Open access is an international movement that aims to provide people with free online access to academic information. A publication is defined as open access when no financial, legal or technical barriers is involved in receiving their information. Open access is very important because it increases visibility and reuse of reliable academic research and in a time where the spread of false information can be so easy, having platforms that make reliable and honest information more accessible is great.
Metadata is basically information on information. It’s a set of data that gives information about specific data. Metadata can either be created manually by people or by computers automatically. There are three main types of metadata, First is Descriptive metadata this describes resource for purpose of identification. For example, if you took a picture the metadata would describe the subject of the picture where it was taken, the date and time and even the name of photographer. Second is structural metadata, this shows how compound objects are put together. So in that picture the metadata would show the type of camera used, the file format the picture was saved under and the technical dimensions of the picture etc. Third is administrative metadata, which provides information to help manage resources. This is subdivided into two categories rights management metadata which deals with intellectual property rights. In relation to the previous example this data would say who can view the picture, under what conditions and if they can reuse it. The second subtype is preservation metadata which is the information required to archive and preserve resources, this would keep track of actions taken to preserve the picture for later use.
Creative common licences gives people the opportunity whether its individual creators or large companies a simple standardize way to grant copyright permission to creative work that can be copied, distributed, edited etc. all within the boundaries of copyright law. With that being said holders of this creative commons license still requires themselves to credit the owner, maintain copyright notices on all copies of the work among others. So with this license you are still required to get permission to do anything that the copyright law reserves exclusively to the licensor of the original work.
Applications in Plant Science is a monthly peer reviewed open access journal providing newly developed, methods and tools in all fields of plant science. This article titled Small unmanned aerial vehicles (micro-UAVs, drones) in plant ecology provides an innovative way to mapping vegetation over small to medium sized areas using small aerial drones.
Article Citation: Cruzan, M. B., Weinstein, B. G., Grasty, M. R., Kohrn, B. A., Hendrickson, E. C., Arredondo, T. M., & Thompson, P. G. (2016). Small unmanned aerial vehicles (micro-UAV’s, drones) in plant ecology. Applications in Plant Sciences 4: 1–11.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 