OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE - The Challenge for NATO - OSS.net

marginal source of intelligence. If it is not providing significant value, then acquisition and
processing methodologies must be rethought.
Conclusions
To improve analyst and information provider efforts to find grey information, we must
understand what role grey information can play in solving open source intelligence issues. It
is somewhat -- but not entirely -- artificial to think of grey information separately from open
source since grey information is a subset of the latter. It is important, however, to know how
to use grey information within this broader open source context. One must first exploit what
is possible from easier-to-obtain open sources before using possibly marginal sources from
the harder-to-obtain grey information domain. However, this cost reduction must be balanced
against the benefit of the more timely availability of some grey literature products. Analysts
must think about how grey information contributes to meeting their information needs and in
what subject areas it is most advantageous or productive. Analysts then must provide
feedback to the information providers who serve them.
A brief biographical notation
About Mason H. Soule: Mason Soule is a Research Scientist in the Systems Analysis and
Engineering Department of the National Security Division at Battelle Memorial Institute in
Columbus, Ohio. His Internet address is mailto:soule@battelle.org.
About R. Paul Ryan: Mr. R. Paul Ryan became the Deputy Administrator of the Defense
Technical Information Center (DTIC) in July 1989. DTIC is the central source within the
Department of Defense (DoD) for acquiring, storing, retrieving and disseminating scientific
and technical information (STI) to support the management and conduct of DoD research,
development, engineering and studies programs.
In previous positions at DTIC, Mr. Ryan was Director, Office of User Services and
Marketing. He was responsible for developing and implementing a marketing program,
product management program and improved user services for DTIC. The Office acts as the
liaison between DTIC and its user community; manages several regional offices
(Albuquerque, Boston, Dayton, Los Angeles); provides training and support to the Defense
RDT&E; Online System (DROLS), and the Department of Defense Gateway Information
System (DGIS); manages such special programs as the Small Business Innovation Research
(SBIR) program; the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) program and the
University Research Support (URS) program; and is responsible for the annual users
conference and regional meetings held each year.
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