Advancement of Open Knowledge in GEO: the journey towards user engagement session, Open Data and Open Knowledge Workshop 2024

The GEO Community is inherently decentralized by design. Through various GEO Work Programme Activities and other initiatives, it produces knowledge in a wide range of areas, including agriculture, climate, oceans, and more. However, the decentralized nature of these efforts often results in knowledge being dispersed across different institutions and research projects. This fragmentation can hinder the community's ability to discover and reuse valuable insights and outputs its members create. Recent years have witnessed a significant shift within the GEO Community. The adoption and increasing prominence of Open Knowledge practices have prompted more initiatives to share not just datasets, but the full spectrum of materials that contribute to research outcomes. These materials, including source code, documentation, technical notes, and methodologies, are fostering a more transparent and accessible knowledge-sharing environment. This session aimed to explore the ongoing efforts within the GEO Community to promote Open Knowledge practices (activities, user engagement, infrastructure). It highlighted the concrete actions implemented to facilitate more open sharing of knowledge across different initiatives. Additionally, the session addressed the key challenges and barriers that remain, focusing on what needs to be done to encourage broader adoption of Open Knowledge principles across the community. Session moderator: Marie Francoise Voidrot, OGC Session speakers: Felipe Carlos, GEO Secretariat Kalamkas Yessimkhanova, GEO Secretariat Miao Zhang, AIRCAS Orestis Speyer, NOA Zhongxin Chen, FAO Taylor Campbell, Creative commons Andrew Murdock, GEO Secretariat