Mindsheet R and D Business Exchange - Panorama of Engineering Portals

RoddyMacleod writes "What immediately struck me when I started to collect engineering portals for this survey was the fact that they vary so much in style, content and purpose. Perhaps this should come as no surprise, as engineering is a large and complex subject.

I found portals which ranged from freely available, publicly funded services, to others offering pay-per-view technical information and subscription-based full-text article delivery. Yet more, perhaps the most rapidly growing type, are commercial services based around the sale of components, parts or other services. As several of these portals are very successful and attract large numbers of visitors, the conclusion to be drawn is there is a demand for a variety of different types of information and resources.

Examples of portals

Into the first category, of publicly funded, free portals comes EEVL http://www.eevl.ac.uk/, the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library, of which I am the manager, so I had better be careful how I describe it (and yes, I am quite happy to raise an occasional laugh when I describe myself verbally as "the EEVL Manager"). EEVL is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ through the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) http://www.rdn.ac.uk/, and as well as a searchable and browseable Catalogue of over 5,500 quality engineering resources which are selected, described and classified by subject consultants in a number of UK universities and professional associations, EEVL provides targeted engineering search engines, bibliographic and events databases including the popular Recent Advances in Manufacturing bibliographic database, a directory of science and technology librarians, an Engineering on the Internet bibliography, Hot Links to useful sites, and some other features.

Over the next year, there are plans to develop more portal services in conjunction with the RDN. These will deep-mine various bibliographic databases and offer community-based facilities, and help to provide subject-based access to what is known in UK higher education circles as the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER). It is not possible to buy anything directly through EEVL, but EEVL points towards a number of commercial services which describe themselves, or could be described, as portals.

One of the longest established subscription-based engineering information services is the Ei Engineering Village(tm) http://www.ei.org/. It does not call itself a portal, but with all of the various services available, such as the Compendex(r) database, full text access to Elsevier journals and a range of magazines, business newsletters, reference manuals, handbooks and market research reports, current awareness monitors and a directory of Web sites, plus access to expert opinion, the Ei Engineering Village fulfils just about all of the accepted criteria. Its directory of Web sites extends to many thousands of resources, covering all engineering topics and also some non-engineering subjects, and the services are integrated and include both formal and informal research resources. The list of subscribing companies, government organisations, and academic institutions which is available from the Ei Engineering Village home page shows that the service has been far more successful in America than it has elsewhere, and indicates that the number of academic subscribers is relatively high. I would tell you more about the service, but unfortunately when I click on the Further Information link at the Ei Engineering Village site in order to get up-to-date details (my institution has not had access to the service for a while) I currently receive a request for a username and password, which I do not have. Shurley a mishtake?

Dialog's engineering portal, the DialogSelect Open Access Engineering, http://openaccess.dialog.com/tech/index.html offers both a pay-per-view service and a subscription-based service. It covers the areas of aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical and civil engineering, computer science, and software disciplines, and offers cross-searching of bibliographic and reference databases, and full-text do*****ent delivery. There is a simple search interface which is based around groups of searches under such headings as 'Tech Research', 'Tech News', 'Company Information', 'Reference Information, and 'Directories'. Using the 'Tech Research' group, for example, and searching under 'any topic', the search is undertaken in well-known Dialog databases such as Ei Compendex(r), INSPEC, METADEX(r), Materials Business File(tm), Engineered Materials Abstracts, RAPRA, Ceramic Abstracts, Aluminium Industry Abstracts, NTIS, JICST, PASCAL, and Global Mobility (SAE). Industry news databases searchable under 'Tech News' include CMP Computer Fulltext, Computer Database(tm), Computer News Fulltext and Dialog Telecommunications Newsletters. Standards and Specifications (through IHS International), books (through Books in Print(r), British Books in Print, and Library of Congress Catalogs), cited references (through the ISI databases),theses (through Dissertation Abstracts Online), a database of over 13,000 software products, consumer reports and associations are all searchable. The Dialog portal offers numerous services, however could not find any directories of Web sites, which, according to some definitions, is a prerequisite for a portal.

A completely different type of site is operated by TechSavvy.com http://www.techsavvy.com/. It was previously known as DataGalaxy.com, and as such, clearly identified itself on its home page as a 'portal site'. Now, however, there is no mention of the word portal at the redesigned TechSavvy.com, and so, should it be included in this survey? I will let you decide. TechSavvy.com, which is a service from IHS http://www.ihs.com/, and IHS Global Engineering Do*****ents http://global.ihs.com/, offers engineering, design, maintenance and procurement information. Incidentally, the IHS Group of companies also includes ESDU International www.esdu.com, and Technical Indexes (ti) www.techindex.co.uk. Much of TechSavvy.com is based around several searchable IHS databases, which provide information and do*****entation about Standards, companies, parts, historical data, and Web sites; and the opportunity, where appropriate, to purchase the full text do*****ents or parts. Some of the databases are extremely powerful, though registration is required to receive search results. The Parts Information section claims to have information on more than 11 million items in the Federal Supply Catalog, plus more than 25 million procurement histories, and the Company Directory includes company profiles (information and contact details for engineering companies), links to company websites, and what are termed 'business cards' from Harris InfoSource www.harrisinfo.com. Standards available include ANSI, ASTM, UL, IEEE, ASME, SAE, EIA, BSI, AFNOR, DIN, ISO, and IEC, and abstracts can be viewed without charge. An impressive feature of theTechSavvy site is that these databases can be searched from one simple search box with a minimum of options. Less impressive is the directory of Web sites, which includes many sites of little interest to engineering.

So far, in this panorama, I have identified one freely available, publicly funded portal centred around a catalogue of Internet resources, one commercially available portal based around bibliographic databases with a facility for retrieving full-text articles, and one commercial portal offering parts and technical information. The fourth engineering portal I will look at is, yet again, quite different. E4Engineering http://www.e4engineering.com clearly identifies itself as a portal in its 'About' page, so there is no problem there. In fact, it claims to be the first European portal site aimed at the engineering community. Published by Centaur Communications Ltd, E4Engineering is a freely available site based around content taken from six trade journals, The Engineer, Design Engineering, Process Engineering, Metalworking Production, Control & Instrumentation, and What's New in Industry. The E4Engineering portal is, at the time of writing, still undergoing development, and so some of the sections are not complete, notably the What's New In Industry product directory, however there is a considerable amount of available content. This includes a three year archive from the trade journals, items giving the latest industry news, an events diary featuring a small number of exhibitions, and 'thematic channels' for the following: Machinery & Equipment, Automotive, Aerospace, Chemical & Process, Civil, Computers & IT, Mechanical, Electrical & Electronics, Medical, Control & Instrumentation, Health & Safety, Environmental, Management, and Business & Finance. The thematic channels contain news and features relevant to each area of interest which have been taken from the trade journals. There is no directory of Web sites within E4Engineering, but new services including a contacts database, and a recruitment facility are being planned. E4Engineering is part of a wider initiative, called the E4 Network, which also includes E4Data, a subscription-based service.

The fifth engineering portal I will feature is also different from the others so far identified. i-engineering.com http://www.i-engineering.com/servlets/ieng/index.html describes itself as the Internet's leading global engineering portal, so there is once more no problem with including it in this panorama. i-engineering.com is a commercial portal which covers all engineering disciplines and has an ambitious plan to provide the engineering community with one-stop technical information, information about engineering-related products, services and business-to-business commerce, and does so in an international and a multilingual environment. The keywords used at the i-engineering.com site are 'Content', 'Community' and 'Commerce', and with this focus, i-engineering.com probably fits the definition of portal more than some of the sites I am featuring. Registration is required for some parts of this site, which includes a number of interesting and useful features, several of which are still under development.i-engineering.com's 'inet-zine' is an excellent idea for a magazine which can be personalised to retrieve news items of interest, by email, from a number of journals, and there is a product and equipment marketplace for new and used equipment, a buyer's guide, selected industry news items taken from a number of sources, some technical forums and chat facilities, an events diary featuring trade shows, exhibitions, conferences and seminars (via ExpoBase http://www.expobase.com), and a resources section providing links to software and formulae, calculations, materials, mathematics and other practical tools. Not all sections of i-engineering.com are complete at the time of writing, but this site is well worth watching.

In a final, rather undefined, category comes The Information Portal http://www.smete.org. This service covers the broader remit of science, mathematics, engineering and technology education, and is also known as the SMETE Info Portal. It describes its purpose as being "to gather and share information from all concerning existing SMETE digital libraries, tools and services, lessons learned, metadata standards used, user studies and publications." So far, the site is very much under development, and it is therefore difficult to gauge its potential.

Most other engineering portals are variations on one of the above themes. Engineering Direct bills itself as the "world's first fully interactive engineering portal website" and as "The one-stop shop for all your engineering requirements." Running through the menu bar on this site, I see that it includes a message board, a live conferencing facility, a contracts & tenders section, and sections entitled Safe & Legal, Recruitment, and Plant & Equipment. Interactive sites such as Engineering Direct must rely on a very high visitor rate in order to seed their various forums, however visitors are unlikely to be attracted to the site unless there is already substantial content to be found, including other visitors who are leaving messages. It is somewhat of a catch-22 situation. At the time that I visited Engineering Direct, most of its areas were sparsely populated with messages and postings. I invited a colleague to join me, virtually, in the conferencing facility, and the resulting interchange of messages was quick and efficient. Given time, extensive promotion, and more content, a site such as Engineering Direct could become a valuable resource and useful portal.

Engineers Online http://www.engineers-online.co.uk is another UK engineering portal which features a chatroom and forums, but this site also includes an extensive searchable directory of engineering companies, and a job section with details of an impressively large number of vacant posts. Engineers Online offers an email newsletter to registrants, and industry news item links. I hesitate to say any more about Engineers Online at the present time, because according to its webmaster the site is currently being completely redesigned.

Connecting Industry http://www.connectingindustry.com was described to me by its webmaster as an industrial portal. This UK site is based around the following Wilmington Publishing's trade journals: Automation Magazine, Electronic Product Review, Electrical Equipment magazine, Irish Process & Manufacture, Industrial Scientific Instruments, OEM Design, Production Equipment Digest, Process Equipment News, and Factory Equipment News, and features news and comment taken from those titles. It has a suppliers database, a product news database, and lists forthcoming events, but does not include a directory of other engineering sites.

Engineering UK On-line http://www.engineering-uk.co.uk has been around for some time, and although it does not describe itself as a portal, it features a number of services that suggest it can be included in this panorama. These include industry news items, an events listing, a company directory, and links to engineering Web sites.

Ananzi TecNet http://www.tecnet.co.za is a commercial engineering portal focusing on Southern Africa, and run by ProMech & Topline Publishing and TAS, a engineering software company. It is split into different subject areas, and includes directories of companies, content from some trade journals, and some reference material.

Describing itself as the premier community for the engineering profession is Engineering.org www.engineering.org. At the very time of writing, this site is being completely redesigned, and rather than discuss features which may not be available in the near future, I will leave this site and instead describe The Engineering Zone http://www.engineeringzones.com. The Engineering Zone provides both content, in the form of short introductory articles on a number of engineering topics, and also hundreds of links to sites in engineering, design, and manufacturing. It can justify being classified as a portal, even though it makes no claims to be one.

MotionNET.com http://www.engref.com is a free technical web portal with a searchable and browseable database of company Web sites categorized under headings designed to be meaningful to engineers. It is aimed at engineers who design and develop new products, and was obviously built out of frustration with standard search engines. MotionNET.com provides free listings and free access throughout, and is a refreshing site.

Several of the portals in this panorama make grand claims for themselves. EngineerSupply.com http://www.engineersupply.com is no different in that is describes itself as "Earths' largest virtual community and Internet information portal for the Engineer". There is, of course, no way to verify this. EngineerSupply.com has some services which are freely available, such as links to consultants' Web sites and a 'bookstore' which provides links to amazon.com, and others which require registration. I registered for this site in December 1999, and now, for unknown reasons, it will not accept my username and password, so I have just re-registered, with exactly the same username and password. Ah well, such things are sent to try us. Services available to registrants include various sets of links to engineering resources, and several services, such as job vacancies and CV submission, which are currently under development. EngineerSupply.com also features an email newsletter service, which recently started to deliver copy to my email address.

All of the above portals focus on engineering as a whole. There are also numerous sites which could be described as portals, which concentrate on individual engineering disciplines. The following list is not exhaustive, but some of the ones which have caught my eye include:

Hydrofrac.com http://www.hydrofrac.com, a portal concentrating on hydraulic fracturing in situ stress measurement, iCrank.com www.icrank.com, an impressive portal for mechanical engineering, which has a visual design similar to i-engineering.com, ChemIndustry.com chemindustry.com, which is a focused search engine plus a classified ads facility, MyPlant.com www.myplant.com for manufacturing industries, PetroChemLink.com www.petrochemlink.com, which requires registration to take full advantage of its services, i-FM http://www.i-fm.net/main.html, a UK-based facilities management resource which also requires registration, MechEngineer.com mechengineer.com for mechanical engineering, and Software-Engineer.org http://www.software-engineer.org.

Ones that didn't make it into either list, but which come close to being classified as portals include: Engineering Resources Online http://www.er-online.co.uk (offers a searchable and browseable directory of Web sites, but little more), IndustryCommunity.com http://www.industrycommunity.com (restricted to message boards), 4engineers.com http://www.4engineers.4anything.com (consists mainly of links to engineering Web sites), Internet connections for Engineering (ICE) (a directory of Web sites), Engineering Electronic Library Sweden (EELS) www.eels.lub.lu.se (a searchable directory of Web sites), Engwho http://www.engwho.hypermart.net (a searchable directory of Web sites, but few other effective services apart from a chat facility), Engineers4engineers, also known as Eng4eng, http://www.engineers4engineers.co.uk (a good collection of links to engineering Web sites, but few other services), CASTI Engineering Portal http://www.casti.ca/portal/index.htm (mainly a directory of Web sites), and eFunda http://www.efunda.com. eFunda stands for Engineering Fundamentals, and in look and feel is not unlike i-engineering.com and iCrank.com (mentioned above), however, although eFunda is an extremely useful site with numerous features such as bibliographies, a message board, data on thousands of materials, news and discussions of various design processes, it neither describes itself as a portal nor has links to other resources, and is therefore more of a reference site, albeit a very good one, than a portal.

Having searched various popular search engines for the term 'engineering portal' and found numerous sites (Northern Light http://www.northernlight.com 227 items in 66 sources, AltaVista http://www.altavista.com 88 pages, and Google http://www.google.com about 104), I realise that there may be several worthy services not included in this panorama. However, I hope that I have mentioned most of the important engineering portals. If I have missed any, or if new ones appear, I would be only too happy to hear from you.

Notes

[1] "The Rise of Corporate Portals" Knowledge Management, July 1999
www.kmmag.com/km199907/featurea5.htm

[2] Jennifer Rowley, "Portal power" Managing Information, January/February 2000, p.62.

[3] Brian McKenna, Information World Review, May 2000 p.6

Roddy MacLeod is Senior Faculty Librarian at Heriot-Watt University. He edits the Internet Resources Newsletter http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/irn.html, and is the Manager of EEVL, the guide to quality engineering information on the Internet. He has written articles about the Internet for a number of publications. In his spare time, he worries about the fact that he seems to have no spare time.
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