Preliminary Observations on DoD Software Research Needs and Priorities: A
Letter Report (CSTB)

Released 05.22.08

The nation’s defense systems depend critically on advanced software, a dependency that will grow in both extent and complexity.  Yet the Department of Defense is increasingly concerned for a number of reasons about its ability to meet these growing software needs.  The help address these concerns, DoD asked the NRC to assess the nature of the national investment in software research and consider ways to revitalize the knowledge and human resource base needed to assure the needed software-intensive systems.  To provide preliminary feedback on DoD software research needs and priorities and suggestions for a research agenda, DoD asked the NRC for an interim letter report.  The letter report addresses three key technology areas:  the management of engineering risk; software quality assurance; and the reduction of requirements-related risk without excessive sacrifice in systems capability.  These and other areas will be discussed in greater detail in the final report.

Released 04.08.2008

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires the states to develop a single, computerized voter registration data base (VRD) that is defined, maintained, and administered at the state level. To help the states with this task, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission asked the NRC to organize a series of workshops and prepare an interim report addressing the challenges in implementing and maintaining state VRDs. The EAC also asked the NRC to advise the states on how to evolve and maintain the databases so that they can share information with each other. This report provides an examination of various challenges to the deployment of state VRDs and describes potential solutions to these challenges. This interim report’s primary focus is on shorter-term recommendations although a number of long-range recommendations are presented. The final report will elaborate on the long-range questions and address considerations about interstate interoperability of the VRDs.