Thanks to the generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, OSHWA took a giant step toward expanding open source hardware in academia with our new Open Hardware Creators in Academia Fellowship. We look forward to expanding future cohorts and the guides or playbooks they will create to advance open hardware within academia.
We released our cohort’s Enabling Practices document, which contains several links and checklists inside the document itself. While creating this document through the lens of shared ‘Best Practices’, the cohort quickly recognized that their University structures, even limited to an American cohort, were so vastly different, that one set of best practices would not suffice. Some academics owned their research and others did not, some had a form of Tech Transfer Office and others did not, many spanned the landscape of positions one could hold at a University. Some had their Dean’s support in open hardware and others did not. Depending on these differences, “best” practices varied drastically. Some enabling practices may not be a one-size fits all solution, but our fellows and the universities they navigate represent a broad spectrum of American universities. We shifted the terminology to enabling practices to encompass more types of universities, where “best” would imply that one university type would be prioritized with which practices work in that system.
The main take away from these sessions collectively was that there is a difference between the creation of open hardware and the advocacy for open hardware to have a place in academia. These roles took different skill sets to move forward, different verbiage, and worked toward different outputs. These conversations were merely a starting point. There is much discussion over time needed to truly force change for higher education to default to open hardware.
We compiled a list of links and resources this Fellowship created, with newly added cohort documents. There are still several fellows waiting for Journal publication dates as well, so check back for new resources!
Cohort documents:
- Enabling Practices (which contains the following):
- Skills Inventory
- Metrics Guide for Academics Creating Open Hardware
- Unlearnings Checklist
- Open Hardware in Academia FAQ
- Open Hardware in Academia Boilerplate Blurbs and Talking Points
2023 Open Hardware Summit Talks:
- Open Source Hardware in PK-12 Education
- Robotics for the Streets: Open-source robotics for academics and the community
- OSHW + MBSE for Academic Leadership in Sustainability
- Lessons in Open Source Hardware from the UC System
- Open Hardware approaches for Laser Scanning Microscopy
- Frugal science: Tackling societal challenges with curiosity, openness & a bit of play
- Open Hardware for Culture & History
- Reclaiming Looms as Open Hardware
- Expanding the Open Source Ecosystem in Large Academic Collaborations
Individual Fellow Outputs:
- AnnMarie Thomas
- Open Source Hardware in PK-12 Education: A Literature Review
- Open Source Hardware in PK-12 Education: A Literature Review (Data)
- OHS 2023 Through the Eyes of Undergraduate Students
- Carlotta Berry
- US002178: Robotics for the Streets
- Fellow Reflection: Dr. Carlotta Berry
- Robotics for the Streets: Open-source Robotics for Academics
- Robotics for the Streets: Lily∞Bot
- Robotics for the Streets: Open Hardware in Academia
- Jonathan Balkind
- Open Hardware Advice Talks
- Lessons Learned from the UC System
- Creating a Compelling and Sustainable Tutorial
- Q&A Expert Interviews and Common Themes
- Kevin Eceleri
- Fellow Reflection: Kevin Eliceiri
- Open Hardware Approaches for Laser Scanning Microscopy (LSM)
- OpenScan Hardware Documentation
- Manu Prakash
- Inkwell: Design and Validation of a Low-Cost Open Electricity-Free 3D Printed Device for Automated Thin Smearing of Whole Blood
- Inkwell
- Miriam Langer
- Museduino
- Museduino Website
- Museduino Soldering Guide
- US002128: Museduino
- Introduction to the Museduino and Its Uses; Ideation to Open Source Certification; 2014-2022
- Case Study “Behind the Fence” at Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos
- Case Study Acadia National Park, Mt Desert Island, Maine
- Case Study “Breathtaking” at NMMoA
- Case Study “Full Sails” at Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
- Case Study Interactive 3D Map at Los Luceros Historic Site, Los Luceros, NM
- Shanel (S) Wu
- Fellow Reflection: S Wu
- Digital Weaving Conference: Loom Pedals
- Loom Pedals
- Making Design Tools Like a Weaver: Four Rules
- At the Interface of Open/Closed Technologies
- On Open Hardware and Being a PhD Student
- Loom Pedals Developer Guide
- Retooling E-Textiles for Coproduction: Weaving Circuitry as Cloth