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The Science Accelerator was developed to advance discovery and to deliver science information. It 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.
The Science Accelerator information resources contain the results of DOE research and development (R&D) projects and programs, major R&D accomplishments, and recent research of interest to DOE. They enable you to explore significant DOE discoveries, learn about DOE Nobel Prize Winners, access and search scientific e-prints, locate science conference papers and proceedings, and more.
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 Federated Search Architecture) to search across and drill down into a large number of important DOE-generated and DOE-related science information databases and collections and to bring high-quality, relevant scientific information to the public.
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)
- Green energy research results
- Wonderful DOE accomplishments in science
- Collections of DOE non-text data
- Multimedia videos about DOE and other science research
- E-prints (journal article pre-publication drafts, scholarly papers, and more)
- Proceedings and papers from science conferences
- More resources
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.
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 facilitates science discovery by providing access to high quality scientific and technical information.
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 results from the search query. Science Accelerator then ranks the results from all the data resources in relevance order. You can review the results and navigate to the host site of a particular result for more detailed information.
With federated search, 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 high 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
Alerts
Alerts provide users with e-mail notification of updates to the Science Accelerator in specific areas of interest. Notifications include the latest additions to key DOE/OSTI resources that contain research and development results, project descriptions, accomplishments, and more.
To receive Alerts, users must register and then choose one or more topic or author of interest. Choosing the topic(s) and/or author(s) can be done by either 1) conducting a search on your chosen topic/author and then selecting the 'Create an Alert' button on the search results page or 2) going directly to the Alerts Login page and logging in. Either of these approaches takes users to a page containing an 'Alert Profile'. On the 'Alert Profile' page, Alerts can be created, revised, or deleted. If creating or revising an Alert, complete the profile, including the Alert frequency time frame desired, before saving it. All saved Alerts will be received at the e-mail address provided and at the frequency chosen.
OSTI Makes Available
The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), U.S. Department of Energy, developed and maintains the Science Accelerator, whose resources reside in the deep Web where popular search engines do not go.
Sharing scientific and technical information is integral to OSTI's mission. OSTI provides access to a wealth of energy, science, and technology research and development information from the Manhattan Project to the present.
Through its collections and services, OSTI makes DOE research results available to scientists, researchers, engineers, academia, the international science community, and science attentive citizens.
DOE Science Accelerator concept booklet (655-KB PDF)
