Open Source Documentation Module/What is good documentation

▼This page is part of a project funded by Global Innovation Gathering

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Examples of documentation from different projects in open hardware, software, and social innovation, identifying their strengths and weaknesses.

Draw from previous documentation examples about the breadth of approaches and to gather insights about how to build a good documentation resource for a project.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify projects considered to have good documentation.
• Understand what turns bad documentation into good documentation.
• Begin to plan the elements of their own project’s documentation.

• Open Source Hardware Association. “Open Source Hardware Definition.” Accessed November 4, 2026. https://oshwa.org/resources/open-source-hardware-definition/
• OSHWA Best Practices: https://oshwa.org/resources/sharing-best-practices/
• DIN SPEC 3105-1: https://osegermany.gitlab.io/OHS-3105/develop/din-spec-3105-1/index.html
• Bonvoisin, Jérémy, and Robert Mies. “Measuring Openness in Open Source Hardware with the Open-o-Meter.” Procedia CIRP, 6th CIRP Global Web Conference – Envisaging the future manufacturing, design, technologies and systems in innovation era (CIRPe 2018), vol. 78 (January 2018): 388–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2018.08.306

• JPL Open Source Rover: https://github.com/nasa-jpl/open-source-rover
• Open Know-How Search: https://search.openknowhow.org/
• Global Field Ready Portfolio: https://www.appropedia.org/Global_Field_Ready_Portfolio
• OSHWA Certified Projects Directory: https://certification.oshwa.org/directory.html