An Interagency Model for Collaboration and Operation

Sharon JordanAssistant Director

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information(Operating Agent for Science.gov)

CENDI Meeting, Nov. 4, 2010

Background - Relationship to CENDI - Funding - Operations - Milestones

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What Is Science.gov?

An interagency science discovery tool, providing single-query access to multiple government-sponsored R&D results and other S&T informationA cross-agency search that integrates and simplifies access to 200 million pages of content from 14 U.S. science agencies The “USA.gov” science portal (formerly “FirstGov for Science”)A voluntary large-scale collaboration of U.S. government agencies

A Unique Collaboration with Tangible Results!

Drills down to selected databases and websites in parallel, then presents relevancy-ranked search results

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Two workshops spawned origin:

2000: Blue-ribbon panel explored concept of a physical science information infrastructure. http://www.osti.gov/physicalsciences/wkshprpt.pdf

This prompted interagency involvement.

2001: “Strengthening the Public Information Infrastructure for Science” http://www.science.gov/workshop/index.html

Here the interagency Science.gov Alliance was formed

Participants included federal agencies, academia, information professionals and science experts. Science.gov gained approval as “Firstgov for Science” in early 2002Science.gov was launched in December 2002.

How Did It Begin?

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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 information managers

Alliance OnlyUnited States Forest ServiceNational Institute of Standards and Technology

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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 choice*A commitment to voluntary collaboration is necessary

*In OCLC Perceptions of Library and Information Resources, it was reported that 84% of public began search using search engines; only 1% began with online databases. Thus a “Google-like” easy search of authoritative sources with relevant results was desired.

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Integration 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

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Guiding Principles for Content

Select authoritative web-based government-sponsored information resources

Rich science content, not merely organization pages

Databases contain primarily R&D results in the form of STI (bibliographic data and/or full documents)

Supplemented by websites for currency Only freely available content that is well

maintained Our audience is “the science-attentive

citizen”!

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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 mandateFirstGov.gov - supported the early stages with advice and two grantsMember agencies - provided participation of 200 staff members to working teamsNLM – provided usability testing prior to initial launchUSGS – managed original website search engine (surface web search)NTIS - created initial catalog of S&T websites IIa Inc. – provided secretariat support (CENDI special task)DOE/OSTI - conceived idea, developed technologies/deep web search and hosted

websiteNAL and USGS – provided Science.gov Alliance co-chairs

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Alliance enjoyed extraordinary voluntary collaboration Vision and strategic direction provided by Alliance principalsAdministration provided by Chair(s) selected from AllianceTechnical team provided original 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 Image library

Collaboration Is Key

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The Funding Approach

Built and maintained with “in-kind” contributions: each agency’s staff time and existing information resourcesInitial development benefitted from CIO Council e-gov grants for catalog + initial deep web searchAlliance annual dues help fund routine operationsCENDI support leverages resourcesIn-kind contributions supported special eventsSBIR R&D resulted in innovations that were implemented in subsequent versions“Pass the hat” contributions to take advantage of an opportunity, such as Version 3.0 development

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Science.gov Funding

2001: Cross agency portal grants: $170,0002002: DOE SBIR conducts relevancy ranking research2003-2004: Voluntary Pass-the-Hat contributions: $200,0002001-Present: Participating agencies and in-kind support develop and maintain Science.gov. Average since 2005 = approx $180K annually (fees plus in-kind support)

Doing “a lot with a little” by implementing creative funding methods

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CENDI promotes the productive intersection of science content, technology and interrelationshipsThe Alliance, made up of CENDI agencies plus others, provides direction and support for this intersection in the form of Science.govThrough financial and in-kind commitments from its agencies, CENDI provides the ongoing infrastructure needed to offer a large-scale collaboration across organizational boundaries

Overview of CENDI Finances

CENDI Reserve

Maintenance Costs include Alliance Only dues*

Executive Secretariat for CENDI Includes Science.gov Support

A portion of Secretariat effort is used for Science.gov Tasks

*Science.gov Alliance Only dues are deposited into the CENDI treasury, with option of being used for direct costs/purchases for Science.gov (such as exhibit expenses) or being included in funding for overall Secretariat support of Science.gov.

Total Membership Funds Are Combined into One “Pot”

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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 were indexed

by USGS; now done by OSTI

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 continues to host

the website and serve as operations manager

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Provides administrative 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

User Name: scigov

PW: scigov#1

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.

Metadata Input System: For Websites in Searchable Index (“Surface Web” portion of Science.gov)

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Science.gov Phase 1 (2001-2002) Established policy & governance, technical design teams Agreed on goals, policies, website look & feel 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, also full-text relevancy

ranking

Development Milestones

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Version 5.0 (Sept 2008) 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 Standardized citation formats available for download

Version 5.1 Aggregated news feeds from 11 science agencies Internships and Fellowships section made searchable Image Search Library (Coming soon!)

Development Milestones

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Science.gov: Finds Content from 200 Million Pages at

2100+ Websites and 42 Databases with One Query

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

Combines results from all sources, ranks and displays by relevance and clusters

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

Displays related Wikipedia and EurekAlert items

Provides browsing of selected websites

Displays an integrated news feed from science agencies

Links to special collections and other information

Featured search and sites highlight hot topics

Science.gov Today

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Less than 1% overlap with Google; approximately 3.2% overlap with Google Scholar

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Goes where traditional search engines cannot go. Full-text documents if searchable on the target site are searchable via Science.gov. Real-time search: If a target database adds a document or record, it is available on Science.gov immediatelyDuring the query, the most-relevant documents or records from each source are gathered – approx 100-200 from each source – and then the combined set is relevancy rankedTopic and date clusters for search results – subtopics, publication years displayed on-the-fly to enable efficient drilling down

More About Science.gov You May Not Know

Science.gov Page View Totals (Dec 02 - Sep 10)

751,180

965,146

1,793,483

2,593,449

2,591,717

2,946,801

5,166,126

4,074,747

FY03

FY04

FY05

FY06

FY07

FY08

FY09

FY10

Usage Continues to Grow

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Large voluntary collaboration between agencies is often cited as a modelCollaboration AND infrastructure served as model for WorldWideScience.org; then Science.gov became U.S.’s contributed contentAlso a model for ScienceEducation.govA top 10 Google result for “science” with other major science outletsProvides core project for spin-offs such as Science Internships, Aggregated Science News, Science Image Search – and more!

Notable Achievements

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Science.gov is among 10 government websites “meeting and exceeding” the Obama Administration’s transparency goals, according to a special report by Government Computer News, released July 27, 2009.

Science.gov In the News

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Real Time Search?

Ads?Relevancy Ranked?

All Govt. Science?

Known Sources?

Scholarly Info?

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Content and Purpose: Science.gov vs Data.gov

Searches for science topics at the full record levelEase of searching, with immediate, useful resultsFor the science-attentive citizen including researchers, teachers, students, business people, and the general publicA Google-like interface with an advanced option for power usersDrills down into the “deep web”

Examples: 2668 results for diabetes from 35 sources; 2772 results for climate change from 38 sources

Searches at the source level only, not at the record levelInterface with search results pointing only to sources or databasesEmphasizes machine-readable datasets, available in raw formats; some files are quite large, ranging up to hundreds of megabytesData generally requires additional manipulation; of limited use to general public. Expect public interest groups, reporters, academics, and others to review information, build interfaces, and report on findings

Examples: Zero results for specific terms such as diabetesOne result (database pointer) for climate change

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Ready to use info. with user friendly interface?

Record level information?

Science research and results only?

Information from multiple agencies?

Repository of datasets and tools?

Provides pointer to database/source?

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A perfect platform on which to launch new technologies Access to new forms of STI

Translation Precision searches Image searching

Current Science.gov Prototype

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Future Opportunities

What will Science.gov 10.0 look like?