Two Catalysts for Qualitative Change

Richard Snodgrass
October 1,1999

Location  

•     City and State, 2000 BCE
•     Longitude, 1773 CE
•     GPS + cell phone, 1999 CE

Confluences               

•     Underlying technologies
•     Highly accurate atomic clocks
•     Geosynchronous satellites
•     Advances in micro-circuitry
•     Proliferation of cell phones
•     Demonstrated need
•     Catalyst: companies able to produce in quantity at low price
•     Qualitative change

The Vision

The ACM Computing Portal

A web-based repository of bibliographic information    

• contains information on all papers and books in the computing literature

• contains a pointer to the digitized version, if available

Objectives

•     Qualitatively increase the effectiveness of scientific research into computing
•     Continue to place ACM as the premier scientific and educational organization for computing
•     Increase service of ACM and the SIGs to the scientific community
•     Provide a concrete illustration of the scope of computer science

Presentation

    Components

•     Bibliographic Entries
•     Abstracts and Keywords
•     Full Text
•     Citation Linking
•     Demonstratio
•     Realizing the Computing Portal
•     Revisit the components
•     The Next Step

Step 1: Bibliographic Entries

•     Collect all bibliographic entries from all computer science journals, conferences, workshops, technical bulletins, and books.
•     Over the period from 1940 to 2000
•     Approximately 1M entries
•     Provide free searching on the web.
•     Provide citations in multiple formats: HTML, BiBTeX, refer, Word, ...

Step 2: Abstracts and Keywords

•     Collect keywords, and later, abstracts, for all entries.
•     Copyright restrictions on some abstracts?

Step 3: Full Text and Images

Collect full text of each available paper and book for

•     use in searching
•     to develop classification maps and lexicons
•     other analyses

Step 4: Citation Linking

•     Start with full text of paper's bibliography.
•     Out linking: identify bibliographic entry of papers referenced by the paper
•     In linking: identify bibliographic entries of papers referencing the paper
•     Use for citation analysis, knowledge diffusion studies

Demonstration

Papers with wavelet:

Stage 1: Bibliographic Entries

Propose that each SIG be responsible for collecting
relevant entries.

• ensure completeness, based on SIG interests
• reduce overlap between SIGs
• ensure correctness

Software for data entry, validation, and conversion provided to SIGs

1M entries / 36 SIGs = 30K entries per SIG

• e.g., SIGMOD: approximately 50K entries

Many resources

• DBLP: 130K entries
• Propose that ACM donate the ACM Guide to Computing Literature: 200K entries
• Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies: 930K entries

Stage 2: Keywords and Abstracts

• Propose that SIGs collect these.
• May need copyright permission, negotiated by ACM HQ
• Collection of CS bibliographies has 100K abstracts

Stage 3: Full Text

Propose SIGs fund populating full ACM Digital Library.

• PDF files containing encapsulated TIFF and OCRed full text
• 99% accuracy
• $1.25 per page.

Could go to SGML or XML, 99.9% accuracy: $8-$10 per page.

Populating the ACM DL

•  Journals: 130K pages: $200K
• Conference and workshop proceedings: 500K pages: $600K
• Newsletters: 200K pages: $250K
• Total: 850K pages at $1050K
• $30K per SIG

Stage 3: Full Text, cont.

ACM papers: 850K pages, or about 50K papers

• This represents 5% of total of 1M papers.

ACM books: obtain full text from publishers.

For remaining conference proceedings,

• Offer full CD Rom package at cost in exchange for inclusion in CD Rom and use of full text for searching.
• Pay for digitization out of conference profits
• e.g., IEEE ICDE: 600 pages x 17 years x $1.25 = $13K.
• SIGs pay for integration: $0.25 - $0.50 per page.

Stage 3: Journal Papers

For other journals,

• Same offer as with conferences
• Or, offer URL into their DL in exchange for full text, only for searching
• ACM Computing Portal provides valuable entry into their DL, enhancing their revenue stream.

For other books, make same offer.

Open Architecture

• Free searching via web interface, including full text search, at ACM site and SIG portals
• Bibliographic data available for other search engines
• As much PDF available for free as possible
• Encourage digitization of corpus

Summary

The ACM Computing Portal

• Free searchable access to the entire computer science corpus
• SIG-specific portals
• Fully populated ACM DL
• Inclusion of or portal to other DL resources
• Capability to purchase papers and to register queries
• Possibly ancillary SIG-provided benefits, such as CD-ROMs

SGB Portal Committee

• Rick Snodgrass (University of Arizona, CS), chair
• Steve Cunningham (Cal State University-Stanislaus, CS)
• Mary Fernandez (AT&T Labs)
• Carol Hutchins (Courant Institute of Math. Sci. Library)
• Bob Krovetz (NEC Research Institute)
• Michael Ley (University of Trier, CS)
• Andreas Paepcke (Stanford University)
• Kathy Preas (KP Pubs on CDROM)
• Charles Viles (Univ. of North Carolina, Info and Lib Sci)

Individual SIG Commitments

• Collect and capture SIG-relevant bibliographic entries, abstracts, and keywords, in appropriate format.

Allocate funds to populate the ACM DL: journals, conference and workshop proceedings, SIG newsletter.

• Roughly $30K for each SIG
• SIGDA matching funds: $50K

Negotiate with steering committees of associated conferences and workshops.

ACM HQ Commitments

• Donate entries from ACM Guide to Computing Literature.
• Negotiate cross-use agreements with associated societies.
• Acquire full text of books copyrighted by ACM.
• Provide hardware and software to host CSP.
• Provide staff to manage CSP, with content provided by SIGs.

ACM HQ Opportunities

• Integrate CSP with CoRR
• Provide print and CD-ROM versions of the expanded ACM Guide to Computing Literature
• Fully populated DL
• Increased visibility of ACM

Confluences

Underlying technologies

• Inexpensive scanning, OCR, disk space, inexpensive, high capacity CD-ROM

Demonstrated need
Catalysts: ACM Council and SIG Governing Board
Qualitative change