Additional User Resources
The Defense M&S Catalog is located at https://mscatalog.msco.mil . It is accessible by all CAC and ECA certificate holders. Becoming a registered user is not required, but some advanced Catalog search features, such as saving search parameters and subscribing to regularly updated search results, are available only by becoming a registered user. Registration is automated, easily accomplished via links on the Catalog home page, and requires no more personal information than is already contained in the CAC or ECA certificate.
An online User Guide is accessed from the Catalog home page by pressing the life ring icon to the right of the keyword search pane (see Figure 4). For particular questions or detailed help, or to register as a source contributor, send e-mail to the Catalog Help Desk.
Sustaining a User-Oriented M&S Catalog
While the Defense M&S Catalog has achieved full operational capability, it is not a static system. To ensure the Catalog remains responsive and valuable to its users, DMSCO will convene a Defense M&S Catalog User Group in early 2015. The User Group’s role will be to recommend to the DMSCO Director capability enhancements, business rule modifications, and similar technical or procedural changes that maintain or increase the Catalog’s usefulness to the M&S Community of Interest in an environment of rapid technical and organizational change.
In addition to periodic formal meetings of the User Group, an online page has been established to enable users to interact with, and provide feedback to, Catalog management, development, and administrative staff. This online forum, similar in appearance and in function to popular social media sites, is hosted on DTIC’s R&E Gateway and is known as DoD TechSpace. The Defense M&S Catalog User Group’s page (https://www.dtic.mil/dodtechspace/groups/defense-modeling-simulation-catalog-users/) contains useful documents, such as the Catalog User Guide and the Concept of Operations, and allows users to engage Catalog developers or other users directly through easy-to-use text panes.
With new hardware and software, new tools and the new deployment concept enabled by them, and with plentiful means for users to contribute to future development, the Defense M&S Catalog will make efficiencies through discovery and reuse possible for years to come.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Defense Modeling & Simulation Coordination Office for promotion of the goals of the DoD Net-Centric Data Strategy within the Modeling & Simulation Community of Interest and for continued advocacy of the Defense M&S Catalog. We also gratefully acknowledge the collaboration of the University of Central Florida Institute for Simulation & Training as co-developers of the modern Defense M&S Catalog.
References
Stenbit, John P., DoD Net-Centric Data Strategy, DoD Chief Information Officer memorandum, May 9, 2003
The M&S Core Tools Suite comprises the Defense M&S Catalog, the Enterprise Metacard Builder Resource (EMBR), the Project Management Tool (PMT), the Verification, Validation, and Accreditation Documentation Tool (VDT), and the Standards Vetting Tool (SVT). The M&S Core Tools Suite is maintained by the University of Central Florida Institute for Simulation and Training (UCF-IST) under a DMSCO-funded contract.
Details on the External Certification Authority Program are available at http://iase.disa.mil/pki/eca/.
The Modeling & Simulation Community of Interest Discovery Metadata Specification (MSC-DMS), ver. 1.5 MSC-DMS ver. 1.5 conforms to DDMS ver. 4.1, the version currently mandated in the Defense Information Technology Standards Registry (DISR). Initial planning is in process to update MSC-DMS in the event that the recently developed DDMS ver. 5.0 is mandated in the future.