The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and universities are well-placed to strategically work together to mutually achieve a common mission around building and sharing the knowledge commons - and, perhaps even more importantly, to enhance our human capacity to contribute to and utilise the knowledge commons. Underlying the strategic potential for the WMF and universities to work together is a notion of open academia which involves a culture of open practice including use of open processes (such as use of free software, open access, open formats, and open licensing, managed through open governance), open activities (open education, open research, and open service) and sharing open outputs (such as learning resources, research and data). The WMF offers a stable, scalable hardware and software platform for developing and housing knowledge commons content through its ecology of sister projects, including Wikiversity, Wikibooks, Wikipedia, and Wiki Commons. University communities of academic staff and emerging academics are uniquely positioned to capitalise on and contribute to the knowledge commons available via the WMF sister projects, but doing so will require a cultural shift towards valuing openness in academia.
Wikiversity offers a natural, friendly entry point to the Wikimedia sister projects for academic staff and emerging academics to participate in and contribute to the knowledge commons; from here participants can be oriented to the sister projects
