Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center R&D Communication Reference Guide

CHAPTER 2. HRTM SERVICE AND SUBMISSION PROCESS

This chapter offers an overview of the services provided by HRTM’s Innovation Management and Communication Team. The applicable laws, rules, and FHWA policies are in accordance with 44 U.S. Code § 501.⁽⁵⁾

HRTM SERVICES

HRTM guides, oversees, manages, and produces a variety of communication materials to disseminate RD&T information to a wide range of audiences composed of transportation industry professionals, legislators, scientists, association members, educators, corporate customers, and the public. This effort is supported with the assistance of contract editors, writers, photographers, Web programmers, and others. When developing your communication material, the following are a few important points to keep in mind.

Identify Your Audience

When writing, consider your audience and take time to think about who will read what you’re writing.

Define Your Message

A message is a communication or statement conveyed from one person or group to another. Determine what you want the reader to learn from your publication. Be sure to provide important details that support the central message within the publication.

Communication products must provide information clearly, concisely, and consistently in design, style, grammar, spelling, composition, and format. This is important because many readers equate the quality of our research, the reliability of our innovations, and the competence of our research staff with the quality of FHWA’s communication products. Publications provide a permanent record of developments in technology, implementation, and research. Our communication products represent FHWA. To present the most professional image of the agency, FHWA products must be technically accurate and appropriately comprehensive.

Consider Effective Ways to Reach Your Audience

After identifying your audience(s) and defining your message(s), you must then determine the most effective way of reaching your audience. Consider the following questions:

• What does your audience consider the most effective approach for communicating information about a specific type of knowledge, product, or service?
  
  
• What is the most appropriate means for transmitting the message(s)? A printed report may be best for one audience, an article for another audience, or a Microsoft® PowerPoint presentation for yet another group.
  
  
• What resources are available for developing and distributing the product?
  
  
• What do you intend the audience to do with this communication product?

SNAPSHOT OF PUBLICATION WORK SCHEDULE

There are many steps to the publication process. However, to give you a sense of the steps and associated development timelines, the snapshot of the publication work schedule is provided for your consideration.

The formal process to develop and publish a document includes submitting a few forms to HRTM for processing. HPA must complete an initial review of the information you will be conveying before the publishing process begins. See chapter 8 and appendixes S and T for more information. Details regarding each form are as follows, and the forms are available on the FHWA internal research Microsoft® SharePoint site:⁽⁷⁾

• FHWA Form 1113, “Clearance Request for Public Materials Video, Print, Web, Social Media, or Multimedia”: This is required if you are requesting approval to develop external communications material including, but not limited to video, print, web, and social media products. Submit this form to HRTM. Because of HRTM’s liaison status between researchers and HPA, the form will be submitted to HPA by HRTM.

• HRTM Service Request Form (i.e., Intake Form): In addition to the submission of the form listed above, a Microsoft® Word document containing the report in layout format, a Microsoft® Word document containing alternative text for all nontext elements in the report, separate graphics, and signed copyright permissions or licensing transfers also must be submitted. It is important to ensure that the copy of the document that is submitted to HRTM for development is in its final format. Therefore, confirm support and approval of the final document from your office director prior to submitting the publication job request. HRTM staff must receive a hard copy of the Service Request Form that is signed by an office or technical director or other delegate. Office directors also may submit the HRTM Service Request Form by email. The office directors’ endorsements or approvals indicates the following:

• They are aware of the publication’s content.

• They endorse its publication and are willing to commit office funds to publish it, if appropriate.

• They assure that it has had the proper review by all stakeholders (i.e., headquarters and field offices) and support the plan pertaining to the publication media, intended audience, use of the document, and distribution.

• They confirm that it is fully compatible with U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and FHWA policies and positions and that all potential sensitivities have been appropriately addressed.

• FHWA Form 1528, “Authorization to Proceed to Printing/Reprinting/Web Posting/Multimedia/Video Production”: As the last step prior to publishing any external communications products after the editorial, design layout, and quality assurance processes are complete, HRTM must submit an FHWA Form 1528, “Authorization to Proceed to Printing/Reprinting/Web Posting/Multimedia/Video Production” to HPA for approval. The communication products include, but are not limited to:

• Documents.

• New, extensively updated, or redesigned web content or websites.

• Videos.

• Social media posts.

• Displays.

• Posters.

• Presentations.

• Articles.

• Brochures.

• Reports.

EDITORIAL REVIEW PROCESS

Once the report is written, it will be formally edited by FHWA’s editors. The complete time to develop a publication is about 3 to 4 months when the defined timelines are not changed. Layout and design needs may require additional steps, depending on approvals, which may add time and expense to jobs. For this reason, researchers are encouraged to discuss their concerns about the publication job and possible layout and design issues prior to approving the job and cost estimate after submission. The following estimated times should be used as a broad guideline for final HRTM communication product editorial process, quality assurance, and delivery:

1. HPA Initial Review (1 to 3 weeks): The researcher will provide the FHWA Form 1113 to HRTM for submittal to HPA, which will lead to the following:

   • HRTM will inform the researcher of the results of the initial HPA review.

   The researcher will submit a completed Service Request Form (i.e., Intake Form) to HRTM indicating all of the submission requirements (e.g., permissions and copyrights) have been met to obtain a cost estimate for preparing the publication. This submission will lead to the following:

   • Upon receipt of information from the contractor, HRTM will provide the researcher with two cost estimates: (1) estimated cost if the document has been developed in accordance to the CRG, and (2) estimated cost if any requirements to develop the document have not been fulfilled (e.g., lack of 508 captions and permissions).

   • Upon approval of the cost estimate by the researcher, HRTM will notify the contract editor to proceed with working on the document. Note: At this stage, the timeline for which the contractor is held liable to maintain the delivery schedule begins. Any deviations from the timeline may delay the final deliverable date.

2. Initial Edit (10 working days): The Microsoft® Word file containing the publication is edited and formatted in compliance with CRG and the GPO Style Manual.⁽²⁾

3. FHWA Researcher Review (10 working days): The author reviews the editor’s changes and responds to outstanding questions and action items.

4. Final Editing and Final Layout Version (10 working days): The editor incorporates the researcher’s responses and changes into the file, and the designer creates an Adobe® Acrobat PDF of the publication layout.

5. FHWA Researcher Reviews the Draft Final Delivery (30 calendar days): The author reviews the editor’s changes and responds to outstanding questions and action items.

6. Editor Addresses FHWA Researcher Comments (5 working days): The editor incorporates the author’s responses and changes into the file and creates the final PDF for approval.

7. FHWA Researcher Final Review and Approval (10 working days): The author reviews the final PDF and either sends further changes to the editor or approves the publication for publishing.

8. HPA Final Review (20 working days): Upon receipt of the author’s final approval, HRTM sends the final document and the FHWA Form 1528 for review to HPA. Completion date of review is subject to change due to conflicting demands within HPA.

9. Final Package Preparation and Delivery (5 working days): The editor assembles the publication files and sends them to FHWA after any changes indicated by HPA are made.

10. Printing (14 to 42 days depending on job).

11. Distribution (7 to 14 days).

12. Web files (5 working days for PDF, and 14–28 days for the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) version of the publication.

All communication products are edited electronically (i.e., using Track Changes in Microsoft® Word) for consistency and adherence to acceptable style, punctuation, and grammar. Edits normally will include checking sections for basic errors, grammar, and adherence to the selected writing style. The process also includes analyzing formatting, providing suggested changes to text for readability, and checking for organizational problems within the document (e.g., removing or indicating repetitive information; ensuring parallelism in bulleted and numbered lists, headings, and text).

Responsibility for Corrections

The editor will provide a summary edit sheet that describes the edits in the document. The researcher is responsible for reviewing all editorial changes and answering queries as requested by the editor within the expressed timeline. In the case of reports, the researcher who submitted the report or the office’s contractor is responsible for reviewing all electronic edits and incorporating all changes into the document.

This review time should be built into a research contract.

Expediting the Editing Process

The speed of the publication process relies on how quickly researchers, contract office representatives, and their contractors make the corrections indicated by the editor and return the communication product to HRTM.Planning a project from the start with Section 508 in mind will save money and time in the long run.

The researcher can save time and money by doing the following:

• Submitting a 508 compliance alternative text for nontext elements (captions) file when submitting the first draft of a communication product, report, brochure, technical flyer, etc. Both the draft and the 508 captions can go through the editorial process at the same time.

• Ensuring that authors and contractors working on publications are familiar with the Section 508 guidance and the specific rules and standards that apply to each publication or other communication product.

• Communicating the “simple table” concept to authors and contractors. A simple table contains only one row of horizontal and one row of vertical headers. Complex tables with more than a single row of headers can add a tremendous amount of time when converting a document into HTML and making it 508 compliant.

• Submitting final text that does not require major rewrites or changes.

• Providing quality, high-resolution (300 dots per inch [dpi] or greater) photography or artwork if necessary and providing original drawings or illustrations at the beginning of the cycle.

• Ensuring that all legal written permissions or licensing for any content or graphics that are not owned by FHWA are included with the submission.

See chapter 4, Section 508, and Publication Content for more information.

Printing the Publication

Upon completion of the publication job, it can be printed and posted on the FHWA website.⁽¹⁾

GPO is the Federal Government’s official, digital, secure resource for producing, procuring, cataloging, indexing, authenticating, disseminating, and preserving the official information products of the U.S. Government. Every publication of the executive department, independent office, and establishment of the Government, including FHWA, shall be printed at GPO.⁽⁵⁾

Errata Process (i.e., Errors in Printing or Online)

Errata are short and minor revisions to a printed or published document to correct mistakes such as factual, spelling, or typographic corrections. After a research document is printed or published (i.e., defined as released to the public) on a website and typographical or technical errors are found, an errata notification is to be created to notify readers of the need for corrections in the document. Errata are posted on the FHWA website and sent to a print distribution. The errata contain information that informs readers of the changes needed and are posted to the FHWA research website.

HRTM will ask the researcher or author to provide a completed errata template, including information such as the name of the report, report number, page numbers where errors appear, the errors, and the corrections. Those changes should be incorporated in the electronic document. See appendix Q for the Errata Form Template.