Open Knowledge Institutions
Reinventing Universities
Overview
Author(s)
Praise
Open Access
Summary
The future of the university as an open knowledge institution that institutionalizes diversity and contributes to a common resource of knowledge: a manifesto.
The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from the MIT Libraries.
In this book, a diverse group of authors—including open access pioneers, science communicators, scholars, researchers, and university administrators—offer a bold proposition: universities should become open knowledge institutions, acting with principles of openness at their center and working across boundaries and with broad communities to generate shared knowledge resources for the benefit of humanity. Calling on universities to adopt transparent protocols for the creation, use, and governance of these resources, the authors draw on cutting-edge theoretical work, offer real-world case studies, and outline ways to assess universities' attempts to achieve openness.
Digital technologies have already brought about dramatic changes in knowledge format and accessibility. The book describes further shifts that open knowledge institutions must make as they move away from closed processes for verifying expert knowledge and toward careful, mediated approaches to sharing it with wider publics. It examines these changes in terms of diversity, coordination, and communication; discusses policy principles that lay out paths for universities to become fully fledged open knowledge institutions; and suggests ways that openness can be introduced into existing rankings and metrics. Case studies—including Wikipedia, the Library Publishing Coalition, Creative Commons, and Open and Library Access—illustrate key processes.
Paperback
$25.00 X ISBN: 9780262542432 176 pp. | 6 in x 9 in 14 b&w illus.Endorsements
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“Can the contemporary university be reinvented with openness at its core, developing and sharing knowledge in service to the global public interest? The authors of Open Knowledge Institutions argue compellingly that such reinvention is not just possible but necessary, and they provide a crucial map of the work required to make it so.”
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English, Michigan State University; author of Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University
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“This book provides nuanced discussion around the moral, logistical, and practical challenges associated with embedding open science principles in public research organizations. With every syllable, I was nodding in agreement.”
Gemma Derrick
Senior Lecturer in Higher Education, Lancaster University
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“Laced with incisive case studies, this welcomed manifesto amounts to a fearless application of practical wisdom to revitalize the university by having it serve as a knowledge commons.”
John Willinsky
Khosla Family Professor of Education, Stanford University
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“Science is like a parachute: if it is not open, it is not going to help you. This book makes the case that universities need to be parachutes of knowledge to address the challenges of today and into the future.”
Eva Méndez
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
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“This book situates the long-game agenda of open scholarship alongside the challenges and opportunities facing universities. I see clearly in these pages the next decade of open advocacy, theory, philosophy, and hands-on labor.”
Micah Vandegrift
Open Knowledge Librarian, North Carolina State University; 2018–2019 Fulbright-Schuman Research Fellow for Open Science Policy and Infrastructure