The Knowledge Futures Group (KFG) is committed to building and sustaining open infrastructure for public knowledge that puts researchers in control of the tools they use everyday to solve society’s biggest challenges. Our newest product, Commonplace, is a publication that invokes the title’s Latin roots of locus communis to create a space where people discuss the digital infrastructure and policies needed to distribute, constellate, and amplify knowledge for the public good.
Commonplace will bring together mission-aligned individuals, institutions, and organizations to contribute to the larger conversation about the many social implications of open and closed infrastructure: the distributed and centralized systems that undergird our modern modes of information sharing and communication. We will pinpoint emergent practices and new ways of thinking that benefit everyone. The goal for Commonplace is thus to reflect a multitude of viewpoints around what the future of knowledge should look like toward collective action and broader advocacy. We will integrate our resources across the KFG and with our partners to bring people together, build infrastructure, and advocate for a more sustainable and collaborative process for ongoing knowledge creation and data stewardship.
How are knowledge infrastructures changing and how can we shape them for a shared future? By investigating, proposing, and interrogating what healthy knowledge futures can and should look like, we will open conversations toward action. Those conversations manifest and take shape right here. Commonplace will cultivate global voices to exchange views on the shared power of knowledge resources through circulating topics that span disciplines and industries:
‘Information Disorder’
cognitive security
‘cyber epidemiology’ (& this link)
fake news / information disorder
media literacy
online extremism
Data Ethics
data justice, privacy, and rights
public knowledge graphs
racial equality in tech and publishing
Open Infrastructure
open access policies and technologies
open data
open source systems
preprint servers
Sustainability
eco-literacy
environmental data justice
Please comment on this document to propose additional relevant topics.
Commonplace formats will embed multimedia to harness the full potential of discursive collaboration in a digital space—from annotated documents, letters, and reading lists, to dynamic interview and syndication series. Ultimately, the publication will serve as a timely meditation for untimely facts, facilitating an exploration into how the concept of openness has shaped our everyday, and where it remains most necessary to implement.
If you have an idea or two+ for topics, themes, formats, and/or contributors for The Commonplace please email commonplace@knowledgefutures.org. As an active reader, there are many ways you can contribute as well. We encourage all readers to annotate and engage in conversation with The Commonplace community to help further our mission toward turning ideas into collective action. Your voice, feedback and, yes, pushback when needed, is not just welcome but also encouraged and anticipated.