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Plant Illustrations


By Research Cooperative, 2021-10-07

Max Antheunisse in the Netherlands has hand-crafted a collection of copyright-free botanical illustrations from various centuries, under a Creative Commons license.

The collection is not yet comprehensive, but is large and easily explored. The site provides a searchable index so that we can find illustrations by searching on botanical name, publication, artist, etc.

See: plantillustrations.org

I especially like the index list of artists, linked to their works.

Image Sources Toolkit


By Research Cooperative, 2021-09-28

Top of the list is Wikimedia Commons. .. a great place for exploration and volunteer contributions.

***

Max Antheunisse in the Netherlands has hand-crafted a collection of copyright-free botanical illustrations from various centuries, under a Creative Commons license.

The collection is not yet comprehensive, but is large and easily explored. The site provides a searchable index so that we can find illustrations by searching on botanical name, publication, artist, etc.

See: plantillustrations.org

I especially like the index list of artists, linked to their works.

***

There are more than one thousand World Heritage sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. These are places of both natural and cultural importance. OUR PLACE in partnership with UNESCO   is building an online photographic archive and interactive website to record these sites. Any photographer can contribute to the project.

This could be a good model for many kinds of image archiving projects.

See Our Place - The World Heritage Collection : http://www.ourplaceworldheritage.com/index.cfm

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AGPix ( http://www.agpix.com ) - an online community of 350+ image providers, mostly freelance/independent photographers.

An Amish village ( Amishphoto.com ) - the work of one photographer in one community, over a period of four decades.

Arctic Photo ( http://www.arcticphoto.com ) - pictures of polar regions, by various photographers who travel frequently to Siberia, Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Arctic Scandinavia and Antarctica.

Buiten-Beeld ( http://www.buiten-beeld.nl/ ) - Dutch nature/outdoor photography; online picture archive with about 100,000 images; best nature photographs by renowned wildlife photographers; young and talented photographers.

Corbis Corporation ( http://www.corbis.com ) - a comprehensive selection of photography, illustration, footage, typefaces and rights clearance services; based in North America with offices in Europe, Asia, and Pacific.

Images and Stories ( http://www.imagesandstories.com )- an Istanbul-based agency that supplies feature articles and stock images to magazines, book publishers, and others. Specialists for Turkey, Middle East, and Asia.

iStockphoto ( http://www.istockphoto.com ) - offers photos, illustrations, video and audio; based in Canada.

National Geographic Image Collection ( http://www.nationalgeographicstock.com ) - one of the largest online collections, global in scope.

Our Place ( http://www.ourplaceworldheritage.com ) - photographic records of World Heritage locations registered by UNESCO.

Photographers Direct ( http://www.photographersdirect.com/ ) , a pioneer of "Fair Trade Stock Photography" ; offers a range of photography more interesting than many commercially-orientated sites ; has more than 2,300,000 stockimages.

Photo Library Group ( http://www.photolibrary.com ) - represents leading stock brands and photographers around the world; provides access to images, footage, and music.

Randall Hyman ( http://www.randallhyman.com ) - environment, culture, and travel photos from over three decades, covering natural history and travel topics from Northern Europe to South America to Asia to Africa.

Tranz International Image Library ( http://www.tranz.co.nz ) - international and New Zealand photography on historical, news, studio, life-style themes.

***

I have also used Photographers Direct for research.

The company running this service has a good system that aims to help photographers benefit from their work. The company "pioneered the concept of Fair Trade Stock Photography" This makes the range of photography more interesting than at many commercially-orientated sites.

Maps Toolkit


By Research Cooperative, 2021-09-28

I'm often looking for base maps as a starting point for an illustration. Here are some sources:

Global

https://d-maps.com/

Bioinformatics toolkit


By Research Cooperative, 2021-05-03

Many online services, free and paid, are now available for analysing DNA sequences and other forms of genetic data. For example:

ATGC bioinformatics platform (Montpellier, France) - data can be uploaded, analysed, and the results will be sent back by email.

Posted in: Academic | 0 comments

Numbers Toolkit


By Research Cooperative, 2021-04-14

This toolkit will cover all kinds of number conversion other than cash and time conversions, which have their own "toolkits" in this blog.

Roman to decimal numbers - courtesy of CalculatorSoup, where innumerable other number converters are provided!

Looking for a world index of academic journals?


By Research Cooperative, 2021-02-05

Why look for an index?

Well... hopefully someone else has done the hard work of looking through zillions of search results and identifying journals that actually exist, and that can be contacted if necessary.

Let's see. An exact search on "world index of journals" should narrow things down.

Here's what we get:

Google: "No results..." but then there are about 264,000,000 results that are not exact.

No bad. I won't start at the bottom of that list!

The Index Copernicus , based in Warsaw, is at top.

After that there are some journal ranking sites. And some incomplete journal indexing sites that seem to have started and then stopped.

"World list of journals" doesn't lead far either. There is a Wikipedia entry that lists some journals. And a Google snippit highlights this revelation:

"No one knows how many scientific journals there are, but several estimates point to around 30,000, with close to two million articles published each year."

That came from a short and pithy article:

"Too much academic research is being published"


Philip G. Altbach and Hans de Wit, 07 September 2018, University World News .



T here is probably not much more I need to say.


There is No World Index! Just a lot of partial information.


That's OK.

We've survived tens of thousands of years with partial information.


It helps keep us on our toes. We wouldn't need science if we actually knew everything.

Posted in: Academic | 0 comments

Technical glossaries


By Research Cooperative, 2020-09-19

Even specialists have difficulty learning and remembering all the specific technical terms used in their field.  Oxford University Press and other publishers in the past published many discipline-specific dictionaries and glossaries. Now we can find open-access technical glossaries online. Here are some good examples.

Biology terms

Biology Dictionary , USA

Botanical terms

Florabase glossary, Western Australia

Posted in: Academic | 0 comments

Teaching resources


By Research Cooperative, 2020-07-09

This year, 2020, may be the year that online teaching "comes of age", as a matter of necessity following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in 2019 (agent of the COVID19 disease).

This means many teachers are busy compiling new course materials for online distribution. Here I will add a few links that may be useful. I won't attempt to be comprehensive, nor will I review each item.

Please join our " science communication " group to tell others about any online teaching resources (and methods) that you find useful.

General

UNESCO - distance learning solutions (links for all education levels).

Biology

University of California at Berkeley - Welcome to Evolution 101

Posted in: Teaching | 0 comments
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