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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 Federated 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 access to high 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 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. 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 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
