Strategic management and implementation of textual data mining in government organizations

This paper focuses on the strategic role and the implementation of textual data mining (IDM) in government organizations, with special emphasis on TDM to support the management of science and technology (S&T). It begins by defining TDM, and discussing the strategic management process in federal government organisations and the role of IDM as an integral part of this process. The paper then proceeds to describe some of the uses and applications of TDM. The results of a demonstration program by the US Office of Naval Research shorer some potential benefits from TDM: (1) integration of national and multi-national S&T databases; (2) supporting strategic decisions on the direction and funding of government S & T; and (3) creation of usable S&T databases to support strategic decisions in other areas of government. Implications of the demonstration program relative to larger scale implementation of TDM are discussed. The paper ends with a description of the principles and requirements of higher quality TDM studies.