Where to find open knowledge (and how to use it)
Welcome to our second post celebrating the lead up to International Open Access Week. Last week, we went back to basics, exploring this year’s theme, ‘Who Owns Our Knowledge?‘ This week, our guest contributor Lisa Grbin, Open Education Librarian, delves into how to find and use open knowledge.
Why use open knowledge
So many resources are ‘closed’, meaning they are locked behind a paywall, not accessible, not reusable, or only available to you while studying or working at university.
‘Open’ knowledge is available to everyone, and (thanks to the Internet) anytime and almost everywhere. So, it’s helpful to have the skills, knowledge and digital capabilities to find (and use) open knowledge resources. This is useful for a number of scenarios, for example:
- Professional knowledge and development – upskilling at work or for general interest and development
- Finding evidence to support your practice – whether this be to help someone feel well or get better, to learn new coding or IT skills or meet industry standards
- Exploring something else entirely – for example:
- Something to improve the way you design content, like Designing Learning Experiences for Inclusivity and Diversity: Advice for Learning Designers
- Something explorative like the Building Futures: A Collection of Construction Management Career Videos
- Something to expand your horizons, like Español Down Under: Spanish for Australia and New Zealand and Engineering with Country: First Nations Engineering in Practice
- Something fun and exciting to engage with, like the 3D Digital Herbarium
- Something to inspire learning and curiosity in the next generation, like the open picture book The Little Cell Who Lost Its Way or PhET Simulations for Science and Maths.
How to find open knowledge
There are so many places to find open knowledge. There are numerous resources for finding research, data, information and more, covering many subject areas. Naturally, we have a guide for that.
If you are looking for Open Educational Resources (OER) or ‘copyright free’ content, there are some key additional platforms and places you can explore, depending on what format you are after. Check out our list of places to find:
- Copyright free images, sound and video
- Subject specific OER
- Find information – Workplace digital literacies
- Accessing research and learning materials after graduation
- There are also some fantastic Deakin-produced resources:
There are other external platforms which are great for finding OER. Explore our OER guide for resources.
How to use open knowledge
There is no right or wrong way to use open knowledge, the main thing we would suggest is to jump in and explore!
There are, however, two main considerations when using open knowledge:
- As with any resource, ensure you Evaluate the resources you find to ensure they are quality and meet the requirements of what you need
- Check your obligations under the open (Creative Commons) licence of the resource. At the very least, this will involve attribution – luckily, we have an attribution guide and builder to help you become a pro at using open knowledge.
If you need help at any time, please reach out to your librarian or the Copyright team.
Creating an open knowledge resource
If you are creating an open knowledge resource, here are some things to keep you on track.
- For OER creations, remixes and adaptations – if you are adapting, remixing or creating resources from multiple existing open sources – you will need to keep track of the resources you are using, confirm their licences match your needs, and stick to the guidance in our Open Educational Resources guide to ensure your creation is copyright compliant.
- Consider adopting this tenet: ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’ – sometimes there is data and information which may be sensitive, confidential or otherwise not appropriate to be made open.
- Thinking of using a CC licence on the resources you create in your work? Ensure you:
- Seek permission. Some institutions own the copyright on the works you produce, chat to your supervisor, unit chair etc. to find out more.
- Is your work funded? Check the requirements to understand whether there are specific licences which need to be applied to completed works
- Choose and understand your CC licence with care.
- Ask for help! When in doubt, seek guidance and ask questions from information and subject experts.
Example/Case study
Adaptation case: Business Finance
Process: Find, evaluate, map existing and required content, wrote, compiled and published OER.
Outcomes: well-used in MAF203 and beyond, interactive, living text, with internal collaborators, updated as course content changes
Impact measures: Student cost savings (~$297,000 between 2022-2025, impacting ~1,900 students), usage (~13,250 total page views and 488 downloads between 2024-April 2025), eVALUate feedback, increasing success rates and average marks. Authoring team receiving a 2025 OER grant for content updates.
Make your work findable
If you are creating and sharing your work openly, consider how you wish to:
- Promote, share and market yourself. Think about avenues to promotion via social media, blogs, newsletters, podcasts or other mediums, conferences and more
- Make it more findable – consider where your work is indexed, searchable and discoverable. There are a few different platforms which serve this function, including OER Commons, MERLOT and Figshare
- Looking at impact? Check out the different ways to track the usage of your content. This could come in the form of inbuilt usage trackers, Google Analytics or you could ask people to contact you if they plan to reuse your work.
- Look for more opportunities to expand your practice – for example, publishing your story as a case study in Open Education Down UndOER, presenting at conferences and more
- Seek support – you are not alone, the open community is generous and distributed world-wide, holding so much knowledge, expertise and advice – it’s just a matter of getting in touch. There may also be some funding opportunities, like the Deakin OER Grant program.
- Seek help – Deakin have a fantastic troupe of Subject Librarians, Open Education Librarians and Copyright experts. Don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Now that we have explored some places to discover and use open resources, we ask you to pause and reflect on your practices. Ask yourself, “How could I choose to make my work more open?” In next week’s blog post, Caitlin Savage, Research Librarian, Publishing and Open Access, shares how to ensure your research publications are as open as possible.
In the meantime, be sure to book into our panel session on Thursday 23 October at 10:00am when we will examine the theme ‘Who owns our knowledge?’