Over the past two decades, openness (e.g. ‘open’ innovation, ‘open’ education and ‘open’ strategy) has been of increasing interest for researchers and of increasing relevance to practitioners. Openness is often deeply embedded in information technology (IT) and can be both a driver for and a result of innovative IT. To clarify the concept of “openness”, we provide an overview of the scope of cross-disciplinary research on openness. Based on this overview, we develop a framework of openness, which proposes a higher-order concept of “openness” characterised by transparency, access, participation and democracy. The framework further distinguishes open resources, open processes and the effects of opening on particular domains. To provide the historical context and to appreciate the role of IT in openness, we discuss two historical examples of openness: the introduction of an open science model in academia (openness without IT) and the emergence of open source software development (openness with IT). We conclude by highlighting some concerns with and limitations of “openness”.

中文翻译：

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有和没有信息技术的“开放性”：框架和简史

在过去的二十年中，开放性（例如“开放”创新、“开放”教育和“开放”战略）越来越引起研究人员的兴趣，并与从业者越来越相关。开放性通常深深植根于信息技术 (IT) 中，既可以是创新 IT 的驱动力，也可以是创新 IT 的结果。为了澄清“开放性”的概念，我们概述了开放性跨学科研究的范围。在此概述的基础上，我们制定了一个开放框架，它提出了一个更高阶的“开放”概念，其特征是透明、准入、参与和民主。该框架进一步区分了开放资源、开放流程以及开放对特定领域的影响。为了提供历史背景并理解 IT 在开放性中的作用，我们讨论了两个开放性的历史例子：在学术界引入开放科学模型（无 IT 的开放性）和开源软件开发的出现（有 IT 的开放性）。最后，我们强调了对“开放性”的一些担忧和局限性。