The practice of science in accordance with open principles, including open access publishing, publication of and collaboration around research data as open data together with associated source code, and use and development of open source data processing tools.

The open movement seeks to work towards solutions of many of the world’s most pressing problems in a spirit of transparency, collaboration, re-use and free access. It encompasses open data, open government, open development, open science and much more. Participatory processes, sharing of knowledge and outputs and open source software are among its key tools. The specific definition of “open” as applied to data, knowledge and content, is set out by the Open Definition.

Standardised public licences available online which allow data and content to be freely accessed, used, modified and shared by anyone for any purpose, and which rely on open data formats. The EU Member States are expected to encourage the use of open licences that should eventually become common practice across the Union.

Source: OD Directive

Data collected, produced or paid for by the public bodies and made freely available for reuse for any purpose.

Source: EU OD

Open government, in line with the open movement generally, seeks to make the workings of governments transparent, accountable, and responsive to citizens. It includes the ideals of democracy, due process, citizen participation and open government data. A thorough-going approach to open government would also seek to enable citizen participation in, for example, the drafting and revising of legislation and budget-setting.

A file format that is platform-independent and made available to the public without any restriction that impedes the re-use of documents. Source: OD Directive

The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is an open XML-based document file format for office applications to be used for documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical elements. The file format makes transformations to other formats simple by leveraging and reusing existing standards wherever possible. As an open standard under the stewardship of OASIS, OpenDocument also creates the possibility for new types of applications and solutions to be developed other than traditional office productivity applications.

Open development seeks to bring the philosophy of the open movement to international development. It promotes open government, transparency of aid flows, engagement of beneficiaries in the design and implementation of development projects, and availability and use of open development data.

Source: ODH

Open data lifecycle is one of the various models that have been developed for the description of open data. Open data lifecycle model describes the handling of the data itself, starting from its creation, through the provision of open data to its use by various parties. Although stages or phases of open data lifecycle vary within the models developed by different authors, most commonly phases include: discovery and acquisition, data organization, publication, integration, analysis, re-use and storage/preservation.

Open data infrastructure (ODI) is a concept that explains the domain in which open data is created and used. ODI consists of a combination of social (non-technical) and technical elements which are interrelated and interact, ensuring the supply and use of open data. Technical elements refer to open data tools, technologies, standards etc., while non-technical elements include open data regulation and policies, governance and funding (van Loenen et al, 2018: 6).