CDKN reports on a new web tool making online scientific searches easier.

People will be able to search more easily online for documents about energy and climate change thanks to a new ‘tagging’ tool.

Created by online search function reegle, the new Application Programming Interface (API) automates tagging by identifying specific terms related to clean energy and climate issues. It presents the user with their results and suggests related documents they may be interested in.

Tagging information, by highlighting the key terms in individual documents, is one way in which search tools work to find us what we need. However, the process of tagging documents is time-consuming and inconsistent when done manually. Moreover, there is often no consistent set of tags to cover the specialist fields of ‘clean energy’ and ‘climate change’.

Organisations publishing online resources about climate and clean energy can now install the free reegle API on their websites. Once in place, the tool will scan the site’s content and tag all specific terms, concepts and geographic areas, making all documents easily searchable. It is able to suggest related documents that have been scanned, based on matching through sectors and geographical regions.

The reegle API can be used to tag documents in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German. The indexing process also enables companies to add their own resources to the information pool, should they choose to do so, increasing their outreach. “The new tool will make it much easier and faster for people to identify relevant energy- and climate-related documents,” explained Ari Huhtala, CDKN’s Director of Policy and Programmes.

“Our partners in developing countries are finding it difficult to navigate the ever-increasing volume of information and raw data available on the internet. The reegle API is one of our contributions to support planning and decisions for a more climate compatible future.”

The reegle API project for automated tagging and categorisation was a collaborative project with REEEP/reegle taking the lead and three other partners contributing: OpenEI, weADAPT and IDS/Eldis. It was funded under the CDKN Innovation Fund and ran from December 2011 through October 2012. You can find more information on the tool, and try it out, at: api.reegle.info.

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