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In article <103479@netnews.upenn.edu> sarkar@tuna.cis.upenn.edu (Nilanjan Sarkar) writes:
>	I need to locate a technical report from Robotics Institute, CMU
>which has been suggested by a reviewer of my paper. 

In other fields, technical reports are considered "inaccessible",
hence not fair game for citation.  This is a case in point, where the
author is having a hard time tracking the thing down.  If the idea is
really worth citing, then it should have been published in a more
accessible form.  At the very least, the reviewer should have
suggested a more solid reference.

Oh well...
-- 
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Christopher Ian Connolly			connolly@cs.umass.edu
Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics		wa2ifi
University of Massachusetts at Amherst		Amherst, MA 01003

In article <58199@dime.cs.umass.edu> connolly@rabbit.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly) writes:
>In article <103479@netnews.upenn.edu> sarkar@tuna.cis.upenn.edu (Nilanjan Sarkar) writes:
>>	I need to locate a technical report from Robotics Institute, CMU
>>which has been suggested by a reviewer of my paper. 
>
>In other fields, technical reports are considered "inaccessible",
>hence not fair game for citation.  This is a case in point, where the
>author is having a hard time tracking the thing down.  If the idea is
>really worth citing, then it should have been published in a more
>accessible form.  At the very least, the reviewer should have
>suggested a more solid reference.


I disagree.

First of all, our university library has many technical reports from
other universities, as they are considered appropriate for citation.

Second, it is always possible to obtain a copy of a technical report
at no cost, simply by contacting the department and university directly.
This is no more difficult then trying to locate a book or journal that
your own library does not have.  In addition, tech reports can be retrieved
through inter-library loans.

Tech reports often have useful information that will never be found in
published journals.  Due to the length restrictions in all journals and
conference proceedings, the published work is often only a summary of
a more complete technical report.  For someone who needs all the data,
graphs, detailed algorithms, etc., then it may be necessary to go
beyond the published work, and to look at the tech report.

A tech report is often used for pre-published material.  Because of the
significant lag for publication (as much as 3 years in some journals),
tech reports can be used to publicize a group's work.  However, since
a tech report may  not of had any peer review, the person reading the
tech report must perform the review themselves, before they can accept
or reject the work in question.

~dave

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David B. Stewart  - email: <dstewart@cmu.edu>            The Robotics Institute
snail mail:       - ECE Dept., Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Current Projects: - Chimera 3.0 Real-Time Operating System
		  - Reconfigurable Sensor-Based Control Systems

In article <C097xD.9y8.1@cs.cmu.edu>, dstewart+@cs.cmu.edu (David B Stewart) writes:
|> First of all, our university library has many technical reports from
|> other universities, as they are considered appropriate for citation.

Your library has tech reports *because* they are considered appropriate for 
citation?  More likely, faculty asked for and possibly paid for the library's 
collection.  That doesn't mean they're appropriate to cite.

|> Second, it is always possible to obtain a copy of a technical report
|> at no cost, simply by contacting the department and university directly.

This is not universally true.  Many universities charge money for technical 
reports.  Moreover, at some universities, the publication of tech. reports
is sporadic.  

I have nothing against technical reports as a means of rapidly disseminating 
information, but as you yourself point out, they're not peer-reviewed, and I
maintain that they're not consistently accessible enough to cite.  Besides,
the report in question was from 1986, and if it were of high enough quality,
wouldn't it have been published elsewhere by now (see, e.g., Kevin Dowling's
post)?

In any case, my complaint is that the reviewer told the author to cite the tech. 
report (which as it turns out is apparently obsolete).  I suppose I wouldn't have
a problem with an author citing tech. reports if the author were willing to send
the reviewers copies of the report.
-- 
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Christopher Ian Connolly			connolly@cs.umass.edu
Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics		wa2ifi
University of Massachusetts at Amherst		Amherst, MA 01003

In article <C097xD.9y8.1@cs.cmu.edu> dstewart+@cs.cmu.edu (David B Stewart) writes:
>In article <58199@dime.cs.umass.edu> connolly@rabbit.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly) writes:
>>In article <103479@netnews.upenn.edu> sarkar@tuna.cis.upenn.edu (Nilanjan Sarkar) writes:
>
>Second, it is always possible to obtain a copy of a technical report
               ------
>at no cost, simply by contacting the department and university directly.
>   -------


Just a factual correction: I have talked to the person in charge of
TR in Robotics Institute and she told me that I need to pay $2.00 for
each TR -- maybe that is charged to cover the postage (I am not sure).

Anyway, thanks to everyone who have sent me  relevant information.
While I have no problem in going through a TR and while I do believe
in its effectiveness in quick dissemination of new results, I am not
sure how to know about such work unless pointed out by someone, who
for some reasons, know their existence. Also, a work as old as this
one (that is 1986) should have been published somewhere (I now know it
indeed was) and the reviewer might ask me to refer that one. Maybe,
he/she was not aware of that. I am indeed grateful to him/her for pointing
out this TR since, although that work is not directly related to my
work, omitting their name would not have been fair.  



>~dave
>


--Nilanjan