To accelerate discovery, it is essential to accelerate the diffusion of science knowledge. This calls for a new era in the sophistication and breadth of the tools to access and use scientific knowledge. Herein, the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), an organization of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, proposes the “DOE Science Accelerator.”
Why build the DOE Science Accelerator? Because it is impractical for researchers to spend time finding and sifting through hundreds, if not thousands, of information sources in various disciplines and still have time for life-altering discoveries of their own. Scientists and science-attentive citizens need a time-saving single-search interface for the whole of science. They need to explore the deep Web, where specialized databases are beyond the reach of surface Web crawlers such as Yahoo! and Google. They need transformational knowledge-diffusion technologies that enable robust and rapid scientific discovery. The DOE Science Accelerator will meet those needs....
A significant milestone was achieved in 2002 when Science.gov introduced the capability to search 30 major databases of federal science agencies. OSTI pioneered this effort, but it has taken the cooperative effort of 16 information organizations from 12 executive branch agencies to successfully launch and sustain this authoritative gateway to scientific knowledge. It is estimated that there are as many as 1,000 additional sources of scientific merit throughout the world of university, non-federal and foreign research entities....[T]o accelerate advances in science and maximize the return on research investment, it is essential to create a global search capability to make these resources searchable and accessible....Just as science advances only if knowledge is shared, accelerating the sharing of knowledge will speed up the advancement of science. The DOE Science Accelerator will accelerate the sharing of knowledge by converting comprehensive cross-community searches from the impractical to the routine.
Comment. Under Director Walter Warnick, OSTI has built up a superb track record in federated searching and open access. OSTI is the only player on the scene willing to take on this ambitious project and it's in a good position to pull it off.
Update. Also see the June 8 press release from Deep Web Technologies, which got one of the key contracts to help OSTI develop the new search engine.
Update. The original document is still online but has been moved to a new location. (Thanks to Cathey Daniels.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/09/2006 09:43:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
