Community Consulting

Recognizing the need for an reimagining of the Open concept that breaks away from the silo of Open source code, Open@RIT developed a term that encompasses all that pertains to Open access and production.

Humans collaborate on all different types of "Work" within academia and beyond. Different types of Work can be released and developed among communities of practice in different way. For this reason, Open@RIT coined "Open Work" as a catch-all.

We use the term Open Work to talk about a larger theory of practice in which Works of all types are developed, distributed, and collaborated upon, and in 2022, the Open Work Definition site was launched, providing a foundation for the expanded conversations with clients and the Open community as a whole.

Open Work Definition

Our expertise lies in designing tools, processes, and infrastructures to support community growth and project sustainability.

This methodology which was first developed to grow contributor communities around Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software in partnership with UNICEF, has continued to be applied to various Open Work projects developed by RIT faculty as part of their research. Open@RIT is seeking opportunities to provide this same and extended support to new Open Work efforts.

Our multidisciplinary process is informed by previous methodologies such as Mozilla’s Open Leadership Training program, design thinking, and The Turing Way. This design process has four phases:

Phase 1

Community Definition

We work with the maintainer and interview existing contributors and potential stakeholders to define what archetypes (personas) might exist for this given project and what sort of incentives they might have for contribution.

Phase 2

Problem Identification

Our team conducts a thorough analysis of all documentation, process, and infrastructure that currently exists for this project.

Phase 3

Asset and Resource Production

With the list of missing infrastructures and processes defined in Phase 2, our team implements the first version of these missing components.

Phase 4

Implementation

Should the client desire, we can implement the plans and handle the community management.

Given our experience in community building and our methodology described above, we are uniquely qualified to develop and carry out our comprehensive community project roadmaps to ensure their long-term sustainability through developing critical community infrastructure.

Researchers, industry partners, government agencies, and non-profits are increasingly leveraging Open Work as a key component of their goals. As reliance on Open Work grows, so too will the community maintenance needs for these key infrastructures.

RIT provides access to a massive community of multidisciplinary students and faculty. We seek to create an ongoing program to engage this group of students to support Academia and Research both within and outside of RIT, as well as NGOs and Civic entities leveraging Open Work.

In this consulting partnership with RIT’s cooperative education program, we are cultivating the next generation of multifunctional project contributors — community managers, open source designers, and various roles traditionally difficult to source for in Open.