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.

Membership:

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

Membership:

• The Leadership Group is a subset of the overall DSpace Members (more details to be provided), selected based on their level of contribution to DSpace.

More details coming soon.

DSpace Members

The DSpace Members group represents all institutions which have chosen to become a Member of DuraSpace and have targeted at least a portion of their membership towards DSpace. Anyone in the DSpace Membership may be elected to the DSpace Steering Group.

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 Planning Group.

Primary Responsibilities:

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

Membership:

• Members are selected from the DSpace Community Advisory Team and DSpace Technology Planning Group.  More details forthcoming.

DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT)

DCAT is made up of community repository managers. DCAT plays a user advisory role with Committers, Steering Group and Technology Planning 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 detailed and official charge/role coming soon.  Also see: DSpace Community Advisory Team

DSpace Technology Planning Group

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

Primary Responsibilities:

• Advise on technical implementation options based on prioritized use cases (from DCAT) and/or the proposed product plan (from Product Planning Group).
• For larger scale project, research and prototype specific technical implementation options, or lead implementation subgroups to perform those investigations
• Create / refresh the Implementation Plan (Release Plan) on a yearly basis

Membership:

• Chair: DSpace Technical Lead
• Members are selected from the Committers group by the Technical Lead and the Committers. Members must 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 detailed and official charge/role coming soon.

DSpace Committers

DSpace Committers have primary control over the code. 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.  They are the only individuals who can merge/accept community code contributions.
• Help to provide support to community developers and users (via IRC, mailing lists, etc.)

Membership:

• Chair: DSpace Technical Lead
• The Committers group is a meritocracy. Any community member or Committer can nominate someone for Committership. However, an individual only becomes a Committer after they have been voted in by the existing Committers. For more information see: Committer Nominations.

More detailed and official charge/role coming soon. Also see: DSpaceContributors