ESIP Commons Governance Principles and Policies


ESIP Commons Governance Principles and Policies

Edited by Karl Benedict, with Contributions by David Bassendine, Karl Benedict, Reid Boehm, Bruce Caron, Bob Downs, James Frew, W. Christopher Lenhardt, Carol B. Meyer, Rahul Ramachandran, Erin Robinson and Kevin Ward

Mission and Vision for the ESIP Commons

Vision

The ESIP Commons will be the central destination for the Earth Science community to access and utilize knowledge of the ESIP Federation

Mission

The ESIP Commons is a curated, open access knowledge repository for publishing contributions to or arising out of the ESIP Federation. The ESIP Commons is a publication platform:

  • for citable content to recognize individual and organizational contributions to the community,
  • for accelerating the discovery and use of knowledge by the global Earth science informatics community,
  • for exposing community-generated knowledge to other informatics communities.

Role of the Commons within the ESIP Web Presence

The ESIP Commons provides:

  1. A publication medium for non-traditional content
  2. A formal ESIP knowledge repository
  3. A citation vehicle to acknowledge contributions

The ESIP Commons provides structure and authority to enable reuse of ESIP-relevant content. While it is expected that all ESIP content is living, the version published to the ESIP Commons should be in a final state.  

Core Principles Guiding the Governance of the Commons

  • Lightweight governance model with content area editors determining an appropriate level of review prior to publication
  • Persistence of resources (DOI assignment)
  • Incentives for contributions (reputation enhancement - both individual & organizational)
  • Least restrictive licensing of content
  • Member/contributor privacy [this relates to all ESIP sites to which a member profile is linked]
  • Indemnification of Foundation, Contributors

Roles and Responsibilities in Commons Governance

Definition of Participants in Commons Governance

Work Group is the ad hoc team that oversees the development of the Commons governance development and editorial process. The work group will include the following representatives: the Type Representatives (I, II, and III), content area editors, and the Federation Constitution and Bylaws Chair.

Content Area Editors maintain the integrity of the site by reviewing content such as white papers and meeting sessions for a given domain.

Content Contributors are ESIP community members who would like to share content publicly with a citation and license for reuse.

Commons Administrators maintain the site, authorize user accounts and ensure technical functionality of the site.

Commons Users are able to browse, comment on, share and repurpose content in the Commons according to the license.

Roles and Responsibilities of Commons Participants

Work Group

The Commons Work Group provides overall guidance for the management of the Commons, contributes to the development of Commons-wide policies, adjudicates conflicts as they arise, consult (as needed) with Content Area Editors in the development of content area review and publication models, provide guidance on the addition of new content types within the commons.

Content Area Editors

Content Area Editors (CAE) work with contributors to maintain the style and appropriateness of contributed content. Based on guidelines provided by the work group, the CAE will suggest revisions of contributed content that does not meet the style requirements for the area (e.g., workshop proposals), or that do not provide metadata sufficient for reuse, or other issues that might arise (e.g., unsupported file formats). CAE can also flag inappropriate content for review and possible removal.

Content Contributors

Contributors provide content to the ESIP Commons for public dissemination and are responsible for ensuring that any contributed materials only contain content that has been authorized by the authors (owners) for dissemination.

Commons Administrators

Commons administrators ensure that users have appropriate access to the content, the site is maintained and free of spam or otherwise unneeded content. Administrator work with the work group, content area editors and contributors to ensure that the workflow is appropriate and the style guides are being followed. Administrators also observe the system in order to continue development as needed.

Users

Users of the site are responsible for identifying good content, providing constructive feedback through the commenting mechanisms provided, and sharing and reusing material that has been contributed to the Commons.

Commons Content Licensing Model

Contributed Content

The ESIP Commons provides a default option for contributors to distribute their content under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-By) License. Alternatively, contributors have the option to mark content that is not under copyright as “Public Domain - No Known Copyright”.

Comments

The ESIP Commons licenses all contributed comments under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-By) License.

Style Guide

Work Group needs to develop workflows. Initial suggested workflows include:

  • No workflow - all accepted
  • Tag as accepted/not accepted
  • If needed - move to full workflow

There will be a preference for content stored within the CMS as opposed to proprietary formats

An overall content style guide should be developed and maintained by the Work group - examples include

Other Reference Materials