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GCN Home > 06/22/07 web stories

DOE builds portal to global science data

WorldWideScience.org follows the model of Science.gov

By Trudy Walsh, GCN Staff

A new portal, WorldWideScience.org, opened today to people interested in international scientific sources, many of which had been unavailable through commercial search engines such as Google.com.

The portal was developed by the Energy Department and the British Library, along with science and technology organizations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. It employs federated search technology—a search method that simultaneously executes a query against an array of databases, then aggregates and ranks the results — and gives users a single entry point for searching far-flung science portals in parallel with only one query.

“Scientific research results are archived globally in a plethora of sources, many unknown and unreachable through [the] usual search engines,” said Raymond Orbach, Energy’s undersecretary for science. “This international partnership will open up this vast reservoir of knowledge in a rapid and convenient manner, something that will add great value to our existing knowledge.”

WorldWideScience.org follows the model of Science.gov, the searchable portal for science databases of federal science agencies. WorldWideScience.org was developed and maintained by Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information, which also played a central role in the development of Science.gov.

More news on related topics: Data Management, Web Strategies



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