Open Knowledge Institutions: Reinventing Universities

Abstract

In April 2018, thirteen of us from around Australia and the world gathered, with only the local kangaroos for company, in a secluded venue deep in the Moondyne Valley, an hour or so east of Perth, to think about the future of the university as an open knowledge institution. This book is the product of that thinking. It represents a consensus view from some distinct perspectives – research professors, open knowledge advocates, science communicators, economists, publishers, high-level university administrators, librarians and others – towards a diagnosis of what the problem is, and what we might do to fix it.

This book advocates for universities to become Open Knowledge Institutions which institutionalise our world's creative diversity in order to contribute to the stock of common knowledge.

Universities operating as open knowledge institutions act with principles of openness at their centre. We advocate for universities to work with the broader community to generate shared knowledge resources that work for the broader benefit of all of humanity. We advocate that universities adopt transparent protocols for the creation, use and governance of these shared resources.