ASK OCE — June, 14, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 9

In an effort to structure a more robust knowledge management environment, the Office of the Chief Engineer has sponsored the NASA Engineering Network (NEN), which will allow engineers to search across distributed engineering data sources, build technical communities of practice, and create an online presence for Agency engineers.

The goal of the NEN is to provide engineers with the latest tools and engineering resources necessary to solve problems and design creative solutions more efficiently and collaboratively. A centerpiece of the NEN will be a newly configured Lessons Learned Portal that describes events, records lessons, and includes recommendations for future actions.

The NEN has redesigned and enhanced the lessons learned system by making searching, browsing, and submitting key lessons easier. The new system will also offer advanced search capabilities to mine information from other NASA engineering repositories, enabling searches on a few, several, or all resources simultaneously on a topic of interest. The NEN will have links to other Agency-wide resources such as the NASA Technical Standards, risk management principles and guidelines, and project/program leadership training and development programs (APPEL).

In the near future, NEN will provide the engineer with peer-to-peer collaboration tools to assist in creating, reviewing, and disseminating requirements and specifications. By this fall, the Expertise Locator tool will be operational and ready to assist engineers in finding the best collaboration partners across NASA to help complete their tasks.

The NEN will roll out in three phases throughout 2006. The NASA Engineering Network is managed by JPL’s Knowledge Management Technologies Program.