Governance

Governance Diagram

Governing Bodies

DSpace Steering Group

The DSpace Steering Group provides leadership and sets strategic direction for DSpace software. They make decisions around the allocation of all DSpace revenue and oversee project operations.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership and set the strategic direction for DSpace software.
• Make decisions around allocation of all DSpace revenue (from membership fees, grants, etc)

Group Participants:

• Steering Group members have a set term limit (more info coming soon), and are elected by the DSpace Leadership Group.
  
• Ex-officio:
  • Chair of DSpace Product Planning Group (DSpace Product Manager)
  • Chair of DSpace Technology Group (DSpace Technical Lead)
  • Chair of DSpace Community Advisory Team

More details coming soon.

DSpace Leadership Group

The DSpace Leadership Group provides feedback to the Steering Group on strategic direction. While they are not directly involved in the day-to-day activities of the platform, they do have the opportunity to vote on key decisions or proposals. 

The Leadership Group elects members of the Steering Group from the DSpace Membership.

Primary Responsibilities:

• The Leadership Group votes on key decisions or proposals from the Steering Group.
• The Leadership Group elects new Members to the Steering Group.
• They are not active in day-to-day DSpace activities. However, the Leadership Group meets at least once per year during the DuraSpace Summit meeting (other virtual meetings may be scheduled on an as-needed basis).

Group Participants:

• The Leadership Group is a subset of the overall DSpace Members, selected based on their level of contribution to DSpace.

More details coming soon.

DSpace Members

Primary Responsibilities:

• Members are not directly involved with decisions regarding the DSpace platform. However, they may provide their feedback via member-directed surveys or similar.
• Any Member may be nominated and elected to the DSpace Steering Group. However only the Leadership Group can vote on nominations.
• As Members are providing funding to DSpace, their use cases and feature requests may be prioritized over non-Member institutions.

Group Participants:

• Any institution which has chosen to become a Member of DuraSpace and has targeted at least a portion of their membership dues towards DSpace.

More details coming soon.

Permanent Working Groups / Teams

DSpace Product Planning Group

The DSpace Product Planning Group develops and maintains the DSpace Product Plan in conjunction with the DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT) and the Technology Group.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Once per year: Create / Refresh the DSpace Product Plan / Product Roadmap and present to Steering Group for approval (Yearly activity)
• Every three years: Refresh High Level Vision for DSpace (in conjunction with DCAT and Technology Planning Group)

Group Participants (4-8 individuals)

• Chair: DSpace Product Manager (once hired)
• Ex-officio:
  • Chair of DSpace Technology Group (DSpace Tech Lead)
  • Chair of DSpace Community Advisory Team
• Members are selected from the DSpace Community Advisory Team and DSpace Technology Group. 

More details coming soon.

DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT)

The DSpace Community Advisory Team is made up of community repository managers. DCAT plays a user advisory role with Committers, Steering Group and Technology Group.  They also help to gather and maintain a list of common use cases from the members (and wider community). These use cases help to inform the Product Plan.

The DCAT chair is an elected member of the community.

More details coming soon. 

DSpace Technology Group (Name not finalized)

The DSpace Technology Group advises all groups on anything related to technology.

• TIM NOTES: This group needs a better name, as it's too vague. Other options: "Technology Guidance Group", "Technology Management Group", "Technical Architecture/Implementation Group",  or "Technology Planning"

Primary Responsibilities:

• Once per year: Refresh the Implementation Plan / Technical Roadmap for upcoming release(s) based on Product Plan
  • Work with the Committers group to schedule & plan upcoming releases based on roadmap
• Advise on technical implementation/architecture options based on prioritized use cases (from DCAT) and/or the proposed product plan (from Product Planning Group).
• As needed, lead or organize the researching and prototyping of specific technical implementation options (in order to provide input to Product Planning Group and Steering Group on available options).
• As needed, lead or organize implementation teams (of Committers and/or donated developers) to implement specific features into DSpace

Group Participants (4-8 individuals):

• Chair: DSpace Technical Lead
• Members are selected from the Committers group by the Technical Lead and the Committers. Members should have some time dedicated to Technology Planning from their workplace (amount TBD).
• Community Contributors (non-Committers) may be selected to this group by a vote of the Committers.

More details coming soon.

DSpace Committers

DSpace Committers have primary control over the code and is also the primary support team for DSpace. They are a meritocracy (members are added from the community based on merit). 

Primary Responsibilities:

• Maintain the codebase. They are the only individuals who can actively change/commit to the codebase
• Review all code contributions/changes to ensure stability, etc (see Code Contribution Guidelines).  They are the only individuals who can merge/accept community code contributions.
• Help to resolve bugs or security issues within codebase
• Help to provide ongoing support to community developers and users (via IRC, mailing lists, etc.)
• Perform and manage new releases based on the Implementation Plan / Technical Roadmap (from the Technology Group).

Group Participants (no limit on number of participants):

• Chair: DSpace Technical Lead
• The Committers group is a meritocracy. 
  • Anyone can nominate someone for Committership. Anyone can be nominated as a Committer.
  • Only existing Committers may vote to add a nominated person to the Committers group. 
  • For more information see Committer Nominations.

More details coming soon.