Open content, a neologism coined by analogy with "open source", describes any kind of creative work published in a format that explicitly allows copying and modifying of its information by anyone, not exclusively by a closed organization, firm or individual. The largest open content project is Wikipedia.

Technical definition

Work on a technical definition for open content has been undertaken by the Open Knowledge Foundation. The Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) gives a set of conditions for openness in knowledge - much as the Open Source Definition does for open-source software. Content can be either in the public domain or under a license which allows re-distribution and re-use, such as Creative Commons Attribution and Attribution-Sharealike licenses or the GFDL. It is worth noting that the OKD covers open data as well as open content.

History

It is possible that the first documented case of open content was the Royal Society, which aspired to share information across the globe as a public enterprise. The term "open content" was first used in the modern context by David Wiley, then a graduate student at Brigham Young University, who founded the Open Content Project and put together the first content-specific (non-software) license in 1998, with input from Eric Raymond, Tim O'Reilly, and others.

Free content

As with the terms "open source" and "free software", some open content materials can also be described as "free content", although technically they describe different things. For example, the Open Directory Project is open content but is not free content. The main difference between licenses is the definition of freedom: some licenses attempt to maximize the freedom of all potential recipients in the future while others maximize the freedom of the initial recipient.

Common content

The related term "common content" is occasionally used to refer to Creative Commons–licensed works. This takes after the Common Content project, which is an attempt to collect as many such works as possible.

Open access

"Open access" refers to a special category of material, consisting of freely available published peer-reviewed journal articles.

Open-content search engines

With the increased interest in open content, many universities have started offering online video/audio courses to the general public, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University. This has resulted in a great increase in providers of open content. The difficulty of keeping track of all such content had led to the birth of open-content search engines.

Licenses

• Creative Commons licenses (11 versions)
• Design Science License
• Free Creations License (see freecreations.org)
• GNU Free Documentation License
• Open Content License
• Open Directory Project License — used by the Open Directory Project
• Open Gaming License — license of the Open Gaming Foundation, as drafted by Wizards of the Coast
• Open Publication License — license of the Open Content Project

References

See also

• Digital freedom
• Free content
• Open source
• Open Data

External links

• IOSN Open Content e-Primer — from their FOSS e-Primers Section
• "Community Created Content; Law, Business and Policy," by Hietanen, Oksanen and Välimäki
• "A Guide To Open Content Licences," by Lawrence Liang
• Creative Commons — the open content idea and creative works
• ibiblio — the open content idea as a library, from a project by UNC–Chapel Hill
• Learning the lesson: open content licensing — history of open content from Linux Weekly News
• Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals
• Open Knowledge Definition: Defining the Open in Open Data, Open Content and Open Information — set of principles from the Open Knowledge Foundation

Major open content repositories and directories

• OpenCourseWare Consortium — portal linking to free and openly licensed course materials from hundreds of universities worldwide
• MIT OpenCourseWare — free and openly licensed course materials from more than 1,800 MIT courses
• Connexions — global open-content repository started by Rice University
• OER Commons — network of open teaching and learning materials, with ratings and reviews
• Google Directory – Open Content
• OpenLearn — free and open educational resources from The Open University
• Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) — directory/registry of open data/content packages and projects
• UNESCO Open Training Platform — network for international development issues