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The Science Accelerator empowers you to search, via a single query, important information resources of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) scientific and technical information. These resources contain the results of DOE research and development (R&D) projects and programs, descriptions of R&D projects under way or recently completed, major R&D accomplishments, and recent research of interest to DOE.
The Science Accelerator is made possible by an innovative technology (see Search Architecture) that facilitates searching multiple information resources in parallel. You need not know ahead of time which resource might have the information you seek; and you are not limited to searching one resource at a time. The Science Accelerator speeds up science discovery by providing superior access to the highest quality scientific and technical information.
Using Science Accelerator, you can search the entire suite of science resources from Basic Search. The Advanced Search provides the additional options of
- searching by author, title, and/or date, and/or
- selecting any of the resources or subsets of those resources.
The Science Accelerator can be used to search:
- Electronic full-text research reports (including DOE scientific and technical information)
- Energy citations (millions of them, going back to the Manhattan Project era)
- Ongoing research project summaries (what's happening right now in DOE science research)
- Wonderful DOE accomplishments in science
- E-prints (journal article pre-publication drafts, scholarly papers, and more)
- Proceedings and papers from science conferences
- More resources
Purpose
The Science Accelerator was developed to advance discovery and to deliver science information.
While technology has increased the availability of scientific and technical information on the surface Web, important scientific information embedded in databases has not been easily searchable. The Science Accelerator has the tools and capabilities (see Search Architecture) to search across and drill down into a large number of important DOE-generated and DOE-related science information databases and collections. The DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), an element of the Office of Science, recognized this need, took the opportunity, and created the Science Accelerator to bring high-quality, relevant scientific information to the public.
Development of the Science Accelerator is part of the continuing tradition at OSTI to pioneer solutions and utilize groundbreaking technologies to accelerate scientific discovery. The Science Accelerator's name succinctly describes the OSTI Mission: to advance science an sustain technological creativity by making research and development available and useful (see Statutory Authority).
OSTI invites you to try the Science Accelerator. For more details about this innovative tool, see Resource Descriptions and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The Science Accelerator is an important part of a quest for quality science information.
Federated Search Architecture
Science Accelerator implements federated search to provide its encompassing coverage of important databases and collections of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) scientific and technical information representing billions of dollars of DOE research. The federated search feature of Science Accelerator allows you to search multiple networked data resources with a single query from the user interface. When you enter a query in Basic Search, the query is sent to every individual data resource (database, collection, and portal) searched by Science Accelerator. For Advanced Search, the query is sent to selected individual data resources. The individual data resources send back to Science Accelerator a list of matches from the search query. Science Accelerator then ranks the matches from all the data resources in relevance order. You can review the matches and navigate to the host site of a particular match for more detailed information.
Federated search allows Science Accelerator some key advantages when compared with existing crawler-based search engines. Science Accelerator does not place any requirements or burdens on owners of the individual data resources other than handling increased traffic. Federated searches are inherently as current as the individual data resources because they are searched in real time.
The Science Accelerator technology eliminates much of the work and time required to find quality science in the deep Web. The unique search engine seeks previously obscure electronic documents residing in deep Web science databases and collections where popular search engines cannot go. The Science Accelerator provides your results with a real-time ranking system for citations and electronic documents. This search technology is a “deeper” search and may take a little longer, but it returns more comprehensive, higher quality science information.
When searching the Science Accelerator, you have the capability to:
- Search within the deep Web where most search engines cannot reach
- Search diverse science databases and resources from a single entry point
- View early search results as the search is being performed
- Sort the search results by rank, source, date, or title
- Select and display selected search results
A Phased Approach
Utilizing available resources and building upon the success of OSTI's existing, groundbreaking information access technology, OSTI developed the initial version of the Science Accelerator to demonstrate the capabilities that will eventually yield the technology to search a vast number of science resources in parallel. The Science Accelerator will consolidate and expose to federated search all of the important Web-accessible databases and collections of scientific knowledge related to the DOE mission.
The initial version of Science Accelerator searches the scientific resources developed and maintained by OSTI. These resources include DOE-generated content as well as information related to DOE missions. Future plans include adding other federal agency science and technology resources and additional resources of scientific and technical information of interest to DOE programs from every scientific community, with an emphasis on the physical sciences. The Science Accelerator is a work-in-progress and will be further developed in the coming months. The Science Accelerator of tomorrow will offer a captivating blend of knowledge diffusion technology to better facilitate science discovery.
