DTIC is the repository of government-funded scientific, technical, and engineering information for the Department of Defense. Its services are available to DoD personnel, federal government personnel, and selected academic institutions.
DTIC’s Information Analysis Centers (IAC) are staffed with scientists, engineers, and information specialists who provide essential research and analysis to a diverse customer base. These centers work closely with Combatant Commands (CCMD), the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and defense agencies.
Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) organization that serves the scientific and engineering community within the DoD. DTIC provides full information services and products to support DoD research, development, and engineering programs. DTIC also maintains a public website where the general public can access unclassified DoD information.
DTIC’s mission is to serve the needs of the DoD community by providing a central repository for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information. DTIC supports its customers throughout the DoD with various information technology solutions, including document services, information analysis, and database management.
DTIC manages the DoD Information Analysis Center (IAC) program and is a major part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Research and Engineering Information Management (USD(R&E) IRM). The IACs provide critical research and analysis support to customers that span all of DoD. These centers are staffed with scientists, engineers, and information specialists who partner with DoD organizations to provide research and analysis for a wide range of needs. They have assisted in facilitating a record number of research and development projects for DoD organizations and customers than ever before. These efforts are assisting USD(R&E) in maximizing each dollar the DoD spends through the analysis of funding, work-in-progress, and independent research and development data to identify gaps, challenges, and ways forward.
What does Defense Technical Information Center do?
The Defense Technical Information Center DTIC is the Department of Defense’s central repository for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information. It serves all the branches of DoD, federal government personnel, and federal contractors in a variety of ways. For the past 75 years, DTIC has played a key role in maximizing the value of each DoD dollar through its work in the scientific and technological realms. Its most visible mission is to ensure that all of the DoD’s funding and research programs are able to achieve their desired capabilities by analyzing, presenting, and disseminating the most relevant and timely information possible to their target audiences.
Purpose of Defense Technical Information Center
The Defense Technical Information Center, or DTIC, serves as the Department of Defense’s repository for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information. DTIC provides a full range of document services, databases, and information analysis to DoD personnel, federal government contractors, and selected academic institutions.
DTIC’s primary mission is to support DoD scientists, engineers, and program managers in their efforts to maximize the value of their research and development dollars through intelligent use of funding, work-in-progress (WIP), and independent research and development (IR&D) data. This includes identifying gaps, challenges, and ways to improve the DoD technology ecosystem.
DTIC also has a few other major programs, such as DoDTechipedia, which is the world’s largest living knowledge base about scientific and technical research and development within the DoD. It is a wiki designed to facilitate increased communication and collaboration among DoD scientists, engineers, program managers, and acquisition professionals. The DTIC also is home to the aforementioned, or the most apt, DTIC’s best-known product: the DoD Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Online System (DROLS). This site is the public gateway to the aforementioned DTIC products and services. The DTIC owes this a great deal to its talented staff of scientists and technical experts who keep this site running at peak efficiency.
How Do I access DTIC?
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) serves the DoD’s scientific and technical information needs. It provides document services, database management, and information analysis to DoD personnel, federal government personnel, government contractors, and selected academic institutions. DTIC also serves as the public gateway to research and engineering documents and as the central repository of DoD technical reports. You can visit the army’s DTIC.MIL to access your DTIC.
DTIC’s mission is to maximize the value of each dollar spent by the Department of Defense through the collection, analysis, and distribution of scientific and technical information. This is achieved through the use of information about funding, work-in-progress, and independent research and development (IR&D) data to identify gaps, challenges, and ways forward.
Nearing its 50th anniversary, DTIC continues to serve as a leader in the science and technology community by providing document services, database management, and information analysis. DTIC also hosts DoD and ASD(R&E) Web sites, manages DoD’s scientific and technical information wiki, DoDTechipedia, and maintains a variety of databases and online systems that support DoD scientists, engineers, program managers, and acquisition professionals.
DTIC is a DoD Field Activity aligned under the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology, and Logistics, reporting to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)). The Defense Technical Information Center’s primary headquarters are located in the Andrew T. McNamara Headquarters Complex (HQC) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Visitors must present a government-issued picture identification card to gain access to the HQC campus.
Who can access DTIC?
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) supports the Department of Defense by serving as the central scientific, research, and engineering information repository. DTIC’s mission is to maximize the value of each dollar the DoD spends through analysis of funding, work-in-progress, and Independent Research and Development (IR&D) data to identify gaps, challenges, and way forward.
DTIC’s primary customer base remains the science and technology community. However, due to its organizational and professional culture, and advanced information science and technology infrastructure, DTIC also provides information services to other U.S. Government agencies and defense contractors.
More than 50 percent of the research records in DTIC’s collection are available through the R&E Gateway — an access-controlled knowledge management repository accessible to authorized DoD personnel, defense contractors, federal government personnel and contractors, and selected academic institutions. The R&E Gateway requires a Common Access Card (CAC) login or registration.
In addition, DTIC’s Public Website offers unclassified, unlimited information, including many full-text downloadable documents to the general public. The site also hosts the Defense Technical Information Center’s Information Analysis Centers, which provide essential technical analysis and data support to a diverse customer base that spans Combatant Commands, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and other Defense Agencies.
DTIC also indexes and abstracts defense-related government-sponsored scientific and technical reports. Most reports published since the late ’90s are available as pdf files. A growing number of reports are now provided in full-text. The site also includes links to other Defense-related documents and websites.
Is DTIC a DoD agency?
Whether or not DTIC is a DoD agency depends on your interpretation of the laws governing how the Department of Defense (DoD) operates. DTIC is a government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business information repository. It serves the DoD and its contractors as a central resource.
DTIC’s mission is to collect, preserve, protect, and provide access to scientific and technical information. This includes unclassified documents, which are available on DTIC’s public website.
Over the years, DTIC has adapted and evolved its services to meet the changing technology landscape. It started out collecting and preserving documents on completed research but now produces products that expand the lifecycle of research, provide collaborative tools, and enable an analysis of trends in budget and research.
Today, DTIC supports the DoD community by analyzing funding, work-in-progress, and Independent Research and Development (IR&D) data to identify gaps, challenges, and ways forward for science and technology investments. It does this to help the DoD community maximize its dollar and support mission essential capabilities.
In order to do that, DTIC needs to stay on top of state-of-the-art developments in the fields of information storage and retrieval, strategic searching, and discovery applications. It does this by either developing or purchasing new search technologies, and enhancements or by working with vendors to create products that improve the services offered by DTIC. It also monitors industry news and events to keep current on industry trends that may affect the DoD and Combatant Command (CCMD) communities.