 20000 and ISO 27001. The whole development, operation and maintenance of the project is tightly controlled, managed and evaluated based on these standardized procedures.
Secondly, we have proposed and adopted an IT Governance model that is suitable for public projects. The transparency of all the process such as the decision making and risk management has been guaranteed through the Governance model of SOP. We not only collect and service the information on National R&D projects, but we also put a lot of effort into managing the quality of information being provided. We have found out from many different past experience, that user satisfaction level can only be achieved through quality control. We are also continuously putting effort into making value-added services to our system. The information that we have collected is of such high-value and cannot be retrieved from anywhere else, and based on such valuable information, we are trying to provide services to support the actual business process of our users at a higher level.
Third, the participation of all the stakeholders in the process of development and operation of the service made it possible for us to create a tightly coupled community within the public sector that is strongly supported by the stakeholder’s own needs. Through the participation in the various committees and working groups, the stakeholders could make their voices heard on the issues that we, together with the other stakeholders, had to overcome and could actually build a system that can be applied to their everyday business process. On top of that, they could gain access to the information about R&D projects that were being managed by other stakeholders that they could not have gained access to before for reference.
And last but not least, we have constructed a system for regularly listening to the opinion of the users of the service. By operating a call center and conducting user satisfaction survey twice a year, we have listened to the user’s voice and requirements to make the appropriate change and action which has lead to higher user satisfaction level every year, followed by the increase in the number of users.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
Institution Type:   Government Department  
Contact Person:   Ok Nam Jung
Title:   Deputy Director  
Telephone/ Fax:   82-2-2100-6643
Institution's / Project's Website:   82-2-2100-6133
E-mail:   jon77@mest.go.kr  
Address:   Sejong-No Jongno-Gu, Government Central Complex
Postal Code:   77-6
City:   Seoul
State/Province:   Seoul
Country:  

          Go Back
Print friendly Page