How do you measure 'public good' in open source and beyond?
summary
Panel lays out concrete measures: use DOIs and citation counts to link software to research outputs, GitHub metrics (stars, forks, avg PR time) for uptake, and earned value/EVMS for resource tracking; propose a maturity model tied to 17 SDGs and their 169 targets and identify vetted projects as digital public goods. Examples: NumPy and Jupyter as cross-domain infrastructure, Nextcloud/LibreOffice for government uptake, OSPO networks (20+ academic OSPOs, adoption across 177 states) and continuous open science as operational practices.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Welcome and introduction
- 0:43Defining public good and SDGs
- 3:17Panelist introductions
- 5:10Defining impact in academia
- 7:38Engineering metrics in science
- 9:23Open source impact in research
- 11:10Ripple effects of FOSS impact
- 14:45Measuring real-world FOSS impact
- 16:54Breaking academic silos with OSPOs
- 20:46Scaling open source globally
- 23:34Policy incentives for public good
- 26:52Public vs private sector measures
- 29:22Social science vs technical metrics
- 30:46Localizing SDG reporting
- 34:20Including frontline voices
- 35:44Q&A and closing remarks
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