NDSA:Membership

[DRAFT] Membership Model Recommendations - REVISED 1/7/11

This version of the Membership Model was crafted after reviewing minutes of the meeting and trying to consolidate all of the concerns and wishes expressed at the December meeting. We propose what we believe is a workable model that will address the desires of many to be open, inclusive and diverse. We have looked to the membership information that DPC provides for inspiration about how to be inclusive of commercial/IT vendors and international affiliates, and have borrowed some of their language with their permission.

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 in the United States with commitments and activities in the areas of collecting, preserving, or ensuring long-term access to digital content. International organizations are also welcome to join as affiliate members.

The term of membership is for 3 years.

Recommendations for Full Membership:
• Membership will be at the institutional level, but participation on Working Groups is open to one or more individual participants at the institution.
• Applications are welcome from consortia, given that there is a clear primary contact identified representing the consortia.
• Applications are welcome from commercial companies and IT vendors, given that these members agree to the values of the NDSA and understand that the NDSA requires all members to follow rules of neutrality. We recommend using
• Membership should be open and the process by which new members can join is though:

      • Application process

      • Review and Processing by Secretariat

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:

    o Institutions will have one vote on organizational and governance matters affecting the Alliance.
    o 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:

    o All work products must be announced to the general membership and distributed in draft form well in advance of finalization
    o 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. 
    o 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

    o 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.
    o Action Teams should report back to the Working Group on a semi-regular basis about the work they are doing. 
    o 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?