ORI 100: Meta-ORI

Before we discuss exactly what is the purpose (or end, telos) of "the Open Research Institute (ORI) project", let us first discuss what the Open Research Institute does, and what "an open research institute" or "an Open Research Institute chapter" does. Putting it another way, let us outline the basic features of the Open Research Institute and of an ORI chapter, by which we know that it is properly (and already) a member of the Open Research Institute (ORI as meta-project).

The Open Research Institute comprises all ORI works, literatures, and organisms.

The central institute of an open research institute is openness, through which research occurs as a natural consequence of participation and engagement.

An open research institute is a literature and community whose outputs (research) are available to every other work, literature, and organism part of an open research institute.

The Open Research Institute is the total network of works, literatures, and organisms whose outputs are available to every work, literature, and organism participating in that same network.

The Open Research Institute is an open research institute, and every known open research institute is a chapter in the Open Research Institute.

ORI works

An ORI work is a work which can be freely accessed, remixed, and monetized by anything or anyone in the Open Research Institute.

All works which satisfy the definition of an ORI work are adopted by the Open Research Institute.

This is an initial (instructive but not exhaustive) list of all works already adopted by the Open Research Institute:

all natural knowledge

the abstract body of knowledge, documented or not, from which all may freely draw

every work in the public domain

works in which no one may claim a personal interest

in practice, works in which the Open Research Institute has an equal or greater claim to personal interest than anyone else

every work released under an ORI-compatible license

this includes:

every work under the Open Research Institute (ORI) License

still in the drafting phase , but intended to be the minimally permissive ORI-compatible license

every work under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)

works dedicated to the public domain via opting out of copyright and database protections

ORI literatures and organisms

An ORI literature is a body and network of ORI works, often proper to one organism.

An ORI organism is a being that participates in an ORI literature.

An ORI community is a group of ORI organisms. (An ORI community is itself an ORI organism, and every ORI organism is an ORI community unto themselves.)

(Every ORI work or literature may also be thought of as an ORI organism.)

Here are some ORI organisms:

every ORI work

DefenderOfBasic

Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ Oᴀᴛʜ

every ORI chapter

every community whose literature AND community can be freely used by every ORI chapter

every individual or group who has a literature OR community can be freely accessed by every ORI chapter

A chapter of the Open Research Institute is an open research institute made up of a literature and a community available for use in all ORI works (past, present, and future) and all ORI chapters (past, present, and future).

A literature and community is adopted as a chapter by the Open Research Institute if and only if it satisfies the Open Research Institute's definition of an open research institute.

Every known open research institute is a chapter of the Open Research Institute.

All messages in the Discord server for The Syllabus (and on this blog!) are intended to be under the following license:

This work is adopted by the Open Research Institute (ORI) by virtue of being released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) .

All participants in the Discord agree to this designation, and are instructed to post only that which they are able to, willing to, and in fact have released under CC0.

The literature of The Syllabus is available to all adopted literatures and communities of the Open Research Institute (and in fact even allows usage beyond this), and the community of The Syllabus commits its future work within its literature to be available to the Open Research Institute. The Syllabus therefore claims to be, under this definition, an open research institute, and also a chapter of the Open Research Institute.

Concerns to address

These definitions are circular!

Yes, they are. Human knowledge is circular below God.

Could there be multiple "Open Research Institute"s?

Perhaps, in the sense that multiple networks do not recognize mutual participation and so are cannot assuredly freely participate in the same literature and community.

However, the Open Research Institute of which I am aware (and about which you are learning) is the one which claims every literature and community that currently would allow every ORI chapter to freely build (without binding expectation of compensation, credit, or cooperation) on its output. This is the only governing institution that I deem to be assuredly built on the institute of openness.

(A person or organization that visibly rejects the Open Research Institute is not certainly not within the network, but should not be presumed to be within the network.)

So, wait... what is the purpose of an ORI chapter?

Beyond this basic set of definitions, every ORI chapter decides its own aims and priorities!

Think of Linux. It was created by a specific community with specific goals (and a broader mission), but anyone could use Linux to release their own Linux distributions (open or closed source.

In this analogy, Linux is the Open Research Institute, and a Linux distribution available for use in all Linux projects is an ORI chapter.

Git was created for the Linux project, and now at least one person uses Git as a fancy plaintext editor.

How do I get started?

join an ORI chapter :

Defender's ORI

The Syllabus

I run The Syllabus; contact me!

your own new chapter

create your own (preferably Markdown-compatible) chapter literature under an ORI-compatible license

highly recommended is having your own offline personal knowledge management system

let the ORI network know you exist

adopt any other technologies or ideas from the ORI network that would help your chapter

Discord log system

each user has their own channel in which they write notes and curate materials

A/B/U model

Defender's funding and organization model

read some of my disagreements here

the teachings of the one true church of Jesus Christ our Lord

If you want an in-depth explanation of this, wait for the ORI 101 course! We (I and anyone who helps me) will have a starting kit and cookbook ready for you.

UPDATE: ORI 101 is available.