Accelerating Global Science Access:
WorldWideScience.org's Combination of Search,
Translations, and Multimedia Technologies

Slide 1: Accelerating Global Science Access:
WorldWideScience.org's Combination of Search, Translations, and Multimedia Technologies

 

Walter L. Warnick, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy

 

 

Slide 2: WorldWideScience.org: Searching Science Around the Globe

• Where we've been – a recap

• What is WorldWideScience.org?
• What makes it unique?
• Who is involved?

• Where we're going – 3 BIG new things

• Expanding multilingual translations
• Reaching scientific multimedia
• Going mobile

 

Slide 3: What Is … WorldWideScience.org?

• A global science gateway comprised of national and international scientific databases and portals.

 

Slide 4: What Is … WorldWideScience.org?

• A multilingual translations tool searching sources and translating results in nine languages:

• Chinese
• German	Deutsch
• English
• Spanish	Español
• French	Français
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese	Português
• Russian

 

Slide 5: What Makes WorldWideScience.org Unique?

1. It searches the Deep Web

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

Deep Web

 

 

Slide 6: What Makes WorldWideScience.org Unique?

2. It overcomes the 3 major barriers to global science discovery:

A. Not knowing "what's out there." (examples: Korean medical journals, South African scientific research database)
B. Inadequate time to search scientific databases one by one. (examples: UK PubMed Central, Ginsparg's arXiv.org)
C. Inability to sort compiled results by relevance.

 

 

Slide 7: What Makes WorldWideScience.org Unique?

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

 

 

 

Slide 8: 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.

WWS 97.6% "Unique"
Google
Google scholar beta

 

 

Slide 9: Who Is Involved in WorldWideScience.org?

• 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)

 

 

 

Slide 10: Who Is Involved in WorldWideScience.org?

• Alliance representation from 49 countries, including ISTIC in China.
• 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)

 

 

 

Slide 11: Who Is Involved in WorldWideScience.org?

Primary Partners:

• WorldWideScience Alliance
• ICSTI
• U.S. DOE/OSTI
• Deep Web Technologies
• Microsoft® Research

 

 

Slide 12: What's Next for WorldWideScience.org?

3 BIG NEW "THINGS"

1. Expanding Multilingual Translations

• Multilingual WorldWideScience.org^BETA is now integrated into the main WorldWideScience.org site.
• Addition of Arabic to translations

• The world's 5th most commonly-spoken language
• One of 6 official UN languages

 

 

Slide 13: Demonstration of Arabic Translations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slide 14: What's Next for WorldWideScience.org?

2. Access to Multimedia-based Science & Technology

• 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)

 

 

 

Slide 15: 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 ~1,300 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.

 

Slide 16: ScienceCinema website

 

 

 

 

 

Slide 17: Access to Multimedia-based Science & Technology

Integration of Multimedia into WorldWideScience.org represents:

• First use of MAVIS audio indexing technology in a federated search environment.
• Ability to search ScienceCinema (U.S. DOE/OSTI) plus multimedia content from CERN, NLM, others.
• Vastly improved access to these forms of scientific and technical information.

 

Slide 18: Demonstration of Multimedia Searching in WorldWideScience.org

 

 

 

 

 

Slide 19: What's Next for WorldWideScience.org?

3. WorldWideScience.org Goes Mobile

• Growth in smart phone capabilities, speed, and usage is phenomenal.
• Majority of usage growth emanating from developing countries.
• Mobile phones allow developing countries to "leapfrog" old technologies – serving to close the "digital divide."

 

 

Slide 20: WorldWideScience.org Goes Mobile
Integrates Multimedia-based Science & Technology

Mobile WorldWideScience.org
http://m.worldwidescience.org

• Compatible with major brands of "smart phones" – iPhone, Android, Blackberry.
• Provides access to over 80 scientific databases, many of which are not individually optimized for mobile web searching.

Slide 21: Demonstration of Mobile WWS.org

 

 

 

 

Slide 22: WorldWideScience.org: A Unique Combination of Technologies

WorldWideScience.org's Unique Technologies –

• Multilingual Translations of 10 languages
• Multimedia Search and Retrieval of Speech Indexed Content
• Federated Search in a Mobile Environment

 

 

Slide 23: WorldWideScience.org: A Unique Combination of Technologies

 

WorldWideScience.org continues to:

• Open reservoirs of under-utilized scientific knowledge.
• Provide equal access to science for anyone on the Internet – including mobile users.
• Promote scientific collaboration, participation, and transparency.

And Accelerate Scientific Discovery!

 

 

Slide 24: WorldWideScienceAlliance

osti.gov

Translations powered by Microsoft® Translator

ICSTI

Microsoft® Research