Let's Recommon IT

Governing Knowledge Commons

Frischmann, Brett M. (ed.); Madison, Michael J. (ed.); Strandburg, Katherine J. (ed.) (2014). Oxford University Press

Threads: Institutions, Commons, AI

Summary

Adapts Ostrom’s IAD framework into the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework for studying how communities share and produce knowledge, data, and information. It applies the framework in eleven case studies across science and culture, including rare disease research networks and Galaxy Zoo citizen science.

Why it’s useful here

  • The bridge from IAD to data and AI. It gives a ready-made research protocol for analyzing a community dataset, a shared model, or a data cooperative.
  • Answers Griziotti’s open question about scaling without centralizing with a method: study how real knowledge commons are governed, then design from evidence.
  • Its case-study format is a model for wiki pages that document real community tech projects.

Key ideas

  • Knowledge commons: institutionalized community governance of the sharing and creation of knowledge resources
  • GKC framework questions: background environment; attributes (resources, community members, goals); governance (actors, institutions, rules-in-use); patterns and outcomes
  • Evidence-based policy over assumptions about markets or IP
  • Followed by Governing Medical Knowledge Commons (2017) and Governing Privacy in Knowledge Commons (2021)
  • ostrom-2005-understanding-institutional-diversity.md
  • hess-ostrom-2007-understanding-knowledge-as-a-commons.md
  • viljoen-2021-relational-theory-of-data-governance.md

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