According to the Open Data Institute definition, open data is “data that anyone can access, use or share. Simple as that. When big companies or governments release non-personal data, it enables small businesses, citizens and medical researchers to develop resources which make crucial improvements to their communities”.

“By 2020 we expect to see drastic changes in the open data world. Open data has become the established practice, and governments that are not publishing open data are falling behind” (2020: The Open Data World, Wiredkraft).

Open data provides a great opportunity to get a better analysis of farm performance and, consequently, help inform agriculture investment, innovation and policy to drive changes toward increasing sustainability in agriculture sector, which matches with the second goal “Zero Hunger” of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs).

“That’s why the International Open Data Charter (ODC) in conjunction with the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative, the Open Data Institute (ODI) and Open Data for Development (OD4D) network are developing a domain specific open data implementation guide for the agriculture sector”, - Open Data Charter.

To become open, data should be released under an open license. Though openly licensed data can be freely used, re-used and redistributed, people handling this data must:

• credit data publishing (i.e. this requires attribution) as well as
• release the results of data - mixed with other data - as open data (i.e. this requires share-alike).

(This graph displays the coverage of the resources for each Open Science topic >> Download Taxonomies; FOSTER)

Details about good open data are described in the Open Definition:

• data supported by a standard, structured format in order to be easily processed;
• data easily linkable / sharable with other datasets, ensuring the data is interoperable and thus more usable;
• data building trust and inspiring long-term loyalty (i.e. traceable and responsible data guaranteeing its provenance, availability and consistency over time).

If end users handle with qualitative and trustworthy data - supported by good data stewardship and data curation - they are likely to believe they can rely upon the information built upon this data for accountability purposes. “On this basis, appropriate and sustainable business models for the global agricultural community could be further developed” (A Global Data Ecosystem for Agriculture and Food).

The World Bank’s freely available Open Data Readiness Assessment (ODRA) methodological tool can be used to conduct an assessment of the readiness of individuals or organizations to design and implement open data.

• Implement effective Open Data & Keep it alive with Open Data TOOLKIT
• Open Data Management in Agriculture and Nutrition Online Course

Open Science

“Open science is about the way research is carried out, disseminated, deployed and transformed by digital tools, networks and media. It relies on the combined effects of technological development and cultural change towards collaboration and openness in research. Open science makes scientific processes more efficient, transparent and effective by offering new tools for scientific collaboration, experiments and analysis and by making scientific knowledge more easily accessible”, - Digital Single Market, European Commission.

Open science is an umbrella term of the movement to make research products (including underlying research data) accessible to all levels, thus contributing to the creation and dissemination of open knowledge. In particular, open science embodies a number aspect, such as: open research (conducted in the spirit of free and open source software), open access, open science data, open notebook science, open standards offering unfettered dissemination of research outputs in the digital age.

Take a tour through Center for Open Science and explore simple steps towards open science, discover how you can manage and discover your research and much more.

AIMS community is campaigning for encouraging (agricultural) research community to practice research openly, or rather, according to FAIR principles and in a responsible manner, considering that this brings significant benefits to researchers.