Science and Technology Webpages Shut Down by the Trump Shutdown
The current partial government shutdown has affected many important science and engineering websites. Here’s a list, and if you have any more important websites that have been shut down you want me to highlight, tweet me it at Roger Huang.
Purpose: First off, most of the National Institute of Standards and Technology websites are not available. This affects websites such as the math section which offered tutorials and certain mathematical tools.
The NIST itself is a part of the Department of Commerce and it focuses on recommending different technical standards for other agencies to adopt.
Traffic Estimate: The NIST website gets about 5 million visits a month.
Purpose: The US Geological Survey helps provide critical information about the science behind natural hazards that can be life-threatening, from volcanoes to earthquakes. During the shutdown, it seems like the website may not be updated and critical real-time feeds such as earthquake data are going to be provided with limited support.
Traffic Estimate: The USGS website gets about 13m visits a month.
Purpose: Data.gov is the repository where open data sets are made accessible to the public throughout the government: everything from agricultural data sets to datasets that have to do with housing affordability. The site being shuttered means that researchers, open data practitioners, and hobbyists looking to do some data analysis are out of luck. The longer this goes on, the more pressing it will become to come up with alternatives for data that is essential to stakeholders, businesses and organizations outside of the government.
Traffic Estimate: Data.gov gets about 850,000 visits a month.
Purpose: The National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports most of the basic research in the United States on scientific and engineering matters. It helps advance knowledge and studies that help keep the United States in a position of scientific and economic leadership. It’s the funding source for about 24% of federally supported basic research in American colleges and universities. During the shutdown, the website is still up and so are applications for grants, but no new funding opportunities will be announced, and grant proposals will not be reviewed until the government reopens again.
Traffic Estimate: NSF.gov gets about 1.5m visits a month.
