NIST’s Standard Reference Data Program Products to support NIST’s Measurements and Standards Mission Dr. Robert L. Watters, Jr Chief, Measurement Services Division

2 NIST Measurement Services Calibrations  Service in NIST technical lab  Customer sends instrument to NIST Standard Reference Materials (SRMs)  Physical artifacts with certified physical or chemical properties Standard Reference Data (SRD)  Evaluated numeric data on physical or chemical properties  Scientific algorithms on behavior of systems

3 Program Data FY07 Calibrations  15,900 tests/year  >600 customers  $8 M income Standard Reference Materials  1,285 products available  2,800 customers  33,000 units sold/year  $12 M in sales Standard Reference Data  1,800 customers  55 PC products available  54 Online SRD systems out of 78 total NIST systems  6,000 units sold/year  $5.1 M in sales

4 Challenge: To Measure Impact Usage statistics Real impact studies  Expensive and multi-year  Basic approach is to measure industry benefits versus NIST costs  Industry is asked to estimate added expense if NIST did not provide the service

5 Legislative Authority Standard Reference Data Act, Public Law  To make evaluated scientific and technical data readily available to scientists, engineers, and the general public  Cost recovery and copyright authority is authorized under the same law  “To the extent practicable and appropriate, the prices established for such data may reflect the cost of collection, compilation, evaluation, publication, and dissemination of the data, including administrative expenses”

6 NIST Standard Reference Data-Licensing Limited to termination date or specific version Requires acknowledgement of copyright Scientific acknowledgement of NIST name Prohibits further redistribution – secondary distributors Non-transferrable SRD disclaimer-best efforts, no guarantee Mass Spec – over 40 distributors REFPROP/other fluids – over 40 distributors

7 Data Evaluation Critical Evaluation of Data-NIST Laboratories have subject experts collect and evaluation data and issue with quality indicators Collect data from the published literature Review and evaluate using expert scientists Design databases and publications to meet user’s needs Disseminate widely to industry, academia, government

8 SRD Program Model Options Option 1: Centralized program  SRDP controls funding  SRDP receives, evaluates and funds proposals from NIST and outside labs  SRDP provides business, licensing support and application programming

9 Centralized Program Features  Provide balanced view of national data needs and allocate resources accordingly  Long-term data centers, primarily at NIST  Short-term data projects, often drawing on outside experience  Joint projects with industrial, national, and international groups  Coordination to minimize duplication of efforts Disadvantage - Program priorities not always in accord with NIST lab priorities Advantage – support less sensitive to changing budgets of labs

10 SRD Program Model Options (2) Option 2: Distributed program  NIST labs receive historical funding allocation as base and prioritize data efforts within their own programs  SRDP provides business, licensing support and application programming

11 Distributed Program Features  NIST Labs responsible for determining priorities for scientific data  Any outside data activities are sponsored by NIST labs Advantage – data priorities in accord with NIST lab priorities – ensures commitment Disadvantage – long-term commitment subject to changing funding

12 SRD Roles and Responsibilities Laboratories  Perform the research &/or literature evaluation  Create the application, website, or publication Measurement Services Division  Business support for sale of PC products/report income to Labs.  Maintenance of online databases for free and for fee  Consultation and execution of license agreements  Editorial support-Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data  New SRD E-Commerce System-secure site for PC product- download ordering-new role for providing subscription web services  MSD can also create IT application

13 Technical Areas for NIST SRD Analytical Chemistry Atomic and Molecular Physics Biotechnology Chemical and Crystal Structure Chemical Kinetics Environmental data Fire Fluids International Trade Law Enforcement Materials Properties Optical Character Recognition Surface Data Text and Video Retrieval Thermopysical & Thermochemical

14 SRD Trends

15 SRD Customers

16 SRD - Accomplishments NIST Data Gateway-  Portal that provides unified access to NIST scientific and technical data  Customers can search by keywords, properties and substances across a collection of over 100 NIST scientific and technical databases  Lets NIST customers search for articles in the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, plus SRMs and calibration services Phase I of SRD E-Commerce  Allows online purchase of Standard Reference Data PC products by mail or download

17 Some of Many Data Success Stories Mass Spec instrument makers – widely distribute the Library in their products, over $4M in income in FY06  New version of database due June 08 REFPROP – Over 4,500 copies sold in SRD, thousands sold by companies incorporating REFPROP source and “dll” files into their own packages for commercial sale  New Version 8.0 just released

18 Some of Many Data Success Stories (2) NIST Chemistry WebBook (  Free online site – access to chemical and physical property data - very popular with academics  Now there are translations of important parts of the site into four additional languages, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Czech. ThermoData Engine – development of dynamic data evaluation combining electronic databases with expert-system software – produces critically evaluated data “to order”

19 SRD Impact Studies REFPROP (1987 – 1996)  Benefit-to-cost ratio = 3.9 Ceramic Phase Diagrams (1985 – 2001)  BCR = 10.0

20 Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data Begun in 1972 with partners American Chemical Society and American Institute of Physics Now NIST is partnering with American Institute of Physics To provide critically evaluated physical and chemical property data, fully documented as to the original sources and the criteria used for evaluation Extremely high impact factor over the years, for example 1999 impact factor was as high as 9.9  Meaning papers in the Journal receive an average of 9.9 citations each

21 JPCRD Impact

22 Future for NIST Phase II of SRD E-Commerce (to be deployed shortly)  Allows online purchase of subscriptions to Standard Reference Data online databases  Provides authentication services for validating subscribers to Standard Reference Data online databases complex messaging system with Lab Databases notifies users when their subscription is due to expire token system to validate users before allowing them access to Lab databases

23 Future of Scientific Data Health sciences are way ahead in sharing data High energy physicists, astronomers also have centralized repositories Physical scientists and engineers generate a lot of data, but tend to publish it in varied places