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April 2009
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 2
In This Issue
- From Pam's Desk
- Google Scholar
- The spirit of innovation is alive and well at CISTI
- CNC/CODATA News
- Recognition for CISTI Oakville Staff
- Fuel Cell Technology Development Projects get the green light
- NRC Automotive partnership sparks insights and revelations
- 2009 ICSTI Annual Conference in Ottawa June 9-11: Managing Data for Science
From Pam's Desk
I would like to take this opportunity to update you on some of our most recent activities:
- Our collaboration with Google Scholar, which brings our Discover collection to researchers using Google and Google Scholar, has launched successfully;
- The Competitive Technical Intelligence team has had some wonderful successes over the past few months – two of these successes are profiled in this issue;
This is also an opportunity for me to provide you with an update about Strategic Review as I know that many of you will have questions. The Strategic Review decision means a challenging time ahead for everyone at NRC-CISTI. As you may know, the scope and impact of the Strategic Review decision on CISTI is very large, affecting all three of our programs: the Research Press, Information Intelligence Services, and the National Science Library.
The provision of scientific, technical and medical (STM) information remains a priority for NRC-CISTI. We will continue to partner with other organizations to fulfill its core role as part of Canada's innovation infrastructure, as feasible under the new model. In other cases, we will look to deliver services via private-sector vendors or partners. We will continue as both an NRC and national science library, but will function on a much smaller scale.
As well, the NRC Research Press and its services will be moved into the private sector as a not-for-profit corporate entity over the course of the next year. The mission and objectives of this new corporate entity will remain largely the same as the current ones of NRC Research Press.
As we move forward, we will be counting on your input to help shape CISTI's future and ensure that you continue to value our programs and services.
Google Scholar
NRC Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI) meets the research community where they work through our new collaboration with Google Scholar. Researchers from Canada and beyond now have access to millions of scientific, technical and medical (STM) journal articles from NRC-CISTI's Discover collection through Google Scholar, part of the world's most used search engine. Discover provides an immediate payment and download service, meeting the demands of the fast-paced research environment.
In line with Canada's Science and Technology strategy as well as Science at Work for Canada, NRC's strategy, NRC-CISTI continues to improve access to STM information for Canadian research and innovation. We continue to provide value-added service by including open access content in the metadata crawled by Google Scholar.
This is an early release in collaboration with Google. We will adapt it over time according to your feedback. We would like to hear from you if you have suggestions for improvements or if you encounter performance issues. NRC researchers using Google Scholar will either be able to download the article immediately using Discover or will be directed to other document provision services.
The spirit of innovation is alive and well at CISTI
Editor's note: In 1999, when CISTI celebrated its 75th anniversary, the staff of CISTI News created a special edition that focussed on CISTI's achievements from 1924 until 1999. In light of the recent announcement about Strategic Review, we wanted to take this opportunity to provide our readers with an overview of our successes and achievements from the past ten years.
2000 saw the launch of one of the many successful programs delivered by CISTI: CISTI Source. A gateway to Canada's national science library, CISTI Source lets users view the contents page of more than 22,000 journals and find titles of more than 27 million articles in science, technology, medicine and other related fields. The technology that the two databases CISTI Source was built on has enabled NRC-CISTI to continue to deliver much anticipated services such as Discover, the pay-per-view journal article delivery service, the National Research Council Publication Archive (also known as NPArC) and is also playing a key role in the ongoing development of a trusted digital repository. These new products and services have allowed CISTI to collaborate with partners such as Google Scholar as well as further developing a partnership between NRC-CISTI and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) who are currently working together to created PMC Canada – a national digital repository of peer-reviewed health science research that will provide free and open access to CIHR-funded research.
Innovation isn't just limited to the library-side of things. NRC Research Press has, over the last 80 years, taken their initial offering, the Canadian Journal of Research, and grown it into 15 successful and well-respected journals published for the NRC. This development of knowledge and expertise in the publishing of peer-reviewed journals has enabled Research Press to publish an additional 15 titles for a variety of scientific, technical and medical (STM) organizations as the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI) and the Canadian Ophthalmological Society (COS). Furthermore, this expertise led to the launch, in 2003-2004, of the Online manuscript submission and peer review system (OSPRey) launched in collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia's answer to the NRC.
Research Press has also helped to preserve and promote the record of Canadian science with their Monographs program. In 2008 alone, Research Press published books on topics ranging from a newly discovered dinosaur to a book to help educators teach plant anatomy to a biography about Canada and the World's first female aeronautical engineer and professional aircraft designer, Elsie MacGill; this year, the Monographs program is planning on releasing five new titles, on subjects ranging from Audubon's plant portraits to Advances in Mycorrhizal Science and Technology.
Not only does CISTI provide high-quality, peer-reviewed information to NRC-based researchers via our many programs and services, but to Canadians from coast to coast through the National Information Centres (NIC), located in almost all of the NRC's institutes across Canada. It is in these NICs that you'll be able to find some of the Industrial Technology Advisors who lead and deliver the Competitive Technical Intelligence program with their NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) colleagues. Through this very successful partnership with NRC-IRAP, CISTI's Information Intelligence Services (IIS) has become central to the success of hundreds of Canadian small and medium-sized businesses through their use of the Competitive Technical Information and Strategic Technical Information Analysis services. CTI was launched in 2002 as a response to a growing demand for more analysed and action-oriented information to support NRC decision makers. Current clients include IRAP industrial technology advisors in the Atlantic and Québec regions, NRC's Centre for Surface Transportation Technology (Ottawa) and Nanotechnology Institute (Edmonton), as well as the Biomedical Commercialization Centre (Winnipeg) who, in turn, provide services to more than 100 partners in Canada and worldwide.
Just last year, in collaboration with more than 39 similar national organizations from around the world, NRC-CISTI helped to launch the WorldWideScience.org Web portal. This multi-national alliance seeks to create a single searchable gateway to global scientific databases that will speed up the innovation process. CISTI is also helping to lead the way in ensuring that Canada's research data is accessible and usable for current and future generations of researchers via our work on the Research Data Strategy Working Group. This national, multi-disciplinary initiative is seeking to address the challenges and issues surrounding the access and preservation of data arising from Canadian research.
CNC/CODATA News
Pam Bjornson, Director General of NRC-CISTI and patron of the Canadian National Committee for CODATA, is pleased to announce the appointment of John Broome as Chair of CNC/CODATA, effective January 2009. Mr. Broome is Head of Data Management Strategy and Policy at the Earth Sciences Sector of Natural Resources Canada, with over 30 years experience in government and the private sector in the areas of geophysical modeling and imaging, GIS, data architecture, and data stewardship and policy.
Mr. Broome's vision is for CNC/CODATA, in collaboration with CISTI, CARL, and Canadian research granting councils, to help position Canada as a lead contributor to a future global grid of openly-accessible data and knowledge. He believes CNC/CODATA can increase its visibility and impact by asserting itself, in collaboration with NRC-CISTI, as the definitive Canadian source for expertise on data policy, stewardship, and strategy.
If you would like to know how you can participate in CNC/CODATA's activities, or to reach Mr. Broome or the CNC's Secretariat, please contact CODATA@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.
Recognition for CISTI Oakville Staff
The IRAP Ontario Recognition Award for Value and Excellence (RAVE) is a newly formed awards program that is staff-driven and staff-managed. Hirem Baran and Martina Plejic, Information Intelligence Services staff located in Oakville, recently received the IRAP Appreciation Award. This award recognizes non-IRAP Ontario individuals or team that have made an outstanding contribution to IRAP Ontario. On behalf of your NRC-CISTI colleagues and senior management, we would like to congratulate you, CISTI's Oakville staff, on your newest award!
Fuel Cell Technology Development Projects get the green light
If your noisy, energy-guzzling refrigerator, nightmares of a dead car battery or climate change worries woke you at 3 am last night — take heart — peaceful slumbers are on the way. Two advanced fuel cell technology development projects, with the help of NRC-CISTI's Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI), may bring you quiet, reliable, renewable and environmentally-friendly energy to power your appliances, vehicle, house — and even ships, trucks and industrial plants — within a decade.
In July 2008, Dr. Walter Cicha, CISTI Technical Business Analyst, was asked by Alan Guest (Acting Coordinator of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell (H2 and FC) National Program) for CTI to support a proposal for the establishment of two Canadian Technology Development Projects (TDP). This industry-driven and multi-partner initiative would involve NRC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) collaborating with industry and university researchers to develop advanced fuel cell technologies over a three to five year timeframe, as part of the H2 and FC National Program's efforts to meet Canada's energy and environment priorities. The two parallel technologies proposed were Lower Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) and Advanced Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells.
Dr. Cicha accepted the CTI request and on July 30, 2008, a CTI mandate was finalized. In August 2008, three resulting CTI reports were produced and submitted and, then in October 2008, the NRC Senior Executive Committee (SEC) granted approval and funding of the projects and participating companies matched research and development funding for a total of nearly $8 million over three years. The projects are already humming along and yes, Annie Lennox would likely agree, "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This.'
NRC Automotive partnership sparks insights and revelations
Over one year ago, with a mission to make serious inroads into the automotive sector, NRC began a full, comprehensive environmental scan of the automotive industry. The work was driven by top NRC players from the Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP), Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI) and the Industrial Materials Institute (NRC-IMI). Two crucial elements of the analysis were contributed by CISTI: a Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) assessment and a Strategic Technical Information Analysis (STIA).
In January 2008, following an extensive two-month investigation of the automotive industry, Technical Business Analyst Sylvain Durocher, submitted his findings in a CTI report entitled Automotive Overview. The report detailed industry trends, the structure of the Canadian industry, how the North-American supply chain structure works, key Canadian players, industry drivers and unique opportunities where NRC could apply its research and expertise.
Part two of CISTI's collaboration involved information specialists Susan Salo, from London, and Patrice Dupont, from Boucherville, working closely with Michel Dumoulin, Research Director of NRC-IMI, and his automotive team to produce a Strategic Technical Information Analysis (STIA). It reviewed Canada's automotive research and development between 1997 and 2007, including leading universities and government agencies. Through their publications and patents literature review, the researchers discovered a steady increase in Canadian automotive research and development and, that industry representatives did not consider NRC, among governmental organizations, as a research leader in this area. The representatives were more familiar with Natural Resources Canada's (NRCan) automotive research despite the fact that NRC produces far more research publications on the subject than NRCan.
The reports were very well received and highlighted the need for NRC to better promote its valuable research and expertise and consider funding further sector analyses. In the meantime, the NRC Automotive Sector is pursuing a two-person CTI team, to be shared with the NRC Aerospace sector.
2009 ICSTI Annual Conference in Ottawa June 9-11: Managing Data for Science
Sharing research data is essential for effective collaboration. Few scientists, however, have the time or resources to ensure sustainable access to data for joint projects, domain-specific applications or later, re-use.
The ICSTI 2009 conference will examine how publishers, librarians and researchers can work together to create structures for managing and communicating scientific data.
The conference program includes keynote speakers such as Lee Dirks from Microsoft Inc. and Paul Uhlir from the US National Research Council and experts from around the world who will explore the respective contributions of researchers, librarians and publishers to eScience initiatives.
Published quarterly by:
Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information
National Research Council Canada
Building M-55, Ottawa Canada K1A 0R6
Tel.: 613-998-2362
Fax: 613-952-9112
Email: info.cisti@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Web: http://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Editor: Tracie Taylor-Labonté
Layout: Judy Letourneau
Production: Reprographic Services
ISSN 0715-8661
