The 6th International Conference on Cooperation and Promotion of Information Resources in Science and Technology (COINFO'11)

WorldWideScience.org: An International Knowledge-Sharing Model

Brian A. Hitson

Associate Director Office of Scientific & Technical Information

U.S. Department of Energy

WorldWideScience.org

The Path we'll take…

1. What does WorldWideScience.org do?
2. A closer look at individual WWS.org databases.
3. How did we get here: history and collaboration.
4. What can we do next?

Demonstration of WorldWideScience.org Search

Play Demonstration of WorldWideScience.org Search (opens new window)

1. What does WorldWideScience.org do?

A. It searches the Deep Web

• Where science is hundreds of times larger than the "surface web"
• Generally not searchable by major search engines

DeepWeb

A Measure of WorldWideScience.org's Uniqueness

• 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.

1. What does WorldWideScience.org do? (cont'd)

B. It overcomes historic constraints on global science discovery:

i.  Not knowing "what's out there." (examples: Korean medical journals, South African scientific research database)

ii.  Inadequate time to search scientific databases one by one. (examples: UK PubMed Central, Ginsparg's arXiv.org)

iii.  Inability to sort compiled results by relevance.WorldWideScience.org results.

1. What does WorldWideScience.org do? (cont'd)

C. Integrates symbiotic technologies to further accelerate scientific discovery

> Multilingual translations

> Speech indexing

Multilingual Translations

The world's first "one to many" and "many to one" multilingual translations tool in science.

• Most automatic translations are limited to translating from a single language into another single language.

• WorldWideScience.org partnering with Microsoft® Translator enables true multilingual functionality.

Multilingual Translations

Translating ten languages, with potential for more

Arabic      

Chinese      

German     Deutsch

English 

Spanish      Español

French        Français

Japanese     

Korean        

Portuguese  Português

Russian        

Demonstration of Translations

Play demonstration of WorldWideScience.org Translations (opens new window)

Multimedia and Speech Indexing

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)

Access to Multimedia-based Science & Technology

A Case Study for Enhanced Multimedia Search & Retrieval

http://www.osti.gov/sciencecinema/

• Partnership between OSTI and Microsoft Research.
• Launched in February 2011; searches ~1,800 multimedia files.
• Utilizes Microsoft Research Audio Video Indexing System (MAVIS).
• Enables searching of digitized spoken content.
• Users can search for precise term within video and be directed to the exact point in the video where the term was spoken.

Demonstration of Multimedia Searching in WorldWideScience.org

Play Demonstration of Multimedia Searching in WorldWideScience.org Search (opens new window)

2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases

• Scientific Electronic Library Online (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Venezuela)

Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO)

2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)

• KoreaMed

KoreaMed

2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)

• African Journals Online

Welcome to AJOL! African Journals Online (AJOL)

2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)

• UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

UK PUBMED CENTRAL

2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)

• Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

ETDEWEB

WorldWideScience.org Search results

ETDEWEB - Bibliographic Citation

ETDEWEB - Bibliographic Citation image of report downloaded (Investigation of optical nanostructures for photovoltaics with near-field scanning microscopy

ETDEWEB -- Leading the Way to WorldWide Energy Technology Discoveries

3. History and Collaboration

• WorldWideScience.org concept emanated from Science.gov model (2006)
• Initial partnership between U.S. Department of Energy and the British Library (2007)
• Transition to multilateral governance (WorldWideScience Alliance) and ICSTI* sponsorship (2008)

*International Council for Scientific and Technical Information

3. History and Collaboration (cont'd)

• Alliance representation from 49 countries … but seeking even broader participation.
• Broad and Diverse Leadership:
• Chair: Richard Boulderstone (British Library)
• Deputy Chair: Pam Bjornson (Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information)
• Treasurer: Tae-sul Seo (Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information)
• Ex-Officio: Roberta Shaffer (ICSTI)
• Ex-Officio: Walter Warnick (U.S. Department of Energy/OSTI, WorldWideScience.org Operating Agent)
• At-Large Delegate: Martie van Deventer (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa)

3. History and Collaboration (cont'd) 

• Primary Partners:
• WorldWideScience Alliance
• ICSTI
• U.S. DOE/OSTI
• Deep Web Technologies
• Microsoft Research

4. WorldWideScience.org: What can we do next?

• Building on the base: more sources, countries, languages, full text, multimedia

Brachiocephalic veins

4. WorldWideScience.org: What can we do next? (cont'd)

• Building on the base: more sources, countries, languages, full text, multimedia

• Reach new audiences and content: e.g., international STEM materials for science education; numeric data sets

• WWS.org as a peer-to-peer platform for scientific collaboration and sharing

WorldWideScience Alliance

Contact WWS.org Operating Agent:

• Brian Hitson, hitsonb@osti.gov

• Lorrie Johnson, johnsonl@osti.gov

ICSTI

Translations powered by Microsoft® Translator

Microsoft® Research