Open Knowledge:
Promises and Challenges

Jonathan Gray
The Open Knowledge Foundation
<http://www.okfn.org>

About Us

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2004 with the aim of protecting and promoting open knowledge.

What is open knowledge?

Open knowledge is any...

1. text
2. image
3. multimedia
4. data
5. and so on
6. ... that anyone is free to access, re-use and redistribute.
7. See the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) at http://www.opendefinition.org

What do we do?

Our activities include...

1. Promoting the idea of open knowledge

Open Knowledge Definition

For example

Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)
Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike (CC-BY-SA)
GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)
Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data
ODC Public Domain Dedication and Licence (PDDL)
'MIT' Database License
Design Science License (DSL)
UK PSI Click-Use Licence

... and so on.

Promoting the idea of open knowledge

1. Open Knowledge Definition
2. Open Service Definition
3. Open Knowledge/Data web buttons

This material is...

Promoting the idea of open knowledge

1. Open Knowledge Definition
2. Open Service Definition
3. Open Knowledge/Data web buttons
4. Open Knowledge Conferences and Forums
5. Open knowledge community

2. Research and Policy Work on Open Knowledge Issues

Research and Policy Work on Open Knowledge Issues

1. UK, EU and International levels
2. Legal
3. Economic
4. Domain specific (e.g. public sector information, geodata, environmental data, bibliographic data)
5. Knowledge development
6. Knowledge sharing

3. Open Knowledge Projects

Open Knowledge Projects

Open Shakespeare

Open Shakespeare

Open Shakespeare Annotation

Open Knowledge Projects

Open Shakespeare

Open Knowledge Projects

Open Shakespeare

Open Economics

Open Economics: Home

Open Economics: Raw Data

Open Economics: Plots

Open Knowledge Projects

Open Shakespeare

Open Economics

Open Knowledge Projects

Open Shakespeare

Open Economics

Open Text Book

Open Text Book

Open Knowledge Projects

Open Shakespeare

Open Economics

Open Text Book

Open Knowledge Projects

Open Shakespeare

Open Economics

Open Text Book

Public Domain Works

Public Domain Works

Developing tools for open knowledge

Developing tools for open knowledge

KForge

KForge

Developing tools for open knowledge

KForge

Developing tools for open knowledge

KForge

KnowledgeForge

KnowledgeForge

Developing tools for open knowledge

KForge

KnowledgeForge

Developing tools for open knowledge

KForge

KnowledgeForge

The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN)

CKAN

Developing tools for open knowledge

KForge

KnowledgeForge

The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN)

A Tale of Two Metadatas

Why do we care about open knowledge?

1. Better access
2. More creativity and innovation
3. Richer ecologies of sharing and participation

Projects and possibilities...

Databases of metadata

Public Domain Works

Public Domain Works

Public Domain Works: Composers

Public Domain Works + Open Library

Copyright Flowchart (Canada)

Copyright Flowchart (USA)

Turning it Into Code

Turning it Into Code II

From databases of metadata...

From databases of metadata...

...to metadata for databases

Componentization for Knowledge

Componentization = Atomisation + Packaging

Some of the answer...

Discovery, Installation, ...

CKAN - freshmeat for open knowledge

CKAN

CKAN Editing

CKAN Package

CKAN Package List

CKAN Tags

The importance of...

open metadata for open knowledge

and of open knowledge for a vibrant knowledge society.

Jonathan Gray
jonathan.gray@okfn.org