Open Source Documentation Module/Why we document

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

It is currently not open edit.

Documentation is the practice of making evidence accessible and understandable. The process of documenting is, therefore, not just an ongoing collection of descriptive texts but the assembly of resources that will serve future users as they engage with a project in the past. Or, in the words of Damian Conway, documentation is a love letter for a future self (and as we argue, to others as well).

To frame documentation by considering implicit assumptions about the project and turning them into a list of explicit documentation requirements.

Participants will:

• Identify the evidence of their project to show to a broader audience.
• Plan their documentation by outlining the project’s implicit assumptions and useful explicit elements.

• Ronald E. Day. (2019). 2 Documentarity in the Works of Paul Otlet and Georges Bataille: Two Competing Notions of “Document” and Evidence. In Documentarity (1st ed.). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11719.001.0001
• The Poetry Foundation. “How to Stuff a Pepper.” Accessed November 2, 2026. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/153974/how-to-stuff-a-pepper

• Open Hardware Canvas: https://github.com/ohwmakers/ohcanvas
• Assumption Scanner: https://unalab.enoll.org/assumption-scanner/
• Assumption Audit: https://accessiblelearninglabs.github.io/assumption-audit/
• Value Proposition Canvas: https://www.strategyzer.com/library/the-value-proposition-canvas