What does ‘open’ mean and who’s doing it?
The 5 principles of ‘open’ and 11 case studies of how governments, industry and education are using them
What do we mean by ‘open’?
Most people will have heard of open source software but being open in wider cultural and working contexts can be harder to define. So what is ‘open’ and how can it be used?
Opensource.com defines the 5 principles of open as:
- Transparency
- Inclusivity
- Adaptability
- Collaboration
- Community
When we think about open in the way outlined above, openness becomes an attitude, an approach that can be used to motivate collective ideation, collaborative solution-making, and generate a sense of belonging.
So while an open approach can be used for creating software (where many contributors contribute to the code, building a more resilient product) open practices can also be used to build trust, empower adaptable workforces, crowdsource a citizen-centric future, and more.
The following case studies provide just a few examples of the myriad ways governments, industry, education, NGOs and more are using open principles to solve problems and improve their services.
Who’s doing ‘open’?
Governments
Who: Japanese Government
What problem were they trying to solve? Accelerated by the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, which resulted in over 20,000 thousand deaths and massive damage to the country’s infrastructure, the Japanese government recognised the need for better coordination of data, to identify where people were, what was needed, who could provide help, resource availability, pollution levels etc.
How did they solve it? By developing the Japan Open Government Strategy, which includes making data from a variety of sources openly available.
“The purposes of the strategy are to immediately undertake measures for encouraging the use of public data and to implement them broadly in order to raise the standard of living and invigorate business activities, contributing to the development of Japan’s society and economy as a whole.”
Who: UK Government
What problem were they trying to solve? How to identify problems and gaps in provision, and ultimately improve services for citizens.
How did they solve it? Members of the public can suggest a problem found in government, which an open standard might solve or improve, through the GitHub ‘open-standards’ repository. This is then reviewed by the Open Starndard team, which is overseen by the:
“Open Standards Board… a panel of experts drawn from industry, academia and the public sector. The board uses the government’s open standards principles and a rigorous selection process to choose standards for use in government. These standards improve the efficiency of government services, data and technology, and the board can decide to either mandate or recommend using them.”
Who: Swedish Government
What problem were they trying to solve? How to improve innovation and enhace the welfare of Swedish citizens.
How did they solve it? Empowering citizen-driven innovation via open collaboration, with Hack for Sweden.
“We are Sweden’s new platform for citizen-driven innovation and over 95 Swedish government agencies and companies are already cooperating to promote innovation through open data. As part of the process of increasing the digitalization of our public sector, the Swedish Government put focus on open data and citizen-driven innovation. Public sector, academic sector and enterprises need to interact and collaborate. Through open and citizen-driven innovation, more people than ever can contribute to our welfare and together we can build the society we dream of tomorrow — Sweden 4.0.”
Who: Various governments, including Belgium, the UK Government (and UK nations), the Republic of Ireland, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario
What problem were they trying to solve? How to improve decision-making on major policy questions.
How did they solve it? By allowing informed and considered public opinion to be heard via open engagement in Citizen Assemblies.
“A Citizens’ Assembly is a representative group of citizens who are selected at random from the population to learn about, deliberate upon, and make recommendations in relation to a particular issue or set of issues.”
Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs)
Who: International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC)
What problem were they trying to solve? How to connect like-minded people and organizations all over Switzerland to develop, scale and celebrate solutions to the Corona crisis.
How did they solve it? Versus Virus Hackathon. Developing a “system of systems”.
“We need to grow the mental muscle of collaboration within institutions and communities. With businesses and technologists as partners there remains incredible global reach and potential. It can’t just be the ‘technical staff’ in institutions, we need to prepare our experts to collaborate with new types of partners, individuals, and networks. This is part of becoming an open organization and truly solving globally and locally.” Heather Leson
Who: Greenpeace International
What problem were they trying to solve? How to empower the community to collectively create and amplify Greenpeace solutions.
How did they solve it? The Greenpeace Planet 4 team have been implementing an open culture. They are using open principles to develop open software to power Greenpeace websites, via open collaboration techniques, and open engagement.
Cities
Who: The UK cities of Brighton, Plymouth and Greater Manchester
What problem were they trying to solve? How to improve citizens’ access to learning, employment and civic opportunities.
How did they solve it? Cities of Learning UK. A place-based approach to enhancing lifelong learning, developed with local leaders, learning providers, and employers. A digital platform populated with open digital badges, connects learning opportunities from formal, informal and non-formal learning providers, to city-wide opportunities.
Who: New York, Amsterdam, Barcelona and many more
What problem were they trying to solve? How to efficiently use city data to support community services, manage traffic, improve utilities and more.
How did they solve it? Smart Cities. Open data is collected from citizens, devices, buildings and city assets and collated using Smart City technology. A range of Smart City platforms and apps exist, including open source examples such as Corteza.
Education
Who: Various universities, including MIT, Oxford, Harvard and Edinburgh
What problem were they trying to solve? How to extend their learning mission, promote pathways to paid-for courses, and market their institution.
How did they solve it? MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). An online course with unlimited participants, who can access free learning resources and engage with an online community of other learners. Some MOOCs promote the use of openly licensed resources, which can be reused and repurposed, while others only offer free access.
Industry
Who: Google
What problem were they trying to solve? How to empower high-performance teams and increase productivity.
How did they solve it? SCARF. Wanting to know what interventions led to high-performing teams, research from Project Aristotle highlighted the importance of collaboration and employee psychological safety. As a result, Google use SCARF: Status; Certainty; Autonomy; Relationships; Fairness, to promote inclusion and trust when collaborating, so people can contribute their best work.
Government, industry, education and more
Who: IBM, Google, Microsoft, universities, schools, voluntary organisations, regulatory bodies and many others
What problem were they trying to solve? To signpost and close skill gaps, empower professional development, and provide faster pathways into employment.
How did they solve it? Open Digital Badges. Open digital badges provide verifiable and shareable recognition of learning, skills and achievements across formal, informal and non-formal spheres. Initiated by Mozilla in 2011, the Open Badges standard is now stewarded by IMS Global. A survey run by IMS Global and Credential Engine in 2020, found over 43 million badges have been issued to date.
