The 6th International Conference on Cooperation
and Promotion of Information Resources in
Science and Technology (COINFO'11)
WorldWideScience.org: An International Knowledge-Sharing Model
Coordinative Innovation & Open Sharing
November 11-13, 2011, Hangzhou, China
Brian A. Hitson, Associate Director
Office of Scientific & Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
WorldWideScience.org
The Path we'll take…
1. What does WorldWideScience.org do?
2. A closer look at individual WWS.org databases.
3. How did we get here: history and collaboration.
4. What can we do next?
Play Demonstration of WorldWideScience.org Search (opens new window)
1. What does WorldWideScience.org do?
A. It searches the Deep Web
• Where science is hundreds of times larger than the "surface web"
• Generally not searchable by major search engines
DeepWeb
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.
1. What does WorldWideScience.org do? (cont'd)
B. It overcomes historic constraints on global science discovery:
i. Not knowing "what's out there." (examples: Korean medical journals, South African scientific research database)
ii. Inadequate time to search scientific databases one by one. (examples: UK PubMed Central, Ginsparg's arXiv.org)
iii. Inability to sort compiled results by relevance.
1. What does WorldWideScience.org do? (cont'd)
C. Integrates symbiotic technologies to further accelerate scientific discovery
> Multilingual translations
> Speech indexing
Multilingual Translations
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 single language.
• WorldWideScience.org partnering with Microsoft® Translator enables true multilingual functionality.
Multilingual Translations
Translating ten languages, with potential for more:
Arabic 
Chinese 
German Deutsch English Spanish Español French Français Japanese 
Korean
Portuguese Português Russian 
Play demonstration of WorldWideScience.org Translations (opens new window)
Multimedia and Speech Indexing
→ 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)
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 ~1,800 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.
Play Demonstration of Multimedia Searching in WorldWideScience.org Search (opens new window)
2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases
• Scientific Electronic Library Online (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Venezuela)
Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO)
2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)
• KoreaMed
KoreaMed
2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)
• African Journals Online
Welcome to AJOL! African Journals Online (AJOL)
2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)
• UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)
UK PUBMED CENTRAL
2. A Closer Look at Individual WWS.org Databases (cont'd)
• Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
ETDEWEB
WorldWideScience.org Search results
ETDEWEB - Bibliographic Citation
ETDEWEB - Bibliographic Citation image of report downloaded (Investigation of optical nanostructures for photovoltaics with near-field scanning microscopy
ETDEWEB -- Leading the Way to WorldWide Energy Technology Discoveries
3. History and Collaboration
• 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)
*International Council for Scientific and Technical Information
3. History and Collaboration (cont'd)
• Alliance representation from 49 countries … but seeking even broader participation.
• 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)
3. History and Collaboration (cont'd)
Primary Partners:
• WorldWideScience Alliance
• ICSTI
• U.S. DOE/OSTI
• Deep Web Technologies
• Microsoft Research
4. WorldWideScience.org: What can we do next?
• Building on the base: more sources, countries, languages, full text, multimedia
Brachiocephalic veins
4. WorldWideScience.org: What can we do next? (cont'd)
Play Demonstration WorldWideScience.org: What can we do next (opens new window)
• Building on the base: more sources, countries, languages, full text, multimedia
• Reach new audiences and content: e.g., international STEM materials for science education; numeric data sets
• WWS.org as a peer-to-peer platform for scientific collaboration and sharing
WorldWideScience Alliance
Contact WWS.org Operating Agent:
• Brian Hitson, hitsonb@osti.gov
• Lorrie Johnson, johnsonl@osti.gov
ICSTI
Translations powered by Microsoft® Translator
Microsoft® Research
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