NDSA:Membership Model

Membership

As an outgrowth of the Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), the Alliance is open to government agencies, educational institutions, non-profit organizations and business with commitments and activities in the areas of collecting, preserving, or ensuring long-term access to digital content.

The term of membership is for 3 years.

Recommendations for membership:

• Membership will be at the institutional level, but participation on Working Groups is open to one or more individuals at the institution.
• Membership should be open and the process by which new members can join is though:
  • Application process; then sponsorship by an organization w/in the NDSA
  • Review and approval by consensus of the membership subcommittee
• Membership may be revoked by a majority vote of member institutions
  
  

Eligibility and Requirements

The only responsibility of membership is participation. Members participate in one or more working group by making a sustained contribution to the work of the group for the benefit of the Alliance.

Recommendations for eligibility and requirements:

• Members should have demonstrated a commitment to digital preservation.
• Members should share the stated values of the Alliance.
  
  

Rights and Privileges

Recommendations for rights and privileges:

• Voting power for the Alliance will be distributed:
  • Institutions will have one vote on organizational and governance matters affecting the Alliance.
  • Individual participants will have effective decision-making power at the Working Group level.
• Working Groups (and Action Teams) can produce official work products and decide on work plans and work products autonomously, within their scope and provided that they do so in a manner transparent to the membership:
  • All work products must be announced to the general membership and distributed in draft form well in advance of finalization
  • Written discussion related to work product or plans should be conducted on mailing lists that are archived and open to review by the general membership.
  • Where discussion is conducted through conference calls, the conference call minutes/notes should be circulated on the mailing list.
• Working groups and their members will have the authority to create Action Teams
  • The work of the Action Teams will be fairly autonomous; however, a process of transparency—a “lightweight charter”—should be created to inform the Working Group members of what work is going on.
  • Action Teams should report back to the Working Group on a semi-regular basis about the work they are doing.
  • Action Teams could be voted on by the main working group to become more formal if the work was something that was highly valued by the community.
    
    

Outstanding Questions

• How will we engage the commercial sector while avoiding predatory vendor relationships that are not consistent with the goals of the Alliance?
• Do the for-profit orgs have the same status as the not-for-profit orgs?
• Who will review applications?
• How could international organizations become affiliated with the Alliance?