OSTI: Office of Scientific and Technical Information U.S. Dept. of Energy

Take a well known area of scientific and/or technological research. Call it X-research, where X is anything you can name. X might be biofuels, cancer, dark matter, you name it. How do you find all of the people working in area X, plus all of their Web content, to build a comprehensive Web portal for them? That is the X-Portal challenge.
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As with most things, all federated search products are not created equally. Recently, I ran across a situation where federated search was derided for lack of capability related to precision search and relevancy ranking. As is often the case, this derision is founded in a narrow view of federated search. The view that federated search is only capable of generically searching data stores or not providing relevance across the resources being searched is this narrow view of what the technology can achieve. At OSTI we see these issues as the challenges that federated search faces, not the reality it must operate in. Recently, I pointed out that OSTI has been on the forefront of the development of federated search for over a decade. During that time, working in close partnership with Deep Web Technologies, we have made significant advances in our federated search technology to combat the issues of the narrow view.
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Long-term investments in basic research produce the major conceptual breakthroughs necessary for creating radically new technologies.  To be sure, scientists cannot make specific promises about future advances, and there often are long delays in the applications that arise from basic research.  Furthermore, sometimes applied research leads to important basic knowledge, and technologies developed for basic research can lead to broader applications.  Throughout history, advances in scientific knowledge have resulted in revolutions in technology that have improved the standard of living and enhanced our way of life.
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Much of what OSTI does is aimed at accelerating communication within scientific communities. But there is another vitally important kind of scientific communication that we are also facilitating, which I call "leaping concepts." Leaping concepts refers to the case where an important concept suddenly leaps from one community to another. Leaping concepts are often transformational. Finding these vital concepts, so they can leap, is what we mean by "global discovery."
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An earlier article derived the Knowledge Investment Curve.

 

Information sharing is an integral part of the R&D process. Thus, decision makers affect the pace of scientific progress when they determine the fraction of R&D dollars dedicated to sharing knowledge. Think of it this way: A program for sharing knowledge derived from scientific research has much in common with a scientific research program itself in that they share the common goal of advancing science. 

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Many of the world’s top-ranked repositories of scholarly scientific information are easily accessible via OSTI search portals. According to the latest rankings by The Ranking Web of World Repositories, which scored 400 scholarly repositories relative to global visibility and scientific impact, four of the top 20 – arXiv (#2), PubMed Central (#4), DSpace (#16), and CERN Document Server (#19) – are searchable via OSTI products such as E-print Network, Science.gov, and WorldWideScience.org.  The aim of the ranking is to “support Open Access initiatives and therefore the free access to scientific publications in an electronic form and to other academic material,” according to the Cybermetrics Lab website. Cybermetrics Lab is a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.
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U.S. high schools and middle schools are now eligible to participate in the Department of Energy Energy-Related Laboratory Equipment (ERLE) program. For 32 years this program has enabled institutions of higher education to acquire hundreds of millions of dollars in high quality surplus laboratory equipment from the Department's National Laboratories. Schools may acquire equipment by reviewing the available equipment list at the DOE ERLE website and completing an electronic application form. The ERLE website is hosted by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI).
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As part of the Administration-wide Open Gov Initiative, Secretary Chu announced that the Department of Energy is contributing various tools and data sets for the National Assets program being undertaken by a group of six departments and agencies across the federal government. The DOE datasets included are hosted by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI). OSTI develops and manages these as part of its DOE program mission. OSTI widgets and RSS feeds are also accessible through the National Assets program. According to the DOE press release, by making information from multiple agencies available in RSS and XML feeds on www.data.gov, the National Assets program will increase access to information on publicly-funded technologies that are available for license, opportunities for federal funding and partnerships, and potential private-sector partners. This information will help innovators find the information they need and receive real-time updates, which can fuel entrepreneurial momentum, create new jobs, and strengthen economic growth. The agencies include the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services; the Agricultural Research Service in the Department of Agriculture; the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Department of Commerce; the Department of Energy; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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To give you a window into the content of full-text research documents, OSTI has added word clouds in Information Bridge. Information Bridge provides free public access to over 200,000 full-text documents and bibliographic citations of Department of Energy research report literature. The word clouds visually represent word frequency within each document and can be viewed from the search results screen or on the bibliographic citation page when hovering over the title or the PDF icon. The top 50 terms are shown alphabetically within the word cloud. Font size is determined by the frequency of usage within the document.  Depending upon the term weighting, fonts can be as much as 80 percent larger than the least used terms in the document. The colors are random. Documents in Information Bridge are primarily from 1991 forward and were produced by DOE, the DOE contractor community, and/or DOE grantees. Legacy documents are added as they become available in electronic format.

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Connect to Princeton University's DOE-related research through .EDUconnections. .EDUconnections spotlights U.S. institutions committed to supporting and advancing DOE scientific research programs. Read about Princeton professors, the institution's exceptional students, and find Princeton Nobel Laureates associated with DOE. Quick links are available to DOE grants, internships, fellowships and scholarships. An archive is available to previous institutions featured in the .EDUconnections spotlight.

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Global Science Gateway Now Open (June 2007)
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Sixty of Years of Knowledge Sharing (1947-2007) (March 2007)
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OSTI's E-print Network now Boasts Close to 1 Million Documents (March 2007)
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OSTI Sends Solar Energy Info to the Public (March 2007)
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International Group Gathers in Knoxville to Discuss Sharing Science across Borders (October 2006)
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