A blog about the importance of open access data.
Who hates paying subscriptions for materials they barely use or are rarely what they’re looking for? A LOT of people. Well, thankfully there is a way around expensive, impersonal subscriptions, and its called open access. Open access is a form of free, unrestricted access to research, such as journal articles and books. It is becoming increasingly popular as it allows everyone to gain knowledge. Beyond that, in academia it allows the ability to replicate the study, build on the study, or simply just learn from the study. Not only is open access beneficial to the readers, but it is also beneficial to the authors and publishers. It can create lower costs in publishing, and can send an author’s name around the internet further, reaching more people and potentially opening up new opportunities. ELSEVIER and Research Gate are great databases about science and health to start your exploration into open access data!
But how is it done? A few key factors are needed to allow for data and knowledge to be open access. Metadata and a creative commons license is needed. Metadata is a set of data that describes and gives information about other data and must be available to the reader. There are 3 main types of metadata:
1. Descriptive metadata – information about the resource (i.e. author, title, keywords)
2. Structural metadata – information about containers of data (I.e. pages, chapters, versions)
3. Administrative metadata – information to help manage a resource (i.e. date, publisher)
Creative commons licenses are public copyright licenses that allow free distribution of someone’s work to be done legally, whether the distribution is for friendly sharing purposes or for the public to learn, use and build upon the work. They are administered by creative commons, a non-profit organization, and there are 6 main license types available. To learn more about creative commons, visit their website at https://creativecommons.org/
The following will go through an example journal article that is open access.
Article title: Long-term decline in stream total phosphorus concentrations: A pervasive pattern in all watershed types in Ontario.
Citation: Stammler, Katie & Taylor, William & Mohamed, Mohamed. (2017). Long-term decline in stream total phosphorus concentrations: A pervasive pattern in all watershed types in Ontario. Journal of Great Lakes Research. 10.1016/j.jglr.2017.07.005.
Summary: This paper explains the importance of shedding light on the nutrient loading issue in the Canadian Great Lakes. This issue is causing imbalances in the marine ecosystems and can create algal blooms. Nutrient loading, also known as cultural eutrophication, can be caused by the household products that we, the community, use daily, such as bathroom cleaners, toothpaste and shampoo. But more recently it is being caused by agricultural practices, land-use practices and water, waste and storm management in urban areas.
This paper highlights the importance of open access as it itself used data from open public access databases. Without access to this past data, the researchers would not have been unable to create a study with such strength. As for readers, without this information being open access, many people would have missed out on the important purpose of this study and may have continued to be unaware of the issue. Additionally, many new researchers would not be able to build on or replicate the study. This is how science is done, through collaboration and the building on of past data. Without access to this past data, science would never move forward as a field.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 