Open Universities and Institutions

2015-01-13

azim58 - Open Universities and Institutions


Open Universities and Institutions


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o Hey Hojoon, do you have an opinion about which Universities or
Institutions in our general field are the most open. In other words,
which ones share the discoveries they make openly with the world
rather than working hard to hide information and/or patent each small
discovery they make?

-Kurt
o Hey Kurt,

I have no idea about how much of discovery universities open practically.
How do I know about something that universities did not open? In my
general impression about universities in USA, they have strong philosophy
about sharing knowledge with society as duty.


o Hmmm okay thanks for the feedback. However, I think there are some
universities which are much more open and collaborative than others.
For example, ASU seems to have a great focus on patenting inventions,
forming businesses, and then using that money to keep the university
going.
However, there are many other institutions that don't operate as much
that way. MIT and Stanford seem to be very open type schools. Although
they patent things as well, money from patents and businesses is
certainly not the main source of money to keep the university going.
The Broad Institute in particular has a strong emphasis on being open.
One of the four things they strive for is being open. Here's an excerpt
from their website:
Share openly. Seizing scientific opportunities requires creating
methods, tools and massive data sets — and making them available to
the entire scientific community to rapidly accelerate biomedical
advancement.
Individual researchers within each university will have different
philosophies as well of course, but some universities might encourage
certain philosophies over others.