How do you make libraries of billions of pages of scientific research, published in multiple languages, accessible to people around the globe? This was the problem faced by the WorldWideScience Alliance, a multinational partnership whose mission is to eliminate barriers in finding and sharing research across national boundaries. To solve this problem, WorldWideScience reached out to Deep Web Technologies which specializes in multilingual, federated search solutions across multiple industries. The result of this partnership was the WorldWideScience.org web portal that can search 100 different databases across 70 different countries, and then rank and translate the results into the user’s preferred language.

Millions of scientific articles are published around the world each year in wide variety of languages, but only some of them are available on the worldwide web using conventional search engines. Scientific publications are typically found in what is called the “Deep Web”, which consists of documents, images, and records located in an often unconnected series databases throughout the globe.

Using Microsoft Translator, Deep Web Technologies was able to create WorldWideScience.org — a consolidated portal, accessible through the web, which is able to search these worldwide databases and translate the results into 10 different languages. Users can choose to view scientific papers, multimedia, or research data on their desktop computers or mobile devices. The Microsoft Translator API provided Deep Web Technologies with the high level of scalability and reliability required for the project, and the translation API was easily integrated with the wide variety of data sources WorldWideScience.org pulls from. The completed portal improves global access to scientific research, encourages international collaboration, and provides new opportunities to share data.

WorldWideScience.org now increases access to scientific and technological research worldwide, facilitates international collaboration, and provides new opportunities for research in multiple industries. The site handles approximately 70,000 queries and 1 million page views each month, and all traffic, including that from automated crawlers and search engines, amounts to approximately 70 million transactions per year. The multilingual, federated search solution implemented by WorldWideScience Alliance and Deep Web Technologies is applicable across a wide range of industries, and could be used for solutions ranging from customer support to organizational readiness.

To learn more about WorldWideScience.org and multilingual, federated search technology, read the full case study.