Openness as a daily practice
Openness is often framed as a goal or value, but it can be most effectively pursued when it becomes ingrained in workflows, relationships, and assumptions. In many cases, openness emerges not from formal declarations or requirements, but from the way people effectively work together day-to-day. Practices that help us build an environmental research commons—like sharing resources, communicating transparently, or making decisions collaboratively—can be woven into workflows, relationships, and assumptions, even when there's no explicit "open" label.
Solutions
1.
Integrate community practices
Map practices already used by the communities with whom you are collaborating, and incorporate these where possible into your own research or design workflows. This will, in turn, make it easier for your research or tool to be useful for the communities themselves.
2.
Incorporate open habits
Embed openness practices, such as version control and thorough documentation, into individual, project, and team workflows.
3.
Develop relational openness
Build in time for cultivating the relational aspects of openness, such as participation and transparent decision making, in addition to incorporating the technical aspects of openness, like digital infrastructure, licensing, and open documentation.
Know of another resource or solution?
Resources
CommunityRule
CommunityRule is a toolkit for structuring collaborative governance and role-sharing useful for the concept of "open maintainers."
Fostering Participatory Data Stewardship
Fostering Participatory Data Stewardship by the Aapti Institute provides sector-specific guidance around participatory mechanisms for data governance.
Proyecto OpenFlexure
El proyecto OpenFlexure ofrece un modelo de documentación abierta y centrada en el usuario en el ámbito del hardware abierto.
The Engine Room Documentation Guides
The Engine Room offers practical guides on documentation catered to working with civil society organizations including documenting when there's so much other work to do and creating documentation for non-technical audiences.
Openscapes
Organizations like Openscapes offer training on embedding open practices into collaborative and scientific workflows.
The Turing Way and Opensciency
The Turing Way and Opensciency are both free training resources for learning about and integrating open practices into workflows.
Protocols.io
Protocols.io is a platform for sharing community-reviewed, reproducible protocols. It enables researchers to publish, discover, and collaboratively improve experimental methods, ensuring transparency and repeatability in scientific workflows.