Projects/Open Methods

The Open Methods project aims at building an open repository of methods.

A wiki was setup for hosting this repository at http://methods.okfn.org/ based on MediaWiki and Semantic MediaWiki.

The primary aim of a heritage method store is to stop the community re-inventing the wheel‚ by sharing methodologies and algorithms. There are a number of secondary benefits such as:
 * providing a place where methodology can be discussed and developed an audit trail for method/algorithm developments
 * the ability to fork methodologies in light of different localities, technologies etc.
 * to be able to provide conceptual links between methodologies developed at different scales or for different environments etc.

Getting people engaged is crucial to make this type of initiative work: perception could be everything. Making it clear that this is approved by the community, open in outlook could add significant credance and be the difference between it working or not.

Open Data and Content: data and content, or any other kind of resources, produced by the project will be openly licensed in a way that is compatible with the Open Definition: http://opendefinition.org/, Free/Open Source Software: software created by the project will be openly licensed (i.e. in conformance with the OSI Open Source Definition), Public process and politness: the project will be run in a public way and encourage participation from outsiders. Interaction both within the project and the wider community will be governed by basic principles of tolerance, respect and politeness.