Governance

Governance Diagram

Governance Roles

DSpace Steering Group

The DSpace Steering Group provides leadership and sets strategic direction for DSpace software. They oversee project operations and recommend annual budget allocations.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership and strategic guidance for DSpace software
• Recommend annual budget allocations
• Present key decisions to the Leadership Group
• Raise funding and other resources on behalf of DSpace

Meeting Frequency: Monthly phone meetings

Group Participants (6-15 individuals):

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

DSpace Leadership Group

The DSpace Leadership Group approves the overall priorities and strategic direction of the project.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Approves priorities and strategic direction (as presented by Steering Group)

• Approves annual budget allocation decisions

• Approves strategic product roadmap decisions

• Approves strategic community direction decisions

• Nominates and elects Steering Group members

• Votes on key decisions presented by 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.

  • Any institutional member that contributes at least $10K annually to DSpace is guaranteed one seat on the Leadership Group

  • Any institutional member that contributes at least 0.5 FTE in-kind developers to DSpace is guaranteed one seat on the Leadership Group

  • 4 participants are elected from all institutions that contribute at least $5K annually to DSpace.

  • 2 participants are elected from all institutions that contribute at least $2.5K annually to DSpace

  • 1 participant is elected from all institutions that contribute at a discounted Bronze level ($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

DSpace Project 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.

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; Committers 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)
• 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 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. Members are added from the pool of volunteer contributors based on merit. Anyone may be nominated for Committership. Only existing Committers may vote to add a nominated person to the Committers group. For more information see Committer Nominations.

Standing Working Groups

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
• 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 represents the interests of repository managers and administrators across the globe, and indirectly, DSpace end users. DCAT plays a user advisory role with Committers, Steering Group and Technology Advisory Group.  They  help to gather and maintain a list of product use cases from the user community, which 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 any topics related to repository management and use cases

• Survey the DSpace community to solicit comments and suggestions on recent developments in the software

• Champion particular feature requests or bug reports

• Gather use cases to help inform the Product Plan

• Share knowledge and best practices on user mailing lists

Meeting Frequency: Monthly

Group Participants (no limit on number of participants):

• DCAT members are primarily individuals who function as DSpace repository managers at their institution

• All members have an interest in advancing the development of the DSpace software and expanding the user community

• DCAT aims to have representatives across the globe in order to provide broad support to the DSpace user community

• 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.