STARDIT and Wikimedia Australia

STARDIT provides a way for anyone to collaborate on describing collective action.

26 February 2024.

Last year Wikimedia Australia agreed to support STARDIT, an innovative development in online open knowledge sharing. WMAU will provide hosting and technical support for STARDIT on our servers, alongside backing the ongoing development of the project.

Jack Nunn is Director of the not-for-profit education organisation Science for All, and developed the concept for STARDIT from his extensive experience and research on equitable and ethical ways for all people to actively engage in science. In this insightful guest blog post, Jack generously shares his perspective on STARDIT and its envisioned role as a trusted entity in the open data ecosystem.''

28 January 2024, Jack Nunn.

What on earth is going on? It’s a common question, and the truth is that often, no one knows.

As a species, I believe we can do better at collecting, reporting and learning from our collective human actions.

Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT) is an attempt to build a way of answering this question, with anyone on Earth able to access, contribute, edit or verify information about collective human action (known as ‘initiatives’). The basic idea is that there should be a standard way to describe human actions, and any consequences, in a way that works across languages and cultures.

Think of STARDIT as a way of creating a Wikipedia page about something that wouldn’t normally have an entry. This could be anything from a clinical trial, a car or a community arts project.

STARDIT provides a way for anyone to collaborate on describing collective action. Crucially, it can be used across different areas of human knowledge, from health research, environmental research and education, to government policies, manufacturing or the arts.

“All major problems, including complex global problems such as air pollution and pandemics, require reliable data sharing between disciplines in order to respond effectively. Such problems require evidence-informed collaborative methods, multidisciplinary research and interventions in which the people who are affected are involved in every stage”

For example, educating women and girls has been highlighted as one of the most effective ways of preventing irreversible climate change. In environmental research, by using STARDIT to report data, this can then be used to help us understand what the most effective methods are for pausing mass extinction, preventing irreversible climate change or preventing sea levels rising any higher than they already will. The solutions will involve research, government policy, education interventions, manufacturing and the arts. People working in each one of these disciplines need to be able to communicate with each other, understand who did what, and any reported impacts or outcomes.

Trust

We know that there are vested interests with a lot of power working against everything that the data and evidence tells us we should be doing, if we want to prevent these things. It's easy to attack or blame individuals or even organizations and countries. Divide and conquer is an old tactic for a reason.

But what if humanity could unite around shared values which are codified in multiple languages? What if we had evidence-informed methods of achieving sustainable development goals which everyone can understand and act on, regardless of location, income or spoken language.

In a world where machine generated content is getting more sophisticated, and harder for the average person to identify, it is essential that we humans have tools to be able to collectively share information about who (or what) was involved in the creation of information such as media (videos), algorithms, molecules (such as drugs) and larger objects (like cars).

We can only do this by working together. We can only work together by understanding what on earth is going on, and what, collectively, we think we should do.

There will be no right or wrong answers, but with STARDIT, the intension is at least there will be data. This data can help us make more wise decisions, and be used by the self-correcting lens of the scientific method to save us from the greatest threat facing humanity and life on earth, ourselves.

How does it work Add short para on technical detail What now? Add in Information about: the STARDIT project, Science for All and why partnering with Wikimedia Australia Next steps for Version One Australian Genomics endorsement Get involved Ways of getting involved (steering committee, creating reports) Become a partner organisation

In closing, Wikimedia Australia is excited to support STARDIT's journey, a groundbreaking fusion of innovation and accessibility in the open knowledge landscape. Let's collectively champion equitable access to knowledge and pave the way for a more inclusive digital future.

References

Nunn, J.S., Shafee, T., Chang, S. et al. Standardised data on initiatives—STARDIT: Beta version. Res Involv Engagem 8, 31 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-022-00363-9