Coordinating Committee Terms of Reference

This group was formerly known as the Islandora Roadmap Committee.

Note on update: This draft rewrites the Terms of Reference to be in line with the emerging vision for Islandora Governance. It shall be reviewed yearly by the ICC.

Purpose

The Coordinating Committee operates under the Islandora Foundation’s Bylaws - specifically Bylaw 35. Committees, which states:

The board may from time to time appoint any committee or other advisory body as it deems necessary or appropriate for such purposes and, subject to the Act, with such powers as the board shall see fit. Any such committee may formulate its own rules of procedure, subject to such regulations or directions as the board may from time to time make. Any committee member may be removed by resolution of the board of directors.

As such, the role of the Islandora Coordinating Committee is to provide core project direction and foster the community by:

• Consulting and liaising with the Board of Directors as needed, including but not limited to fiscal or legal issues;
• Consulting and liaising with the Committers and Technical Advisory Group as needed, ex. technical direction, policy and process changes;
• Soliciting and receiving reports and responding to requests from other governance groups and interest groups.
• Reviewing and voting on timelines for major changes to the Islandora stack that have implications for product vision and affect backwards compatibility;
• Reviewing and voting on submissions made under the Licensed Software Acceptance Procedure (LSAP); This is the process by which repositories become Islandora Github Repositories.
• Facilitating and supporting Interest Groups throughout their life cycle, and acting as a central point for reporting and providing feedback on their work.
• Coordinating, with support, the development and review of Islandora events such as conferences or camps.
• Proposing, reviewing, and approving policies and guidelines for community conduct as needed, eg. the community Code of Conduct
• Coordinating the Islandora Ambassadors program.
• Completing projects that operationalize the strategic direction of the Islandora Foundation, including ensuring the Roadmap document is up to date and communicating to the community about major Roadmap updates.

Meetings

• Held as remote video conference at least twice a month
• Minutes are recorded and stored at https://github.com/islandora/islandora/wiki
• Agendas are generated based on a standard template and completed prior to the meeting;
• Agenda items may be added by any member of the Committee, and suggested by any member of the Community.

Membership

1. Membership of the Coordinating Committee is composed of:

• Representatives nominated by Partner and Collaborator members in the Islandora Foundation.
• Legacy members who held seats on the Coordinating Committee before the incorporation of the Islandora Foundation. These members are considered to hold their seats personally and will not be replaced upon leaving the committee. Legacy seats are identified in the current committee member list.

2. Representative terms are for one year, concurrent with the nominating institution's membership in the Islandora Foundation. There are no limits on how many consecutive terms a representative may serve.

Meeting Roles

Each meeting has a chair and a note-taker. Note-taking is assigned on a rotational roster.

Responsibilities of the Chair

• Recognize points where agreement needs to be reached and utilize an appropriate decision making process (see below). Identifying when coming to a decision may require additional polling or communication outside the group.
• Chair the meetings and confirm note-taker at the beginning of the meeting.
• Curate the agenda and confirm that it is up to date on the wiki two days before the meeting.
• Know the members and their email addresses so emails can be sent (ensure committee list with contact information is up to date)
• If the chair can't attend, the chair is responsible for making a call for a substitute chair. (The substitute chair takes on the responsibility of the chair for the meeting identified.)
• Attend TAG and Leadership Meetings, or confirms an appropriate representative from the ICC to do so.
• This needs to be a meaningful collaboration with these groups. The representative or Chair to these meetings brings back agenda items and proactively forwards agenda items and updates to the other meetings.
• Length of time for the chair: Minimum 6 months but 1 year preferred.
• Commitment: The Chair is expected to be able to commit five hours in a month to meetings, but this can be less if fixed liaisons to other groups are assigned within the ICC group.
• If more than one person wishes to chair in a term, they may act as co-chairs.
• Chairs and co-chairs should not serve for a term longer than 1.5 years.

Process of Chair Appointment

1. A call goes out to ICC on the Google groups list. There is a nomination period. Anybody can nominate anybody else or themselves.
2. A simple vote is held among ICC members to affirm nominations.
3. If multiple people are nominated, the ICC will discuss possible service scenarios with the candidates (someone serving a year later, co-chairs, etc.) . If a decision on who will fill the chair role does not find consensus in the discussion, a simple vote between candidates will be held.
4. Recommendation for the appointment is made to the Islandora Board, who affirms the recommendation and manages the onboarding of the Chair.

Quorum

A meeting of the ICC has reached quorum when five ICC members are present at the meeting.

Decision Making Process

The voting process is followed in good faith, with all members making decisions that they feel will benefit the foundation and move in a positive direction.

Major ICC decisions, including changes to the ICC’s Terms of Reference and, to the extent that they fall under the purview of the ICC, changes to the Islandora Foundation’s Code of Conduct must be decided by a vote held among all members of the ICC. Members not present during a meeting where such a vote is initiated will be asked by the chair to vote by email. If they do not respond with a vote within 10 calendar days, their vote will be counted as abstention (0).
Voting on these major decisions will be done using the Apache Voting Process as described under “Votes on Package Releases”, that is, it cannot be vetoed, requires at least three +1 votes, and must have more positive than negative votes.

All other issues will be decided by Apache style voting as described under “Votes on code modification,” during a meeting with quorum.

Votes are not confidential during the meeting. Meeting minutes will record decisions and the vote count, but not individual votes.

Committee Member’s Responsibilities

1. Contribute toward fulfilling the purpose and goals of the Islandora Coordinating Committee.
2. Act in the best interest of the Islandora community as a whole and help ensure the Community thrives and prospers.
3. Take on the role of meeting Chair or Notetaker as needed, and make every effort to attend scheduled meetings.
4. If on an Interest Group, act as the Liaison between the IG and the Coordinating Committee.
5. Uphold the Code of Conduct in carrying out ICC responsibilities.

Group Norms

• Start on Time
• Confidentiality (respect sensitive information and requests to go off the record)
• Make effort to prepare efficiently for each meeting (ie do your homework)
• One person speaks at a time
• Avoid side conversations
• Be as present as possible
• Everyone’s opinions are valued
• We want to hear all sides of an issue (+/-)
• Everyone bears responsibility for holding us to our group process
• We work together and collaboratively improve ideas. We take concerns seriously and try to work them into our solutions.
• Equal representation of ideas
• Take care of comfort needs
• End on Time