A compendium of open-source or free tools

Many researchers—especially in impoverished nations, but also in wealthy nations—are unable to access the funding they need to purchase the necessary tools and resources to conduct their research. Fortunately, many open-source or free tools and resources are available, but sometimes hard to locate. I would like to develop a more definitive resource that collates all the open source and free tools that are available. Here are some examples.

Audio editing

· Audacity: Edits and records audio, such as deleting or muting sections

Converting formats

· Ffmpeg: Converts audio and video formats to other formats

Drawing

· Draw.io: constructs diagrams and flowcharts. Some excellent templates to help you construct these diagrams. You can store the diagrams online—such as in Google drive

· Krita: Animation, drawing, and digital painting

pdf tools

· altopdf.com: Converts, splits, merges, edits and signs your pdf documents

Photo editing

· GIMP: Retouches photos, enhances pictures, and provides other functions. Can edit photos in many formats

· Inkscape: Edit your images or add colors. You can add text to images as well as copy and paste other objects into images

Profile management

· ORCID: Assigns each researcher a personal ID. Automatically collects your research and auto-populates your research activity, such as your publications, in grant applications

· ResearchGate: Social networking site for researchers

Project management

· Trello.: Comprises a variety of tools—such as boards, lists, and cards—that enable you to organize and prioritize your projects

Tools that help you organize your files

Git or Gitlab: Stores versions of your files—enabling you to recover previous versions. You can store on the web—to facilitate collaborations

Tools that help you plan your research

RDMO: Helps you conduct data management plans

Quantitative data analysis including GIS

· R and R studio

· ADaMSoft: Data mining

· Gretl: Econometrics

· JMulTi: Econometrics

· LIBSVM: Support vector machines-a variant of machine learning

· OpenNN: Neural networks-a variant of machine learning

· PSPSS: A free alternative to SPSS

· SOFA Statistics: Statistical software that is easy to use

· Weka: Machine learning

· QGIS: Open source GIS software. If combined with a graphics editor, such as adobe illustrator, you can complete most basic GIS tasks as well as licensed versions

Construction of graphs to display data.

· Charticulator: Many pleasant displays

· Fityk: Curve fitting and corresponding graphs

· Gephi: Networks and complex systems

· MayaVi: Computational grids,

· OpenPlaG: Many categories or graphs

· Orange: Broad range of visual displays and statistical analysis

· ParaView: Fluid dynamics

· Ploticus: Broad range of plots

Reference management

· Mendely

· Zotero

· Zenodo: In some disciplines, you need to report the doi of each reference—a unique number that identifies each source. Zenodo can be used to extract these doi numbers as rapidly as possible

Video editing

OpenShot: Provides 3d animated titles and effects