An Interagency Model for Collaboration and Operation

Interagency Portal for Science Education MeetingNational Academies of Science

March 18, 2009

Sharon JordanAssistant Director

Office of Scientific and Technical InformationOffice of Science

U. S. Department of Energy

Why Science.gov?

Information seekers* need to find U.S. government scientific and technical information quickly and easily, but information is dispersed across thousands of websites (“surface web”) and databases (“deep web”) at agencies, departments, and laboratories.The majority (>84%1) of the public uses large search engines rather than seek out individual online databases, thus a “Google-like” easy search with relevant results was desired.

*Seekers include researchers, entrepreneurs, students, educators, policymakers, program managers, or the science-aware citizen with an interest in science and technology

1 Perceptions of Library and Information Resources, OCLC survey report, 2005.

What Is Science.gov?

A cross-agency search that unifies and simplifies access to selected U.S. government websites and databases that contain scientific and technical information

The “USA.gov” science portal (formerly “FirstGov for Science”)

A voluntary large-scale collaboration among U.S. government agencies

A Unique Collaboration with Tangible Results!

Science.gov: Finds Content from 200 Million Pages at 1,950+ Websites and 38 Databases with One Query

Searches selected websites (“surface web”) and databases (“deep web”) from one search point

Combines results from all sources searched, ranks and displays them by relevance

Sends weekly “alerts” for user-defined topics of interest

Displays Wikipedia and EurekAlert items related to search term

Provides browsing of selected websites

Links to special collections and other information

Featured search and sites highlight hot topics

Agriculture & FoodAGRICOLA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) Technology Transfer Automated Retrieval System (TEKTRAN

DefenseLINK Website DOT National Transportation Library Integrated Search DTIC S & T Database National Institute of Standards and Technology Data Gateway U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Database

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

NBII National Biological Information Infrastructure

NOAA Photo Library USGS Publications Warehouse

DOE Information Bridge Energy Citations Database

EPA Pesticides Factsheets EPA Science Inventory HSDB Hazardous Substances Databank NEW National Service for Environmental Publications (NSCEP)

National Technical Information Service (NTIS)

Cancer.gov NEW Centers Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Center for Drug Evaluation (CDER) ClinicalTrials.gov MedlinePLUS PubMed PubMed Central NEW TOXLINE Toxicology Bibliographic Information NEW

DOE Information Bridge DOepatents NEW DOE R&D Accomplishments Database NEW Energy Citations Database Eprint Network NEW

Treesearch

ERIC Education Resources Information Center NSDL National Science Digital Library NSF Publications Database

Applied Science & Technologies

Astronomy & Space

General Science

Biology & Nature

Earth & Ocean Sciences

Energy & Energy Conservation

Environment & Environmental Quality

Science Education

Health & Medicine

Math, Physics & Chemistry (Physical Sciences)

Natural Resources & Conservation

Science.gov Databases

Two workshops spawned origin:

2000: Explored concept of a physicalscience information infrastructure. This prompted interagency involvement.

2001: “Strengthening the Public Information Infrastructure for Science”

Participants included federal agencies, academia, information professionals and science experts. The interagency Science.gov Alliance was formed in response to the 2001 workshop.Science.gov was launched in 2002.

How Did It Begin?

Shared Premises

Science is not bounded by agency, organization or geographyEach agency has vast stores of information that fulfill its missionA single web gateway is the tool of choiceA commitment to voluntary collaboration is necessary

Agencies brought to the Internet table theirunique information specialties and resourcesFlagship service a commitmentNotable contributions of many:

Science.gov Alliance and CENDI - seized opportunity without mandate FirstGov.gov - supported the early stages through advice and two grants Member agencies - provided ~200 staff members to working teams U.S.Geological Survey - manages website search engine Commerce’s NTIS - created initial catalog of websites Information International Associates, Inc. - secretariat support DOE/OSTI - conceived idea, developed technologies/deep web search and hosts website Department of Agriculture and USGS – provided Science.gov Alliance co-

chairs

Founding Agencies in 2001Department of AgricultureDepartment of CommerceDepartment of DefenseDepartment of EducationDepartment of EnergyDepartment of Health and Human ServicesDepartment of InteriorEnvironmental Protection AgencyNational Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNational Science Foundation

New Alliance MembersDepartment of TransportationLibrary of CongressUnited States Government Printing OfficeNational Archives and Records Administration

Support and coordination by CENDI – an interagency forum of senior managers

Science.gov Creation Challenges

Broad scope of Federal science and technology research and development missionsWide-ranging interest of potential audiencesInformation organization (taxonomy) issues given the broad scope of disciplines and audiencesBlending information resources from different agencies into cohesive functionality and page designPolitics, human resources, funding, sustainability

Alliance enjoys extraordinary voluntary collaboration Vision and strategic direction provided by Alliance principalsAdministration provided by Chair(s) selected from AllianceTechnical team provides technical direction and recommendationsMajor support provided by CENDIAdditional task groups formed as needed

Science.gov taxonomy Content guidance and development Website management and redesign Outreach activities Enhancement development Subject expansion

Collaboration Is Key

The Funding ApproachBuilt and maintained with “in-kind” contributions: each agency’s staff and existing information resourcesInitial development benefitted from CIO Council e-gov grants totaling over $170,000 for catalog + initial deep web searchAlliance annual dues fund routine operationsCENDI support leverages resourcesIn-kind contributions for special events“Pass the hat” contributions to take advantage of an opportunity, such as Version 3.0 development

Guiding Principles for Content

Select authoritative web-based government-sponsored information resourcesRich science content, not merely organization pagesDatabases contain primarily R&D results in the form of STI (bibliographic data and/or full documents)Only freely available content that is well maintained

Content Management Is Distributed

NTIS developed the original “catalog” with input from agencies

CENDI Secretariat now maintains catalog with agency participation

Agency content managers submit and edit their information via a web form

Websites identified in the catalog are indexed nightly by USGS

Deep web databases are identified by agencies and reviewed by team for suitability

Real-time search of content in large databases is maintained by OSTI, which hosts the website and serves as operations manager

Science.gov - A Living Website

Science.gov Phase 1 Created core policy team, technical design team Agreed on goals, policies, designs Created taxonomy Selected, cataloged and indexed agency resources

Version 2.0 launched May 2004 Introduced relevancy ranking of metasearch results One-step search across ALL databases Added advanced search

Version 3.0 Enhanced precision searching, metarank & boolean/fielded searching Other types of science content explored

Version 4.0 Enhanced relevancy ranking (DeepRank) Full-text relevancy ranking (Science.gov 4.0 grid)

Science.gov - A Living Website

Version 5.0 Provides the ultimate science search through new and innovative features Accesses 38 databases and almost 2000 websites with 200 million pages of science

information via 1 query Clustering of results by subtopics or dates to help target your search Wikipedia results related to your search terms EurekaAlert News results related to your search terms Mark and send option to email results to friends and colleagues More science sources for a more thorough search Enhanced information related to your real-time search New look and feel Updated Alerts Service

Provides links to administration information, meeting minutes, usage statistics, content selection and cataloging guidelines, subject category information, and outreach materials such as

presentations and flyers.

The Alliance Members’ Page

Science.gov Metadata Input System: Collaborative Content Management

Provides Alliance members and content managers a secure tool to quickly retrieve Agency metadata, add or edit resource records,

and expedite the maintenance and quality control of the metadata and URLs.

The Metadata Input System “Add Record” page allows Alliance content managers to add new records using agency, subject category and other

fields.

Agency Content Managers Identify New Websites To Be Crawled/Indexed

The Metadata Input System “View All Records” option provides an administrative view of all active records in Science.gov by agency and

how they are categorized.

The Records List Can Be Viewed by Agency

Science Education Topics on Science.gov: One Small Step for Access to STEM Resources

FICE Provided

Science Science

EducationEducation

WebsitesWebsites

Science Education Topics on Science.gov: Now Ready for Unique Access to STEM Resources

Science Science EducationEducationWebsitesWebsites

Questions? Comments?

Sharon JordanAssistant Director

DOE/SC OSTIOperating Agent for Science.gov

865-576-1194

jordans@osti.gov