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Nature Human Behaviour (2026)
Open practices are actions people perform to influence transparency (who can see information), inclusion (who can voice perspectives) and decision rights (who can make decisions). Open practices have grown popular across domains, including open science, open-source software and open education, in hopes of spurring innovation and broadening participation. But which open practices best enable groups and organizations to achieve these ambitious goals, and why? This Perspective distils seven successful practices from across these domains that can help groups to define goals, allocate power, share information and set norms. These practices, such as documenting power structures and adopting a code of conduct, hold potential to support groups and organizations seeking to address great challenges through openness. However, delivering on that potential will depend on how well groups share lessons across domains, tailor these practices and sustain the people and platforms that carry them.
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We thank those who participated in the Interdisciplinary Open Practices Workshop held in Burlington, Vermont, USA, and online on 27 and 28 October 2023, which inspired this work. We especially thank the workshop co-organizers: K. Fortney, L. Hébert-Dufresne, J. Lovato and B. Geffert. J.M. was supported by the US National Science Foundation through grant BCS-2332598 and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation through grant G-2024-22498. The funders had no role in the decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
Systems Engineering Program, Duffield College of Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
John Meluso
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
John Meluso
Vermont Complex Systems Institute, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
John Meluso
Carey School of Business, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Cassandra Chambers
Te Kura Mātai Pūkaha, Pūrorohiko School of Engineering & Computer Science, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
Richard Littauer
GNOME Foundation, Orinda, CA, USA
Richard Littauer
University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Nerea Llamas
The Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA
Elizabeth Long Lingo
Microsoft Corporation, London, UK
Marlene Mhangami
Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA
Marlene Mhangami
Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University (UK), Milton Keynes, UK
Beck Pitt
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Violetta Splitter
University Libraries, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Huajin Wang
Center for Open Science, Washington, DC, USA
Huajin Wang
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All authors contributed to conceptualization and investigation. J.M., C.C. and E.L.L. carried out the methodology. J.M. led the funding acquisition, project administration, supervision, acquisition of resources, software development, data curation, formal analysis and validation. J.M. produced the visualization with input from C.C. The original drafts were written by J.M., C.C. and E.L.L. with input from R.L., N.L., M.M., B.P., V.S. and H.W. Review and editing were performed by J.M. and C.C. with input from the other authors.
Correspondence to John Meluso.
R.L. is an elected committee member of PythonNZ, which is sponsored by the Python Software Foundation. M.M. is employed by Microsoft Corp. and is an elected chair and director of the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Practitioner Board. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Human Behaviour thanks Yanina Bellini Saibene, Micah Altman and Sheen Levine for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Meluso, J., Chambers, C., Littauer, R. et al. Open practices across science, software, education and other domains. Nat Hum Behav (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02526-0
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