Other Transactional Authority (OTA), is precisely that... an authority, other than the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the competition in Contracting Act (CICA), allowing the Department of Defense (DoD) to use other transactions (OT) for purchase of research and prototypes with very few restrictions beyond the requirements of the Procurement Integrity Act and competitive practices (10 U.S.C. § 4021 and 10 U.S.C. § 4022). The idea behind OTA is to provide a fast and efficient way for DoD to acquire new, developing technologies and to bring those technologies to prototype... quickly. New emerging technologies, by definition, will have low evaluated Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Thus, if an organization feels the use of weighted factors to be beneficial to their decision making, that organization may use them. Consider the question, “Why? How will TRL factors complement the streamlined procurement of this emerging technology?” Organizations must take care to not recreate the restrictions of FAR and CICA in the OT, as that tends to defeat the purpose of utilizing OTA in the first place.

Find additional information on OTA here: 

https://www.dau.edu/training/career-development/logistics/blog/Other-Transaction-Authorities-(OTA)-Resources

https://aida.mitre.org/ota/