NDSA:Organizing Workshop Notes

NDSA:Next Steps and Timeline

Organizing Committee Review
1/10/11 Circulate notes from the workshop to entire organizing committee
1/10/11 Draft compromise language for controversial topics
1/21/11 Request commentary from organizing committee on unresolved issues
1/21/11 Write up an executive summary or synopsis of the meeting
1/28/11 Incorporate new comments from organizing committee

NDSA Entire Membership Review
Timeline for document review and ratification by all NDSA members
2/04/11 Send revised draft of organizing documents to all members
2/18/11 Review and comment period for documents
2/25/11 Incorporation of revisions from entire membership
3/01/11 Vote by entire membership for ratification
3/08/11 Voting period ends

Determine initial Coordinating Committee formation practices
Confirm the next NDSA meeting –as a workshop at the NDIIPP Partners Meeting
Compile and circulate for review definitions of key terms (Member, Participant, Working Group, Action Team, etc.)

NDSA:Executive Summary

Members of the new National Digital Stewardship Alliance gathered for a two-day workshop, held December 15-16, 2010 in Washington, DC, to discuss how the NDSA will be structured and function as a collaborative, volunteer organization. The goal of the workshop was to make decisions about the basic structure of the NDSA.

Prior to the workshop, the member volunteers worked virtually to develop a draft set of recommendations for the Alliance mission and values, a membership model and governance structure. This Organizing Committee of volunteers reviewed and discussed those documents during the workshop.

The workshop allowed small groups to discuss each of the draft recommendation documents (see Appendix). Following the small group discussions, each group reported out to the larger group on the topic and questions presented for discussion. Overall, this exchange of information brought out similar comments, ideas and recommendations that were raised in the small group discussions. Conversely, contentious topics or conflicting viewpoints were identified during the report outs as areas where there did not appear to be a consensus or agreement.

The discussion on the values, mission and action statements resulted in a majority agreement around the draft documents. Pointed discussion revolved around specific terms in the mission and action statements, but overall, the group appeared to agree “stewardship” as the central, defining value of the Alliance. Agreement on the tightly crafted mission, value and action statements was the product of these discussions and the revisions of these documents will be put forward for the NDSA membership to ratify.

A spectrum of viewpoints was represented during the membership discussion. While the small group discussion revolved around how new member institutions could join the Alliance, divergent views emerged during the report outs as to ultimately what type of membership model the Alliance should follow. In particular, there was no consensus on membership eligibility (open to all interested parties vs. a restricted membership), if membership could be revoked, and what membership treatment (such as an affiliate status) international organization and commercial vendors/hi-tech companies should receive (or not at all). However, all participants in the discussions agreed that new member organizations should share the values of the Alliance, should demonstrate a commitment to digital preservation, and membership requirements/eligibility should be transparent. Based on the discussion, the Library will review the notes and comments from the workshop and attempt to derive a “middle of the road” membership model that will take into account the various opinions. This model will be proposed for review to the Organizing Committee for review and comment before being circulated to the entire NDSA membership for review, comment, and, eventually, ratification.

The discussions around the organization structure of the Alliance had many areas of consensus, similar to the mission and values discussion. Discussion highlighted that a light-weight governance structure is preferred over formal, hierarchical structure. It was also agreed that there should be a Coordinating Committee which will be tasked with providing the Alliance strategic vision and performing liaison duties with the working group to avoid duplication of work efforts, among other duties. While certain areas remain undecided (how to nominate Coordinating Committee members and that whether a Committee convener or chair/officer is needed), it was decided that a draft bylaws-lite document will be incorporate decision points and the document will provide a basis of the Alliance will work together in the first three-year period.

Also during the workshop, each of the working groups reported out and highlighted their work achieved to date. Many working groups drafted charters and work plans. Participants expressed concern how work across the groups would be transparent (this will be solved as a Coordinating Committee task) and asked for clarification of Working Groups and Action Teams. The Library agreed to draft NDSA terms for the membership to review to clarify roles and responsibilities; these terms will be incorporated in the organizational documents.

Regarding next steps, the Library agreed to review notes and decision points and revise the draft recommendations documents (see above timeline for more specific information). These documents will be forwarded to the Organizing Committee and posted on the NDSA wiki for review. Following the comment period, the revised documents will be distributed to the NDSA membership for review and ratification. Some matters remain undetermined – such as how Coordinating Committee members will be nominated – but it appears that the process of these organizational matters will be determined during or following the review of the documents.

NDSA:Meeting Goals

• Develop and refine NDSA:
  • Purpose of the Alliance and values, mission, and action statements
  • Membership
  • Organizational structure
• Develop experience working collaboratively
• Review what success looks like
• Identify next steps and actions

The Mission and Values subcommittee presented the values statement and the rationale that went into creating it. Particular attention was given to crafting a statement that clearly did not exclude any organizations for participating in the Alliance in at least some capacity. The entire group reviewed the draft values statement (see Appendix). "Stewardship" was identified as the central, defining value and it was proposed that "Stewardship" become the first value listed. There was some conversation about the term "Diversity," specifically that it could be misunderstood out of context. This conclusion was reinforced by the small group conversations. It was determined that perhaps "Inclusiveness" was a better term for this value. Ultimately, the group concluded that the power of the values was in relation to one another, no one value alone could represent the shared understanding of the Alliance.

Small Group Discussion Topic: How can the alliance demonstrate these values?

• In working groups
• In NDSA communication
• In alliance meetings

The group agreed about the basic values of the Alliance. Discussion indicated consensus around the importance of:

• Align the NDSA work with the missions and interests of the members
• Raising public awareness
• Identify and reach out to marginalized and underserved digital preservation communities, specifically small and local communities
• Clarify the idea of “exchange;” not just sharing and reuse of resources among the NDSA but reaching out beyond this group to the broader community we're trying to serve
• Sustainability needs to be built into the values statement in a more prominent way
• “Diversity” includes inclusion of organizations and heterogeneity and diversity of approaches
• Stewardship as THE mission; collaboration, exchange and inclusion support the mission of stewardship; perhaps stewardship includes matching orphan collections with institutions willing to steward them
• Articulate the distinction of NDSA from other initiatives and the benefits of participating in the NDSA

Comments were also made from some individuals about the value of the following activities as well:

• Work with researchers (scientific) to raise awareness of the reproducibility of scientific results
• Conduct gap analysis of current capacity to develop a research agenda
• Leverage Web 2.0 communication channels to disseminate knowledge about existing capacities
• Pair with high tech companies that are doing innovative things in data management and figure out how to motivate them to work with us, but also make sure that it's a mutually-beneficial relationship, perhaps an advisory group (possible models: FACA/NGAC?)

NDSA:Mission Statement and Action Statement Discussion

Mission Statement Discussion about this draft statement (see Appendi) indicated that "citizen" was too restrictive for the group. While the NDSA is a national alliance, the benefit of digital material and preservation practices cannot be restricted by boundaries of a nation. The discussion resulted in a second draft of the statement:

Mission Statement Draft #2
The mission of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance is to establish, expand, and promote [/publicize/sustain] the capacity to preserve our nation's digital resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

Action Statement Discussion (see Appendix B) indicated that infrastructure in the digital environment is not restricted to national borders. It was also generally held that there are many infrastructures rather than a single infrastructure. A stronger statement about innovation was requested. The group agreed that simple language and clarity were important objectives for all statements for the Alliance. The discussion resulted in a second draft of the statement:
Action Statement Draft #2
Members of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, an initiative of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, collaborate to preserve access to our national digital heritage by:

• broadening access to our nation's expanding digital heritage
• developing and coordinating sustainable infrastructures for the preservation of digital content and resources
• advocating standards for the stewardship of digital objects
• building a community of practice around the management of distributed digital collections
• promoting innovation
• facilitating cooperation between government agencies, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and commercial entities
• fostering the participation of diverse communities and relationships across boundaries
• raising public awareness of the enduring value of digital resources and the need for active stewardship of these national treasures

NDSA:Membership Discussion

The membership discussion revolved around how new member institutions could join the Alliance with the objective of recognizing both organizational and individual contributions.

This discussion resulted in a few agreements:

• New member organizations should share the values of the Alliance and support the mission statement to the best of their abilities
  • Member organizations should demonstrate a commitment to preservation: education, technology development, participation in projects
• All organizations should commit to participating in at least one of the NDSA working groups
• Learning by doing should be encouraged, especially for smaller organizations
• There should be a role for international organizations
• Consortiums are welcome to join as members of the NDSA. They should work to determine that their participants identify with the consortium that person represents
• There should be a way to bring in subject-matter experts
• Membership expectations should be clearly defined

The discussion also resulted in several topics where the group did not arrive at any consensus:
The membership eligibility spectrum:

• Membership fully open to all interested parties
• Membership based on shared values -- interested parties promise to share the values of the NDSA and promote the mission
• Partially restricted membership --all potential members to be vetted by the Coordinating Committee and/or the Secretariat
• Restricted membership -- technology vendors are not eligible for membership

The role of funding organizations in the NDSA

• Is there a conflict of interest for funders serving on working groups?
• Should funders have their own sub-group?

Participation

• There should be a maximum number of participants any one member organization can send to a single working group which should be clearly articulated
• There should be no restrictions on the number of participants from a member organization in a working group; working groups should police themselves and make sure that their agendas are not being swayed

Sponsorship

• "Sponsorship" of new members should not be necessary – implies exchange of funds
• Nomination of new members is acceptable if deemed necessary
• Members should be encouraged to seek and nominate other potential participants in the NDSA as a way of expanding the NDSA

Categories of Membership

• There should only be one category of membership
• There should be two categories of membership
  • International entities should be able to join as affiliates
  • Technology vendors should be able to join as affiliates

Revocation

• There should be no clause for revoking membership, it is unnecessary
• There must be clearly defined reasons for revoking membership

Note: it was commented on that renewal of membership wasn't addressed in these initial documents. This was not seen as problematic at this point, however, it was mentioned that renewal of memberships will need to be addressed in the next three years before the current membership terms expire.

The remaining discussion focused on:

• The NDSA as a working Alliance – and the challenges of accomplishing work with a very large membership base
• Application as declaration of interest
• Keeping the governance of the NDSA light – and how that might influence membership eligibility decisions by this group

NDSA:Organizational Structure Discussion

The subcommittee reported on their draft document. The goal of the Principles of Collaboration is to act as a bylaws-lite that will spell out how the member organizations of the Alliance work together in the first three-year period. Attempts were made to acknowledge the importance of virtual meetings, a guiding group called the Coordinating Committee, and voting.

Small Group Discussion Topic: Review and comment on the Principles of Collaboration document.

The groups reported back about the following topics with a great deal of consensus:

• Coordinating Committee
  • Provide the NDSA strategic vision
  • Maintain any membership eligibility standards
  • Assist in reducing duplication of efforts between working groups
  • Have a strong connections with the working groups
  • Add or disband working groups as necessary
• Secretariat role should be administrative and logistical in character
• Votes are for identifying Coordinating Committee members, changing/ratifying the Principles of Collaboration, or other such tasks.
  • A vote should happen online rather than at a convention
  • Clarity on how a favorable vote is determined if needed.
• Robert's Rules of Order is too formal for this organization

There were several points around which no consensus was agreed upon. The groups expressed differing view points about the following issues:

• Officers on the Coordinating Committee
  • There was general agreement that the person running the next Coordinating Committee should be identified in advance of the next meeting.
  • Beyond that, there was a group or two that wanted more structure than others and would like to see officers
• There was no consensus on what should replace Robert's Rules of Order.

NDSA:Coordinating Committee

The group agreed that the Coordinating Committee was a valuable entity to have in the NDSA. There was consensus that the Coordinating Committee should:

• Should probably start off with 9 members but should be flexible enough to grow or shrink as needed by the NDSA
• Provide the NDSA strategic vision
• Maintain any membership eligibility standards
• Assist in reducing duplication of efforts between working groups
• Each member of the Coordinating Committee should be responsible for acting as liaison with one or more of the working groups
• Add or disband working groups as necessary
• Members of the Coordinating Committee should be voted in by the NDSA members Program Representative
• Members of the Coordinating Committee could be nominated by others or volunteer to serve

Some individuals made the following recommendations but there was no clear group consensus about these recommendations:

• Members of the Coordinating Committee should serve staggered terms (there should be some turn over every year and some stability at all times)
• The Coordinating Committee should make recommendations about working group products that should be circulated more widely, especially items that should be submitted as articles or disseminated to the larger digital preservation community as reports

NDSA:Appendix

Workshop Agenda Organizing Documents [Draft One From the Workshop] Participant List