WorldWideScience.org is a global science
search engine (
Academic databases and search engines
This article contains a representative list of notable databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and ...
) 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
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
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 searching 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
The deep web, invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard web search-engine programs. This is in contrast to the "surface web", which is accessible to anyone using the Internet. Co ...
" 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:
* Clustering of results by subtopics or dates to help users target their search
*
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
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
*
Alerts service
* Multilingual Translations
History
The concept of a global gateway to national science information sources was first described by Dr. Walter Warnick at th
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 Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
and the
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
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 Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is a component of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The '' Energy Policy Act'' PL 109–58, Section 982, called out the responsibility of OSTI: "The Secr ...
. 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 retur
scholarly information as opposed to lay information A transition from bilateral management to a multilateral governance structure, called th
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 th
ScienceCinemasite.
mobile version of WorldWideScience.orgwas also released in 2011.
Membership
The WorldWideScience Alliance has an international membership, including
CISTI
The National Science Library (NSL), formerly known as the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information or CISTI, began in 1917 as the library of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). NRC is the Government of Canada's premie ...
(Canada), ISTIC (China),
VTT (Finland),
INIST
The Institut de l'information scientifique et technique, or INIST ( en, Institute of Scientific and Technical Information) is the CNRS centre of documentation located in France. It has as mission to collect, treat and diffuse results of scientific ...
(France),
INASP
INASP (International Network for Advancing Science and Policy) is an international development charity working with a global network of partners to improve access, production and use of research information and knowledge, so that countries are equ ...
, 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
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
,
Science.gov (United States),
African Journals OnLine, and ICSTI.
References
Microsoft Research and WorldWideScience.org Collaborate to Remove Language Barriers, June 11, 2010Multilingual WorldWideScience: Accelerating Scientific Research, Empowering Researchers, July 6, 2010Breaking Down the Language Barriers, June 30, 2010Dr. Wu Yishan's Blog, Engineer in Chief, ISTIC, 推荐一个跨语言、跨库科技文献检索平台, June 15, 2010Conduct a global literature search in seconds!, June 14, 2010Global science portal using federated search, Trudy Walsh, Government Computer News, June 29, 2007DOE builds portal to global science data, Trudy Walsh, Government Computer News, June 22, 2007DOE expands global science portal, Joab Jackson, Government Computer News, June 12, 2008U.S. OKs global science online gateway, UPI.com, June 12, 2008National Research Council of Canada/From Handshake to Multilateral Alliance: WorldWideScience.org, Reuters, July 4, 2008*
ttp://sla-divisions.typepad.com/government_information/2008/10/china-joins-wor.html China Joins WorldWideScience.org, SLA Government Information Division, October 31, 2008Video of WorldWideScience Alliance Signing CeremonyEureka Science News
External links
WorldWideScience.orgInternational Council for Scientific and Technical InformationU.S. Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical InformationBritish LibraryStatement of IntentAcademic World Wide Science features by Oscar Bernal Domain-specific search engines