Evaluating The Quality Of Transportation Guidebooks Through Vetting: A Case Study

Transportation agencies routinely sponsor research whose findings are written into research reports and disseminated predominantly through presentations, journals, conferences proceedings, and guidebooks. Over the last few years, guidebooks have become increasingly popular among agencies, such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), due to the fact that guides provide a way for practitioners to read and implement research results without including all the research background that supports the findings, but could distract the reader from the results. Guidebooks often include references to the research reports, which are of assistance for practitioners that are interested in the research background. Well-written guidebooks allow practitioners to implement the research findings effectively. However, there is a need to assess the quality of guidebooks to determine if they convey the message in a manner that is understood and can be implemented by practitioners with little or no training. The authors of this paper received research support to write an AASHTO guidebook on construction partnering. A vetting workshop was conducted with a state Department of Transportation (DOT) to assess the quality of the guidebook and its readiness for implementation. Vetting is a process of evaluating the quality of the dissemination instrument taking into consideration qualitative measures. This paper outlines the framework that was used for vetting the guidebook and presents the results of the vetting workshop. Based on the results of the workshop, the research team was able to revise and improve the partnering guidebook, which led to a better product.