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)
• Present key decisions to the DSpace Leadership Group.

Meeting Frequency: Monthly phone meetings

Group Participants (6-15 individuals):

• Steering Group participants have a set term limit (2 years?), and are elected by the DSpace Leadership Group.
  
• Any DSpace Member or Registered Service Provider may be elected to the Steering Group
• Ex-officio:
  • Chair of DSpace Product Planning Group (DSpace Product Manager)
  • Chair of DSpace Technology Advisory Group (DSpace Technical Lead)
  • Chair of DSpace Community Advisory Team

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. 

Primary Responsibilities:

• The Leadership Group votes on key decisions or proposals presented by the DSpace Steering Group.
• The Leadership Group elects Members to the Steering Group.

Meeting Frequency: Annually at DuraSpace Summit (March). Up to 3 other phone calls per year, based on whether there are key decisions or proposals to review.

Group Participants:

• The Leadership Group is a subset of the overall DSpace Members, selected based on their level of contribution to DSpace.
  • All DSpace Platinum ($20K to DSpace) and Gold ($10K to DSpace) members are automatically participants in the Leadership Group
  • 6 total participants are elected from all DSpace Silver ($5K to DSpace) and Bronze ($2.5K to DSpace) members
  • 1 participant is elected from Discounted Bronze members ($250 discounted membership for economies in transition and developing economies, as decided by the United Nation's World Economic Situation and Prospects report)
  • Nominations for elections are made by DuraSpace
• Non-DSpace Members may also sit on the Leadership Group by invitation only.

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.

Meeting Frequency: This group does not have official meetings. However, they are invited to attend the DuraSpace Summit (March).

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.

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 Advisory Group.

Primary Responsibilities:

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

Meeting Frequency: Monthly? (Perhaps a few times a month during detailed planning phases)

Group Participants (4-8 individuals)

• Chair: DSpace Product Manager (once hired)
  • Interim Chair: DSpace Tech Lead?
• Ex-officio:
  • Chair of DSpace Technology Advisory Group (DSpace Tech Lead)
  • Chair of DSpace Community Advisory Team
• Participants are selected from and by the DSpace Community Advisory Team and DSpace Technology Advisory Group. Nominations may be made to the Chair of the respective group. As needed, each group may choose to hold elections.
• Ideally, participants should be from various backgrounds in order to ensure diverse representation (larger vs small institutions, from various countries around the world).

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 Advisory 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.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Advisory role to Committers, Steering Committee and Technology Advisory Group on topics related to repository management and use cases

Meeting Frequency: Monthly

Group Participants (no limit on number of participants):

• DCAT is primarily made up of individuals in the "Repository Manager" role at their insitution
• Anyone in the community may choose to join DCAT?

More details coming soon. Official charge is being drafted by the existing DCAT group.

DSpace Technology Advisory Group

The DSpace Technology Advisory Group advises all groups on DSpace technology and architectural decisions. They help to research and/or prototype various implementation options, and recommend the "best of class" for implementation.

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 Technical Roadmap
• Advise on technical implementation/architecture options based on prioritized use cases (from DCAT) and/or the proposed product plan (from Product Planning Group).
• Help lead or organize the analysis, researching and/or prototyping of specific technical implementation options (in order to provide input/advice to Product Planning Group and Steering Group on available paths forward).
• In some cases, participants may help lead or organize implementation teams (of Committers and/or donated developers) to add specific features into DSpace

Meeting Frequency: Monthly? (Perhaps a few times a month during detailed analysis phases)

Group Participants (4-8 individuals):

• Chair: DSpace Technical Lead
• Participants are selected from the Committers group by the Technical Lead and the Committers.
• Community Contributors (non-Committers) may be selected to this group by a vote of the Committers.

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 Advisory Group).

Meeting Frequency: Weekly

Group Participants (no limit on number of participants):

• Chair: DSpace Technical Lead
• The Committers group is a meritocracy. 
  • Anyone may nominate someone for Committership. Anyone may 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.