China Joins the WorldWideScience Alliance: Why This is Important
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Send to friendOn October 14, OSTI announced
that the People's Republic of China had joined the WorldWideScience
Alliance. The press release making the announcement
described, and hinted at, the importance of China's contribution:
China, a major
producer of journals and conference proceedings, is offering searches
of key Chinese English-language scientific literature through
WorldWideScience.org. The Chinese resource enables searching of over
6,000 journals.
WorldWideScience.org,
the global science gateway managed by the WorldWideScience Alliance,
is intended to enhance scientific communication in order to
accelerate international scientific progress by serving as a single,
sophisticated point of access for diverse scientific resources and
expertise from nations around the world.
The Importance of China's
Participation
The addition of China is a notable
milestone for a number of reasons.
China is a major global contributor
to scientific knowledge. Thomson
Reuters makes the point clearly:
According
to citation analysis based on data from Web of Science, China is
ranked second in the world by number of scientific papers published
in 2007. Scientific's World
IP Today Report on Global Patent Activity 2007
reported that China almost doubled its volume of patents from 2003 to
2007, and looks set to become a strong rival to Japan and the United
States in years to come.
China is an emerging science
superpower. James
Wilsdon and James Keeley, in China:
The next science superpower?,
have this to say:
Since
1999, China's
spending on research and development (R&D) has increased by more
than 20 per cent each year. In 2005, it reached 1.3 per cent of gross
domestic product (GDP), up from 0.7 per cent in 1998. In December
2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) surprised policy-makers by announcing that China
had moved ahead of Japan for the first time, to become the world's
second highest R&D investor after the US.
China's participation greatly
increases the percentage of the world's population covered in the
searches of WorldWideScience.org. The population of China, at
nearly 1.3 billion, is nearly 20 percent of the world's population.
With China represented in the Alliance and participating in
WorldWideScience.org, science produced by 73% of the world's
population is now covered.
China's contribution helps to
increase the visibility of Chinese publications. Historically,
Chinese publications have a low rate of citation.
With
the continuous development of the Chinese economy, the scientific
production of China is also experiencing notable growth. Take
scientific publications as an example: the percentage of the world
share of Chinese publications increased exponentially during the
period 1993-2004 (Jin & Rousseau, 2004; Zhou & Leydesdorff,
2006). This increase advanced China's position from the 17th
in 1993 to the 5th
in 2004 (ISTIC, 1998). However, the number of citations received by
Chinese publications is low. In 2004, China ranked only the 14th
on this indicator (ISTIC, 2005). Although this is a big advancement
compared to the 18th
position in 2003, the performance of China in terms of publications
and citations is not yet compatible.
Inclusion of one of their key
scientific resources will increase exposure to Chinese research
reports and should lead to a higher citation rate.
Incorporating the Chinese resource
serves as a model for cooperation to overcome language and
integration issues. The Chinese character set is challenging for
Western-oriented software to integrate. Communication with the
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC),
in both English and in Chinese, was key to overcoming not only the
character set challenges but other technical challenges as well.
How China Came to Join the
Alliance
The story of how China joined the
Alliance speaks to the importance of personal relationships. China's
Deputy Director of ISTIC was attending ICSTI's annual conference in
June of this year. (ICSTI is the International Council for Scientific
and Technical Information - primary sponsor of the WorldWideScience
Alliance.) At this year's annual conference, in a special ceremony,
the WorldWideScience Alliance was formed. At the conference, Richard
Boulderstone, Director,
e-Strategy and Information Systems at the British
Library and Chairman of the WorldWideScience Alliance Executive
Board, approached the Deputy Director of ISTIC. He asked if
China would join and contribute a source. He followed up with a
letter, translated into Chinese. The Deputy Director sincerely
appreciated receiving the invitation in his native language.
Recognizing the mutual benefits of sharing scientific knowledge,
China quickly decided to join. ISTIC, a component of the Chinese
Ministry of Science and Technology, represents China in the Alliance.
The Explosive Growth of
WorldWideScience.org
China's participation in th
WorldWideScience Alliance fuels the rapid growth of
WorldWideScience.org. On June 22, 2007, The U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) and the British Library, along with eight other participating
countries, launched WorldWideScience.org. Consider these figures:
-
When first introduced,
WorldWideScience.org included only 8 countries, 15 databases and
portals, and it represented roughly 12 percent of the world's
population. -
A year later, when the Alliance
was formally established, on June 12, 2008, the number of member
countries had increased more than five-fold, to 44. -
The 38 nations that were
represented in the Alliance's founding document, plus 6 others,
contributed 32 databases and portals, and represented roughly 53% of
the world's population. -
Today (October 2008), 55 countries
contribute 49 databases and portals and represents approximately 73%
of the world's population. -
Sixteen months ago, when
WorldWideScience.org launched, it provided searchable access to
roughly 200 million pages of science content; today that number is
nearly twice that at 375 million pages.
By any metric, WorldWideScience.org is
growing at a powerful rate.
What's next for
WorldWideScience.org?
The future of WorldWideScience.org
holds exciting possibilities, including the following:
-
More content and wider coverage by
member countries -
A goal of providing access to half
a billion pages of scientific information -
Ideally, participation in the Alliance by Russia, Italy,
Singapore, countries from the Middle East, and additional countries
from the developing world. -
Translation services are under consideration
We are excited about WorldWideScience.org's past and promising
future. We look forward to China being active in the WorldWideScience
Alliance, and we see the addition of China's science output to the
world stage, through WorldWideScience.org, as a huge leap forward.
Brian Hitson, OSTI Associate Director for Administration & Information Services
Sol Lederman, OSTI Consultant
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