International Science Education Federated Search Engine

This project will develop a prototype a federated search engine and web service for locating international science education research results based on supplied query terms. This prototype system will provide capabilities that will expand the functionality currently being developed for sciencedducation.gov, a United States centric science education federated search engine. A core component of this project will be the identification of as many English-language¿based international science education sites as possible. Once this list is created, a simple federated search engine will be developed that will provide search functionality across the identified sites. This search engine will be based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles and will allow for and provide mechanisms to enable data sharing between this prototype application and other science education search engines, such as scienceeducation.gov. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: This federated search engine should increase the exposure of relatively untapped sources of educational information that are freely provided by other countries. Initially, the primary users will be government agencies.