Upgrading OCDS – Governance Process (Consultation – Deadline: January 5th 2016)

The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) has many stakeholders: governments (procuring entities, monitoring & oversight authorities, project managers and policy makers), the private sector, and civil society organizations. The needs and interests of these stakeholders, as publishers and users of the data, are varied. As OCDS develops over time, with updated versions and new features, it is important that a diverse group of stakeholders are engaged in the process.

We have prepared a short document to set out a proposed process and governance model for creating version 1.1 of OCDS for consultation (GDocs / PDF)

Share your feedback

We would welcome your comments on the proposed governance and process by 5th January 2016

You can comment directly on the document in Google Docs format here, or add your responses in the associated GitHub thread.

Process summary

The revision process is summarised in the graphic below.

The proposal envisages adoption of the Open Stand principles, the creation of a Governance Working Group as an oversight and appeal body for the revision process and the recruitment of invited peer-reviewers to ensure a diversity of in-depth stakeholders input into the open peer review process.

The document contains a worked example of steps and timeline for the proposed 1.1 process.

Where next

Following feedback on this draft, and based on that feedback, we anticipate that:

• We will create a final revision control document, to include as part of future documentation. This will include checklists for each stage of the revision process.
• We will start the 1.1 revision process.
• Appropriate groups (peer-reviewers, standard governance working group) will be established.

Engage

• By commenting on the issue tracker thread;
• By adding comments directly to the Google doc;

Comments in support of the proposal (+1), or with blocking objections (explicitly stated) are encouraged.