An Interagency Model for Collaboration and Operation

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An Interagency Model for Collaboration and
Operation

• Interagency Portal for Science Education Meeting
• National Academies of Science
• March 18, 2009
• Sharon Jordan
• Assistant Director
• Office of Scientific and Technical Information
• Office of Science
• U. S. Department of Energy

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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 (gt841) 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.

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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!
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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

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Science.gov Databases
AGRICOLA ? 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 RD
Accomplishments Database NEW ? Energy Citations
Database ? Eprint Network NEW Treesearch
ERIC Education Resources Information Center ?
NSDL National Science Digital Library ? NSF
Publications Database
Agriculture Food
Applied Science Technologies
Astronomy Space
Biology Nature
Earth Ocean Sciences
Energy Energy Conservation
Environment Environmental Quality
General Science
Health Medicine
Math, Physics Chemistry (Physical Sciences)
Natural Resources Conservation
Science Education
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How Did It Begin?

• Two workshops spawned origin
• 2000 Explored concept of a physical
• science 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.

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• Shared Premises
• Science is not bounded by agency, organization or
  geography
• Each agency has vast stores of information that
  fulfill its mission
• A single web gateway is the tool of choice
• A commitment to voluntary collaboration is
  necessary

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Agency Potluck

• Agencies brought to the Internet table their
• unique information specialties and resources
• Flagship service a commitment
• Notable 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
• Commerces 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

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• Founding Agencies in 2001
• Department of Agriculture
• Department of Commerce
• Department of Defense
• Department of Education
• Department of Energy
• Department of Health and Human Services
• Department of Interior
• Environmental Protection Agency
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• National Science Foundation
• New Alliance Members
• Department of Transportation
• Library of Congress
• United States Government Printing Office
• National Archives and Records Administration
• Support and coordination by CENDI an
  interagency forum of senior managers

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• Science.gov Creation Challenges
• Broad scope of Federal science and technology
  research and development missions
• Wide-ranging interest of potential audiences
• Information organization (taxonomy) issues given
  the broad scope of disciplines and audiences
• Blending information resources from different
  agencies into cohesive functionality and page
  design
• Politics, human resources, funding,
  sustainability

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Collaboration Is Key

• Alliance enjoys extraordinary voluntary
  collaboration
• Vision and strategic direction provided by
  Alliance principals
• Administration provided by Chair(s) selected from
  Alliance
• Technical team provides technical direction and
  recommendations
• Major support provided by CENDI
• Additional task groups formed as needed
• Science.gov taxonomy
• Content guidance and development
• Website management and redesign
• Outreach activities
• Enhancement development
• Subject expansion

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The Funding Approach

• Built and maintained with in-kind
  contributions each agencys staff and existing
  information resources
• Initial development benefitted from CIO Council
  e-gov grants totaling over 170,000 for catalog
  initial deep web search
• Alliance annual dues fund routine operations
• CENDI support leverages resources
• In-kind contributions for special events
• Pass the hat contributions to take advantage of
  an opportunity, such as Version 3.0 development

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Guiding Principles for Content

• Select authoritative web-based government-sponsore
  d information resources
• Rich science content, not merely organization
  pages
• Databases contain primarily RD results in the
  form of STI (bibliographic data and/or full
  documents)
• Only freely available content that is well
  maintained

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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

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• 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)

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• 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

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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
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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.

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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
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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
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Science Education Topics on Science.gov One
Small Step for Access to STEM Resources
FICE Provided
Science Education Websites
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Science Education Topics on Science.gov Now
Ready for Unique Access to STEM Resources
Science Education Websites

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• Questions? Comments?
• Sharon Jordan
• Assistant Director
• DOE/SC OSTI
• Operating Agent for Science.gov
• 865-576-1194
• jordans_at_osti.gov