As America’s first research university, Johns Hopkins has defined the modern American institution of higher education for almost a century and a half. It is committed to a simple premise: to be the best place in the world to grow, discover, and achieve. As a recognized world leader in transforming the global information environment, the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries are a strategic and integral asset for the university’s mission of creating, sharing, and preserving knowledge for the world.
Within a university, many labs, departments, schools, and offices use and contribute to open-source projects and technologies. In 2019, the Sheridan Libraries launched America’s first academic Open Source Programs Office (OSPO) to organize and coordinate open-source activity across Johns Hopkins and to fuel collaboration, innovation, and societal impact beyond its walls. Anchored in the Digital Research and Curation Center, the JHU OSPO participates in and provides resources to the open-source software, projects, and communities at Hopkins and in the community.
Through the office’s Institute of Applied Open Source (IAOS), Hopkins students may participate in Semesters of Code, an open-source software-engineering course for advanced undergraduates in the Department of Computer Science. This development experience focuses on learning the software-engineering and community-engagement skills required to participate effectively with a broad community of contributors associated with open-source licensed projects. The Semesters of Code course features open-source projects that emphasize research and social impact. One example is Lutece, an open-source municipal-services platform developed by the City of Paris. IAOS has featured the deployment of Lutece within the St. Francis Neighborhood Center (SFNC) in west Baltimore as one of its Semesters of Code projects.
Since its launch, the JHU OPSO has served as an inspirational model for other universities and research institutions. The number of OSPOs at US academic institutions grew to six in 2022, all started with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
For more information about this initiative, find updates on the JHU OSPO webpage or contact Bill Branan, Director, Sheridan Libraries Digital Research and Curation Center.
For additional information about Accelerating Social Impact Research: Libraries at the Intersection of Openness and Community-Engaged Scholarship, please read the ARL report or view additional institutional profiles.
