Open Innovation and Open Development

Facilitators: Scott Wilson (OSS Watch, CETIS) and Simon Whittemore (JISC)

Open development is an emerging term used to describe the community-led development model found within many successful free and open source software projects.

The Open Development Method offers a new way of developing both software and other knowledge-related products. Its focus on openness and community should chime with the general ethos of education and it presents a significant opportunity to develop more sustainable knowledge products and avoid ‘abandon-ware’. But changing the requisite educational working practices is a long-term process that requires commitment and planning. Even when education really wants to change it will need help in understanding the lessons learned from open source software development. It appears that the challenge is as much to the open source community to offer this kind of help as it is to education itself to change.

‘Open innovation’ is a term coined by Professor of Business Henry Chesbrough in his 2003 book Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology. In the years since its publication, Chesbrough’s ideas on how technology should be managed and exploited have become extremely influential. Over the same period, the public profile of free and open source software (FOSS) has risen. Open innovation is a specific form of innovation. Simply put, open innovation is a practice involving:


 * seeking useful inventions and innovative technologies outside your organisation
 * making your own internally developed inventions and innovative technologies as widely available to others as possible
 * working collaboratively with external partners wherever it is advantageous

In this session we'll look at the opportunities and challenges of open innovation and open development in education.