Google announces ‘Dataset Search’ to help scientists and journalists tell stories

Google announced Wednesday the launch of its new “Dataset Search” to help scientists and data journalists alike sift through the data-drenched web easier and quickly find stories between the numbers.

Traditionally, datasets are spread far and wide across individual research websites, institutions like NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — and even data-driven publications like ProPublica. With Dataset Search, Google is aiming to adapt its Google Scholar search scheme to help data geeks and researchers sift through this data in a single search bar.

Google outlined guidelines for dataset providers that will help the search giant and others more easily identify its content and smoothly redirect that information to researchers searching for it. The approach is based on an open-source standard laid out by the collaborative data community Schema and asks data providers to include information on who created the dataset, how it was collected, when it was published and under what terms the data can be used.

This new search function is the second part of an initiative to increase the visibility and access to data through search, and follows a development earlier this year for standard search that specifically aimed to help data journalists more easily discover data.