Governance Rules

The ENVITED Technical Steering Committee consists of 3-5 persons from among the ENVITED members, who are democratically elected by the annual ENVITED Cluster Meeting. The TSC passes resolutions by simple majority, which are to be documented by the ASCS office. The tasks of the TSC include the definition of the OpenMSL Governance Rules and the approval of data clusters. In addition, the TSC has the ability to pass resolutions to remove open-source material from OpenMSL or the public that has not been actively used or developed over an extended period of time. TSC meetings corresponding to OpenMSL are to be documented publicly with details of the persons participating, the agenda and the contents of the discussion.

Sub Library Maintainers (SLMs) monitor the activities in the corresponding sub library and define the specific governance rules. At least three SLMs from different ENVITED members are to be designated for each sub library. The SLMs are democratically determined by the ENVITED members during the initialization phase and subsequently annually by the ENVITED Cluster Assembly. If a SLM resigns during his or her term of office, the SLMs of the affected sub library can appoint a successor for the remaining term of office. The minimum number of SLMs in the sub library must always be observed. SLMs pass resolutions by simple majority. If no clear decision can be made, e.g., due to a tie vote, the next higher decision-making bodies are called in (SLMs → ENVITED TSC → ENVITED Assembly → ASCS Board → ASCS General Meeting). An ENVITED member may provide more than one SLM in a sub library, but the voting right remains the same. SLM meetings are to be documented publicly with details of the persons participating, the agenda and the contents of the discussion.

The ASCS office is responsible for the organization, operation and documentation of the OpenMSL. It serves as the central contact point for inquiries regarding the OpenMSL.

Contribution of open-source material to the OpenMSL may be made under the following conditions:

All intellectual property remains with the original contributors and is subject to the original license terms described in the LICENSE file.

Each repository within OpenMSL is assigned a unique identifier. This identifier combines the ID of the sub-library with a consecutive repository ID within the sub-library conforming to the schema:

sl-<sub library ID>-<consecutive repo ID>

This identifier string is the prefix of every repository within OpenMSL. The second part is an individual name for the material contained in the repository. The name shall give concise information about the repository’s contents. The general repository naming scheme therefore reads:

sl-<sub-library ID>-<consecutive repo ID>-<concise name>

In the initialization phase, the new sub library and its model(s) or data are first proposed or presented. All ENVITED members can participate in this phase after invitation by the ASCS and express their interest as SLM. The ENVITED TSC decides on the initiation of the new sub library. Before filling the repository, the SLMs define governance rules on how and under which structure and quality metrics the data are to be entered.

In the active phase, after approval by the SLMs, the open-source data is entered into the repository. This is usually done by the data providers, the SLMs, or the ASCS office. The active phase allows public access to the data sets as well as the comment function regarding applicability, functionality and necessary updates. Change proposals (pull requests) can be decided or accepted by the SLMs.

If more extensive measures are required to update or expand open-source data in a sub library, the project phase provides a formal definition of an implementation project. Here, a concrete project plan with motivation, objectives, and implementation time frame must be defined with the involvement of participating or supporting ENVITED members. The initiation is done by the SLMs. All ENVITED members are informed about the initiation of a project phase by the ASCS office and given the opportunity to participate. In addition to resources / funds of the members, third-party funds as well as funds from the ENVITED Research Cluster can be used in the project phase. The latter also applies to the awarding of contracts to external service providers, whereby the awarding guidelines of the ASCS must be observed here. The final decision on the allocation of funds is made by the ASCS Executive Board after recommendation by the ENVITED TSC.