ScienceBase Directory
ScienceBase Directory is available at: www.sciencebase.gov/directory and may be used to search and discover people and organizations.
The aim of the ScienceBase Directory is to catalog people and organizations to provide comprehensive information about organizational structure and allow the linking of cataloged information records to their origin (person who produced the work) and affiliation (organization that sponsored the work). Association of cataloged Directory contacts and information records provides the ability to produce synoptic views of who is doing what where. ScienceBase Directory contact information may be retrieved using RESTful methods. Two Directory record types exist: Person and Organization. When known, Person records include a link to respective employing agency. Organization records include links to child and parent organizations within the hierarchical agency structure.
Directory records include contact, alias, identifier (such as USGS id), supervisor, location, organization affiliation, description, and other information. USGS organization records include links to affiliated parent and child organizations, allowing navigation across the USGS. ScienceBase Directory has cataloged people and organization records from the following sources:
- Department of Interior (DOI) Active Directory to obtain information about DOI employees.
- USGS LDAP server to obtain information about USGS employees and USGS offices and science centers.
- Federal Personnel Payroll System (FPPS) contact information was obtained for DOI employees when ScienceBase Directory was established (however, FPPS information is not routinely harvested).
- myUSGS users. myUSGS is a content management and collaboration tool suite and users are affiliated with federal, state, private, and academic institutions.
ScienceBase Directory provides contact information to ScienceBase Catalog. People and Organization contacts affiliated with an information item are listed in the item summary page. A mouse hover over a record contact name produces a popup window with the contact's e-mail address, along with a link to their party page. The party page shows contact information retrieved from ScienceBase Directory. USGS personnel have the most complete contact information due to accessibility of USGS databases for ScienceBase ingestion. The party pages also show all items cataloged in ScienceBase with which the contact is associated.
Example - ScienceBase Contact Pages
Using Sky Bristol, USGS employee and ScienceBase coordinator, as an example:
Sky's Directory record: https://www.sciencebase.gov/directory/person/1193
Sky's Party Page: https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/catalogParty/show/1193
Organization Directory record: https://www.sciencebase.gov/directory/organization/17172
Organization Party Page: https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/catalogParty/show/17172
ScienceBase People and Organization Queries
ScienceBase search results include metadata records and directory records for people and organizations. Example below displays search results for term "rock", which generated over 660,000 information records and multiple people and organization records displayed in top right corner.
Selecting a person or organization link leads to a party page showing known information about the entity, including contact information, employer, and metadata records cataloged in ScienceBase with which the contact is associated.
Personal Information
ScienceBase only collects, uses, and maintains non-sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on USGS employees, contractors, affiliates, and other contributors. The personal information maintained in ScienceBase is not subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974 as the collection and use does not meet the Privacy Act definition as a system of records. The PII collected in ScienceBase is maintained in accordance with Federal records laws and will be handled as required by applicable Federal privacy laws and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The system complies with NIST and other Federal requirements for data security as part of a formal program of assessment and authorization, and continuous monitoring. Please visit the DOI Privacy Policies page for additional information regarding the collection and use of PII when visiting USGS websites.
Ongoing work
Directory Contact Matching
Information items, including data products, publications, and project records, refer to contacts inconsistently. For example, three party pages exist for Sky Bristol, because cataloged information items have listed his name as: R. Sky Bristol; Bristol RS; and Bristol, R. Sky. Currently, an automated method for ScienceBase to determine that these 3 references refer to the same person do not exist. However, a manual Directory contact matching method is available in ScienceBase, allowing authorized users to disambiguate contact alias names and assigning information items to appropriate contacts. Contact disambiguation allows information items with inconsistent contact references (Bristol RS or Bristol, R. Sky) to be attributed to the sole Sky Bristol contact. Contact matching requires some human investigation to make sure RS Bristol refers to Sky Bristol and not Roberta S. Bristol, prior to attributing information items to a specific contact. More automated ways of contact matching are being investigated.