WorldWideScience
Encyclopedia
WorldWideScience.org is a global science search engine (Academic databases and search engines) designed to accelerate scientific discovery and progress by accelerating the sharing of scientific knowledge. Through a multilateral partnership, WorldWideScience.org enables anyone with internet access to launch a single-query search of national scientific databases and portals in more than 70 countries, covering all of the world’s inhabited continents and over three-quarters of the world’s population. From a user’s perspective, WorldWideScience.org makes the databases act as if they were a unified whole.
WorldWideScience.org implements federated search
ing to provide its coverage of global science and research results. Federated searching technology allows the information patron to search multiple data sources with a single query in real time. It provides simultaneous access to "deep web
" scientific databases, which are typically not searchable by commercial search engines. In June 2010, WorldWideScience.org implemented multilingual translations capabilities. Using Microsoft's Bing Translator, Multilingual WorldWideScience.org offers the user the ability to search across databases in ten languages and then have the results translated into their preferred language. "One to many" and "many to one" machine translations can be performed for Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
and the United States Department of Energy
signed a Statement of Intent to partner in the development of a global science gateway. Later officially named "WorldWideScience.org", the gateway was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information
. The system was unveiled to ICSTI members and the public at the June 2007 ICSTI meeting in Nancy, France.
Since its release in June 2007, WorldWideScience.org has enjoyed tremendous growth in both the number of data sources searched, along with the number of countries participating as information providers. The default search of WorldWideScience.org includes a search of the US contribution, Science.gov, which tends to return scholarly information as opposed to lay information. A transition from bilateral management to a multilateral governance structure, called the WorldWideScience Alliance, occurred in 2008. A formal launch of the Alliance took place at the June 2008 ICSTI meeting in Seoul, Korea. In June 2010, the multilingual translations feature was launched at the ICSTI meeting in Helsinki, Finland. Multimedia searching capabilities were added in 2011, allowing the user to search speech-indexed scientific multimedia made available through the ScienceCinema site. A mobile version of WorldWideScience.org was also released in 2011.
(Canada), ISTIC (China), VTT (Finland), INIST
(France), INASP
, International Nuclear Information System (INIS),
TIB (Germany), JST (Japan), KISTI (Korea), Health Service Executive (HSE) (Ireland), SciELO
(Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Venezuela), CSIR (South Africa), British Library
, Science.gov
(United States), African Journals OnLine, and ICSTI.
WorldWideScience.org implements federated search
Federated search
Federated search is an information retrieval technology that allows the simultaneous search of multiple searchable resources. A user makes a single query request which is distributed to the search engines participating in the federation...
ing to provide its coverage of global science and research results. Federated searching technology allows the information patron to search multiple data sources with a single query in real time. It provides simultaneous access to "deep web
Deep web
The Deep Web refers to World Wide Web content that is not part of the Surface Web, which is indexed by standard search engines....
" scientific databases, which are typically not searchable by commercial search engines. In June 2010, WorldWideScience.org implemented multilingual translations capabilities. Using Microsoft's Bing Translator, Multilingual WorldWideScience.org offers the user the ability to search across databases in ten languages and then have the results translated into their preferred language. "One to many" and "many to one" machine translations can be performed for Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Features and abilities
WorldWideScience.org provides science search through a variety of features and abilities, including:- ClusteringClusteringClustering can refer to the following:In demographics:* Clustering , the gathering of various populations based on factors such as ethnicity, economics or religion.In graph theory:...
of results by subtopics or dates to help users target their search - WikipediaWikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
results related to user search terms - Eureka Science News results related to user search terms
- Mark and send option for emailing results to friends and colleagues
- Enhanced information related to the user's real-time search
- AlertsAlertsAlert is a colloquial term used to define a machine-to-person communication that is important and/or time sensitive. An alert contains user-requested content such as a reminder , a notification , and ultimately an alert...
service - Multilingual Translations
History
The concept of a global gateway to national science information sources was first described by Dr. Walter Warnick at the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) annual meeting in Washington, DC, in 2006. The concept was formalized in January 2007 when the British LibraryBritish Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
and the United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
signed a Statement of Intent to partner in the development of a global science gateway. Later officially named "WorldWideScience.org", the gateway was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
The Office of Scientific and Technical Information is a component of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy...
. The system was unveiled to ICSTI members and the public at the June 2007 ICSTI meeting in Nancy, France.
Since its release in June 2007, WorldWideScience.org has enjoyed tremendous growth in both the number of data sources searched, along with the number of countries participating as information providers. The default search of WorldWideScience.org includes a search of the US contribution, Science.gov, which tends to return scholarly information as opposed to lay information. A transition from bilateral management to a multilateral governance structure, called the WorldWideScience Alliance, occurred in 2008. A formal launch of the Alliance took place at the June 2008 ICSTI meeting in Seoul, Korea. In June 2010, the multilingual translations feature was launched at the ICSTI meeting in Helsinki, Finland. Multimedia searching capabilities were added in 2011, allowing the user to search speech-indexed scientific multimedia made available through the ScienceCinema site. A mobile version of WorldWideScience.org was also released in 2011.
Membership
The WorldWideScience Alliance has an international membership, including CISTICISTI
The Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information began in 1924 as the library of the National Research Council of Canada , the leading agency for research and development in Canada. This library took on the role of national science library unofficially in 1957 and became the official...
(Canada), ISTIC (China), VTT (Finland), INIST
INIST
The INIST is the CNRS centre of documentation. It has as mission to collect, treat and diffuse results of scientific and technical research. The INIST produces three bibliographic multilingual and multidisciplinary databases: PASCAL, FRANCIS, and DOGE. It is based at Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, in a...
(France), INASP
INASP
The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications was established in 1992 by the International Council for Science to "improve access to information and knowledge through a commitment to capacity building in emerging and developing countries."-See also:*Open Access Scholarly...
, International Nuclear Information System (INIS),
TIB (Germany), JST (Japan), KISTI (Korea), Health Service Executive (HSE) (Ireland), SciELO
SciElo
SciELO is a bibliographic database and a model for cooperative electronic publishing in developing countries originally from Brazil, supported by the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo and the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development SciELO (Scientific...
(Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Venezuela), CSIR (South Africa), British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, Science.gov
Science.gov
Science.gov is a web portal and search engine . Using federated search technology, Science.gov serves as a gateway to U.S. government science information and research results...
(United States), African Journals OnLine, and ICSTI.