WorldWideScience.org: A Global Scientific and Research Database

Today is an era of information, technology, and collaboration. A large number of agencies and organizations are working hard to apply cutting age technologies to their works such as to generate efficient repositories, to create new services for their users, and so on. Another hot topic they are focusing on is to establish digital community where people with common interests collect together, share knowledge and experiences, and collaborate for a common goal. However, according to my observation, they are not there yet. There is still a lot to do. Nevertheless, they are having a good start.

Today, I attended a meeting about a worldwide project called WorldWideScience.org which is an attempt to create a digital global scientific and research database. The program is a collaboration among scientific and research organizations and agencies from around the world. Yet, not all countries are participating the program. Indeed, the program has been running for a decade with periodic developments. Those development were, for example, increasing the number of database, gaining collaboration from more parties, and so on.

The meeting today was led by Brian Hitson, Associate Director of the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Department of Energy. Hitson presented three big changes in the program responded to the shift of today technology and society.

First and foremost, the program is going to be in a multi-language context. Supported by Microsoft, the WorldWideScience search engine can translate inquiries and search results to several languages; there are nine languages available now. Although, the translation is not perfectly accurate, the translated results can assist users to have some ideas of what the results are about and save time for searching. They also expect to expand their users with this function.

Secondly, the program provide multimedia database such as images, videos, and audios. Multimedia database can promote the wealth of knowledge. In addition, it can draw new users.

Thirdly, the program is going mobile. Now, users can access the database via their smart phone, tablet, and other mobile media. It can be said that, as the world keep moving forward, information and knowledge can be accessed any time and place.

These three main modifications, the program is expected to provide better services and acquire more collaboration. If you would like to have more information, you can go to www.worldwidescience.org.