FAQ

Who is participating in scitopia.org?
The federated vertical search portal scitopia.org was created through the imagination and collaboration of 21 leading science and technology societies.
What are the benefits of using Scitiopia?
  • Explore - Conduct a search of more than 20 Science and Technology Societies through one comprehensive site
  • Discover - View all-encompassing results based on your single search for a larger understanding of your topic
  • Free - You can perform any search on Scitopia and read the abstracts for free. If you have a membership to any of the societies, that subscription will allow you to view the content
What content is searched by scitopia.org
  • Bibliographic records in each partner‘s electronic library
  • Patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office, European Patent Office, and Japan Patent Office
  • US Government documents on the Department of Energy Information Bridge site.
How can I get my society involved with scitopia.org?
If you would like your association or society to participate in scitopia.org, please email partners@scitopia.org. Contact your society and let them know you would like to see their content in the search results. We will work with your society representatives directly and make arrangements for inclusion.
How is scitopia.org funded?
Scitopia.org offers a free service that is financially supported by the societies who participate. Additionally, some advertising is accepted in order to help defray some of the maintenance costs.
I have recently published an article. Can I submit it to scitopia.org?
At present, all scitopia.org content is provided by our partner societies. If you would like your association or society to participate in scitopia.org, please email partners@scitopia.org. Contact your society directly and let them know you would like to see their content in the scitopia.org search results. We will work with your society representatives directly and make arrangements for inclusion.
How is scitopia.org different from other search tools?
Scitopia.org offers users a free federated vertical search service to retrieve the content provided by its partner scholarly societies, including recently published articles as well as digitized content that goes back as far as 1665. The site enables users to find newly published research almost immediately and enables easy searching of multiple sites with one search request. Subscribers to the partner society libraries and members of partner societies will be able to view the full text included in their subscriptions or memberships. Other users may access full text through a pay-per-view option.
What is a federated search?
A federated search consists of a real time search through a disparate group of databases. The user enters a set of query parameters, which are broadcast to the selected databases; the results are collated and presented back to the user in a unified format.

Federated search is distinct from the functioning of traditional search engines, which use robots to continuously index and crawl through web-based content, retrieving results from previously cached documents that match the query terms.

Federated search portals form part of what is also known as the invisible web, which contains documents that cannot be accessed by traditional search engines due to limitations in crawler technology.
What is a vertical search?
Vertical search, part of a larger subgrouping known as "specialized" search, is a relatively new tier in the Internet search industry consisting of search engines that focus on specific businesses. While Google, Yahoo!, and the like use their search engines covering any/all topics to the the online consumer search market, many specialized search engines (like Scitopia) are emerging to address the particular information needs of niche audiences and professions.
How does scitopia.org search multiple databases?
Scitopia.org is powered by Deep Web Technologies' Explorit Research Accelerator federated search engine.
Do I need to pay to register as a user?
Scitopia.org offers a free service. There are no registration charges.
Are the articles free?
Once you select citations to articles you want to read, the system transfers you to the individual partner society sites for retrieval. If you have a personal or institutional subscription to the partner's library, you will be able to access the full text included in your subscription. At the current time, all of scitopia.org's partners offer a pay-per-view option, though this is not a requirement for joining. Prices vary from site to site.
Do authors pay to have their articles listed?
Scitopia.org is funded by its partner scholarly societies. Individual authors do not pay to have their articles listed.
What are the technical requirements for using scitopia.org?
Scitopia.org is fully compatible with the following browsers:

IE 6.0: Win

IE 7.0: Win

Firefox 2.0.x: Mac/Win/Linux

Firefox 1.5.x: Mac/Win/Linux

Safari 2.0.x: Mac

How can I download a Scitopia Search box to my website or desktop?
How can I download a Scitopia Search box to my website or desktop? Send an email to feedback@scitopia.org to get the search box of your choice. We will respond with the HTML code you will need to insert into your web page.
What is the difference between a simple search and an advanced search?
The simple search enables you to enter your search term quickly in a single box. The advanced search can be useful for more specialized queries, for example, when searching for articles by a particular author, when you wish to exclude certain partner societies from your search, or when you wish to specify a particular date range.
A query expression may consist of a single term or you may construct a complex query using a combination of multiple terms, Boolean operators, quoted phrases, parentheses and wildcards.
On the Advanced Search screen, what does Full Record mean?
The Full Record is made up of the title of the article, the author(s) name(s), the source (i.e., journal name, date, pagination), usually an abstract (summary) of the article, and in some cases additional topical or subject terms often referred to as indexing. Note that the full record in scitopia.org does not include the full text. However, users can obtain the full text if they either subscribe to that publishers content, or wish to purchase the article from the publisher.

Entering a query in "Full Record" will search the title, abstract and indexing text of the record. Generally searching these "fields" yields the most relevant (ranked) results.
What is the best way to enter the author's name?
When searching for a particular author use the author search box on the advanced search page. Entering the last name of a single author will produce the broadest results. For a narrower search follow the format last name, first initial (for example, Hawkins, J. to search for the author named Jack Hawkins) All scitopia.org partners will return results for an author search using this format even if the author's full first name appears on the article. The search for an author can be narrowed further by placing search terms in the title, abstract or affiliation boxes, or by excluding publishers using the check boxes at the bottom of the advanced search page.. To search for articles by multiple authors, follow the search syntax above and enter a second author name in the full record search box. At this time, scitopia.org partners do not all support author searches using a middle initial or full first name, however you may find some results from some partners using that format.
Is the search case sensitive?
No. Scitopia bases their search criteria on the words themselves, not how the words are typed in to the search engine. The search terms must be spelled correctly, though, in order to retreive the proper results.
Why are my search results different on scitopia.org than when I search the individual partner sites?
When you request a search through scitopia.org, two functions take place. First, scitopia.org searches the individual partner sites. Second, Deep Web Technologies, which powers scitopia.org, applies its own filtering algorithm to the results to give even more relevant results. Also, only the first 100 results are returned from each partner. This combination of search algorithms and filtering can lead to different results than when a search is performed directly within a partner site.
How does scitopia.org rank my search results?
Search results are ranked in order of relevance to the entered search terms as determined by an algorithm in our search methodology. An article's ranking is influenced by the number of times a search term appears and where it appears in the article's bibliographic record.
How does scitopia.org organize my search results? Can I change that organization?
By default, search results are returned in order of their ranking. You can also change that to date order using the sort box located above the search results.
How does the 'My Articles' feature work?
You can save search results from the session to your articles folder by clicking on the acoustic icon at the left side of an article. Only the citation and the DOI will show up in the My Articles listing. You can see the total number of documents saved in My Articles by referring to the icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Use the My Articles feature to keep track of items of interest as you perform additional searches. Your articles will be saved only until you end your scitopia.org session.
How can I preserve the results of my searches?
There are two options.
  • You can email the results of your searches or the contents of your articles by selecting the email icon at the top of the screen.
  • You can generate a print friendly CSS file by selecting the print icon.
Will I get access to the full text of articles?
Once you select citations to articles you want to read, scitopia.org transfers you to the partner society sites for retrieval. If you have a personal or institutional subscription to that partner's library, you will be able to access the full text available in your subscription. If you do not have a subscription pay-per-view options are available from all partners. Once you have logged in and paid any applicable fees, you will be granted access to the full articles.
What's in the pipeline?
Scitopia.org is working hard to improve the site's functionality, and we have a number of new features under development. Future updates will include enhanced categorization of search results.
How can I offer feedback on new features or functions?
We would love your constructive feedback as we are constantly updating our service offering to improve it for our users. Simply click on the "give feedback" icon in the top right corner of the screen.