OSTI UNCSTD - Warnick (9.47 MB) 
Multilingual WorldWideScience.org: International Collaboration Speeds Advances in E-Science
OSTI_UNCSTD_pres_draft.ppt
OSTI UNCSTD - Warnick (9.47 MB) 
Multilingual WorldWideScience.org: International Collaboration Speeds Advances in E-Science
United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development
Geneva, Switzerland
25 May 2011Walter L. Warnick, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
What Is WorldWideScience.org?
A search engine covering national scientific databases and R&D results from the governments of 71 countries
A tool that integrates these results and makes them searchable by a single query, then returns them in relevance order
A virtual collection that is enormous and mostly non-Googleable
A portal that offers translations between a number of languages
It is up and working now, freely available without registration to anyone with Internet access
What Is DOE?
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Mission: to ensure America's security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.
DOE is the single largest government supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, providing more than 40 percent of total Federal funding. It oversees, and is the principal Federal funding agency of, the Nation's research programs in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and fusion energy sciences.
What Is OSTI?
The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is a program within DOE’s Office of Science with a corporate responsibility for ensuring access to DOE R&D results.
Since 1947!
We make DOE R&D results findable and accessible, not just within DOE, but globally
We make other people’s R&D results findable, bringing worldwide R&D to DOE and beyond
MISSION: To advance science and sustain technological creativity by making R&D findings available and useful to DOE researchers and the public.
OSTI’s Responsibility: DOE Scientific and Technical Information Program
OSTI coordinates with points of contact across the DOE complex
DOE R&D results are:
Collected from DOE offices, nat’l labs, & facilities, as well as university grantees;
Preserved for re-use; and
Made accessible via multiple web outlets.
Interagency and international exchanges/partnerships leverage access and use of DOE R&D results
Department of Energy National Laboratories
30,000 scientists and engineers within the DOE enterprise
Over 25,000 facility users and over 11,000 visiting scientists per year
science.gov 5.0
WorldWideScience.org
Our Common Interests
UNCTAD
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT
The Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD)
“the United Nations torch-bearer for science, technology and innovation.”
Both organizations believe that scientific progress requires global collaboration.
Both organizations are dedicated to:
Sharing and strengthening global knowledge;
Bridging the digital divide through information and communications technology; and
Accelerating progress and development worldwide.
WorldWideScienceAlliance
WorldWideScience.org
Founded on the principle that “advances in science can be accelerated when the diffusion of science knowledge is accelerated.”
WorldWideScience.org
Governed by international WorldWideScience Alliance
Chaired by UK
- Richard Boulderstone, British Library
Under the umbrella of the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information
Diverse Executive Board Leadership from Canada, South Africa, South Korea, and the U.S.
Supported financially by 49 countries
Operated by U.S. Department of Energy/OSTI
R&D results in sustainable energy, medicine, agriculture, environment and physical sciences
Provides free searching of open-source collections and portals
Searches multiple data sources with a single query; ranks results in relevance order
Launched in 2008
Integrates 71 nations
Provides over 400 million pages of science information from databases and portals worldwide
Multilingual WorldWideScience.org
To further accelerate access to science, multilingual translations are needed in both directions
Translation of English content for non-English speakers . . . and . . .
Translation of non-English content for English speakers
Advances science across language barriers
Offers real-time translations of globally dispersed scientific literature in 10 languages (Arabic to be added June 2011)
Benefits the English-speaking science community – by providing searching and translation of non-English sources
Benefits native speakers of other major languages – by translating search results in the user’s language of choice
Launched in 2010
Our Shared Vision
In keeping with the vision of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), WorldWideScience:
“strive [s] to promote universal access with equal opportunities for all to scientific knowledge and the creation and dissemination of scientific and technical information.”
is the product of “new forms of solidarity, partnership and cooperation among governments and other stakeholders.”
provides “equitable access to information for economic, social, political, health, cultural, educational and scientific activities.”
“facilitates access to public domain information ….”
“promote [s] the production and accessibility to all content – educational, scientific, cultural or recreational – in diverse languages and formats.”
WorldWideScience.org could be called the quintessential World Summit on the Information Society information and communication technology for E-science.
The “Deep Web”
We Integrate or Aggregate Multiple Government R&D-related Databases into Single-Search Portals
Innovative technology, federated search, drills down to selected databases and websites in parallel, then presents relevance ranked search results
The “surface web” includes the billions of pages searched by using conventional search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo! Bing).
The “deep web” contains huge document repositories not reached by traditional search engines
– more than 500 times the size of the surface web
- contains perhaps 99 percent of web-accessible scientific documents
Federated search:
allows users to search multiple data sources simultaneously via a single query;
presents results in ranked order relevant to the search query; and
places no requirements or burdens on database owners
From U.S. Science Portal
Science.gov, launched in December 2002, pioneered the use of federated search across the U.S. government:
Includes scientific and technical information from 14 U.S. science agencies representing 97% of the federal R&D budget
Now offers access to more than 45 databases, 2,000 websites and 200 million pages of science information via a single query
Served as the model for WorldWideScience.org
Is the U.S. contribution to WorldWideScience.org
… to Global Science Gateway
June 2006, at the annual conference of the International
Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI),
OSTI proposed taking the national model of Science.gov global.
Our concept: “Science.world” would employ federated search and relevancy ranking technologies to provide access to scientific databases and portals around the world
January 2007, the British Library and U.S. Department of Energy signed a Statement of Intent to collaborate on a global science gateway – and invited other nations to join the effort.
Statement of Intent for A Global Science Gateway
Closing the digital divide
“The technology exists for federated searching across vast, dispersed science information system.”
“…nations have recognized the importance of providing their citizens with one-stop electronic access to increasing volumes of scientific information”
“…growing sense of the need for reciprocity and sharing of science knowledge across national boundaries”
“There are existing science information systems and collections which provide the critical foundation and content for a global, decentralized body of science knowledge
Debut of WorldWideScience.org
June 2007, at the ICSTI conference in Nancy, France, a prototype global science gateway was debuted
Now called WorldWideScience.org
Performed federated searching of 12 portals and databases across 10 countries
February 2008, at the ICSTI meeting in Paris, Terms of
Reference were adopted for the global science gateway
ICSTI would be a primary sponsor of the Alliance
OSTI would serve as the Operating Agent for WorldWideScience.org and secretariat to the Alliance
Launch of WorldWideScience Alliance
June 12, 2008, The WorldWideScience Alliance was officially launched at the annual ICSTI conference in Seoul
Provided free real-time search of 32 NATIONAL scientific databases and portals in 44 countries
Covered 6 continents and nearly half of the world’s population
Offered searchable access to 200 million pages of science content
Organizations representing 38 of the 44 countries agreed to take part in governance and funding
Growth of WorldWideScience.org
orldWideScience.org has grown at a powerful rate. Today WorldWideScience.org:
Provides access to content from 71 countries and over 80 national databases and portals
Covers nearly 80% of the world’s population
Searches an estimated 400 million pages of important scientific portals worldwide
- Well-known sources: the U.S. NIH’s PubMed, CERN, KoreaScience
- And more obscure sources: Bangladesh Journals Online
Uniqueness of WorldWideScience.org
33 sample queries launched in Google, Google Scholar, and WorldWideScience.org
Similar quantities in the numbers of results, but very little overlap.
Among the “top 50” results from each search engine, only 2.4% overlap – or 97.6% uniqueness – in WorldWideScience.org results.
WWS 97.6% "Unique"
Google
Google scholar beta
International public-private Collaboration
WorldWideScience Alliance
ICSTI
U.S. DOE/OSTI
Deep Web Technologies
Microsoft Research
Coming June 2011 Expanding Multilingual Translations
Multilingual WorldWideScience.orgBETA integrated into the main WorldWideScience.org site
Addition of Arabic to translations
The world’s 5th most commonly-spoken language
One of 6 official UN languages
Coming June 2011 Integrates Multimedia-based Science & Technology
Multimedia (e.g. video, audio, images) represents a major emerging form of scientific information
Multimedia presents special opportunities and challenges – lack of written transcripts, minimal metadata, scientific/technical/medical terminology, lengthy videos (>1 hour)
ScienceCinema
Coming June 2011 WorldWideScience.org Goes Mobile
http://m.worldwidescience.org
Growth in smart phone capabilities, speed, and usage is phenomenal.
Majority of usage growth emanating from developing countries.
Mobile phones allow developing countries to “leapfrog” old technologies – serving to close the “digital divide.”
Compatible with major brands of “smart phones” – iPhone, Android, Blackberry.
Provides access to over 80 scientific databases, many of which are not individually optimized for mobile web searching.
Extending Our Partnership
WorldWideScience.org includes R&D findings published by or on behalf of 21 of the current member states of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for development:
Brazil
Chile
China
Democratic
Republic of Congo
Cuba
Finland
France
Ghana
India
Latvia
Lesotho
Mauritius
Philippines
Portugal
Rwanda
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Tanzania
Togo
Tunisia
United States
Extending Our Partnership
Going forward, the WorldWideScience Alliance will welcome opportunities to collaborate further with the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development
Please help by:
Bringing WorldWideScience.org to the attention of science-attentive citizens around the world
Encouraging science-producing nations that are not already participating in WorldWideScience.org to offer their own scientific databases
The Promise of WorldWideScience.org
With each new database that is added to WorldWideScience.org, a new door of opportunity opens
It can be the science component of digital libraries throughout the world
WorldWideScience.org encompasses the vision and principles of the World Summit on the
Information Society for science, technology and innovation – and our global science gateway has the power to improve lives around the world
Last Modified: 03/28/2019
