Innovating with Open Knowledge

Abstract

Free and open access to the outputs of publicly‐funded research provides important social and economic benefits as well as being in line with the Government’s commitment to transparency and open data, and contributing to the global open movement more generally. Since the publication of the Finch report on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings and the Research Councils’ policy on Open Access, universities across the UK have increasingly made the outputs of their publicly funded research freely and openly available through open access journals, repositories and other channels. Open access makes research outputs freely accessible to all. It allows research to be disseminated quickly and widely, the research process to operate more efficiently, and has the potential to increase use and understanding of research by business, government, charities and the wider public. However it is not always easy for those outwith academia to know how to access these outputs, even though they are freely and openly available. In order to address this issue and to foster technology transfer and innovation, an IS Innovation Fund project has created a series of video interviews, case studies and learning resources called Innovating with Open Knowledge. These resources are aimed at creative individuals, private researchers, entrepreneurs and small to medium enterprises to provide guidance on how to find and access the open outputs of Higher Education. The resources focus on developing digital and data literacy skills and search strategies and feature case study interviews with creative individuals and entrepreneurs engaging with the University of Edinburgh’s world class research outputs. Innovating with Open Knowledge demonstrates how to find and use Open Access scholarly works, open research data, archival image collections, maker spaces and open source software, and features interviews about how these resources can be used to support creative writing, visual research, citizen science, community engagement, drug discovery and open architecture. All these resources are released under open licence and the videos can be downloaded for reuse from MediaHopper.

A video of this presentation can be viewed at https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/0_omfloqmh