science

Open knowledge

Open knowledge is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Open knowledge rather than just read about it. In short: Open knowledge (or free knowledge) is knowledge that is free to use, reuse, and redistribute without legal, social, or technological restriction. Open knowledge organizations and activists have proposed principles and methodologies related to the production and distribution of knowledge in an open manner.

Key takeaways

Open knowledge belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Open knowledge to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Open knowledge from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Open knowledge (or free knowledge) is knowledge that is free to use, reuse, and redistribute without legal, social, or technological restriction. Open knowledge organizations and activists have proposed principles and methodologies related to the production and distribution of knowledge in an open manner. The concept is related to open source and the Open Definition, whose first versions bore the title "Open Knowledge Definition", is derived from the Open Source Definition.

History

Early history Similarly to other "open" concepts, though the term is rather new, the concept is old: One of the earliest surviving printed texts, a copy of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra produced in China around 868 AD, contains a dedication "for universal free distribution". In the fourth volume of the Encyclopédie, Denis Diderot allowed re-use of his work in return for him having used material from other authors.

Twentieth century In the early twentieth century, a debate about intellectual property rights developed within the German Social Democratic Party. A key contributor was Karl Kautsky who in 1902 devoted a section of a pamphlet to "intellectual production", which he distinguished from material production:Communism in material production, anarchy in the intellectual that is the type of a Socialist mode of production, as it will develop from the rule of the proletariat—in other words, from the Social Revolution through the logic of economic facts, whatever might be: the wishes, intentions, and theories of the proletariat.This view was based on an analysis according to which Karl Marx's law of value only affected material production, not intellectual production. With the development of the public Internet from the early 1990s, it became far easier to copy and share information across the world. The phrase "information wants to be free" became a rallying cry for people who wanted to create an Internet without the commercial barriers that they felt inhibited creative expression in traditional material production. Digital rights activists aim to enable related concepts, including access to data produced with public funds and freedom of expression online. Wikipedia was founded in 2001 with the ethos of providing information which could be edited and modified to improve its quality. The success of Wikipedia became instrumental in making open knowledge something that millions of people interacted with and contributed to.

Organisations and activities promoting open knowledge Open Knowledge Foundation OpenStreetMap Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Science Commons Wikimedia Foundation

References

External links

List of open-access advocacy organizations, maintained by the Open Access Directory.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Open knowledge

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Open knowledge claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Open knowledge before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Open knowledge ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Open knowledge

In research: Open knowledge appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Open knowledge in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Open knowledge is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Copyright law, Free culture movement, Intellectual property law, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Open knowledge outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Open knowledge in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Open knowledge means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Open knowledge out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Open knowledge in simple terms?

Why does Open knowledge matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Open knowledge?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Open knowledge.