OLAC Process

Copyright © 2001 Gary Simons (SIL International) and Steven Bird (University of Pennsylvania). This material may be distributed and repurposed subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Governing ideas
3. Organization
4. Type and status of documents
5. The document process
6. The working group process

References

1. Introduction

The document is the standard that defines how the Open Language Archives Community (OLAC) is organized and how it operates. In developing this standard, many ideas have been adapted from the process documents of four other standards efforts: [DCMI-Process], [IETF-Process], [OASIS-Process], and [W3C-Process]. The organization and process developed for OLAC are much simpler, however. This is fitting since OLAC is a small community with limited resources and—like most open source projects—it crucially depends upon the participation of many part-time members. Before defining the organization and process, the fundamental ideas that underlie them are first elaborated.

2. Governing ideas

In a successful enterprise, the participants have shared purpose, vision, and core values. These are what Peter Senge calls the "governing ideas" of the enterprise [Senge94]. The governing ideas answer three critical questions: "Why?" "What?" and "How?" Taken as a unit, they answer the question, "What do we believe in?":

• Purpose (or mission) is the "Why?"—the enterprise's answer to the question, "Why do we exist?"

• Vision is the "What?"—the picture of the future the enterprise seeks to create.

• Core values are the "How?"—these answer the question, "How do we want to act consistent with our mission, along the path toward achieving our vision?"

The purpose (or mission) of OLAC is as follows:

OLAC, the Open Language Archives Community, is an international partnership of institutions and individuals who are creating a worldwide virtual library of language resources by:

• developing consensus on best current practice for the digital archiving of language resources, and

• developing a network of interoperating repositories and services for housing and accessing such resources.

The vision of OLAC is described elsewhere in terms of "the seven pillars of language archiving" [OLAC-Vision] and shares much in common with the Open Archives Initiative [OAI]. In a nutshell, it is that:

Any user on the Internet should be able go to a single GATEWAY to find all the language resources available at all participating institutions, whether the resources be DATA, TOOLS, or ADVICE. The community will ensure on-going interoperation and quality by following STANDARDS for the METADATA that describe resources and services and for processes that REVIEW them.

The following core values guide the means that OLAC will employ to achieve its vision:

Openness

By open we mean "freely available to all interested parties." This implies visibility, accessibility, and reusability. All of the metadata published by participating archives will be open. All of the documents developed by OLAC will be open. The processes by which those documents are developed will also be open.

Consensus

Decision making in OLAC will be governed by the principle of consensus. A proposed standard or recommendation will be adopted only when those who have reviewed it share substantial agreement that it is ready to be adopted by the community. This principle does not require unanimous consent, but requires far more than a simple majority. As a rule-of-thumb the OLAC Coordinators will look for at least 80% approval among those responding before moving ahead with a decision.

Empowering the players

The standard protocols and processes that define the framework for the community will not be set by an executive committee or by members who have paid dues. Rather, they will be set by those who are actually "playing the game." That is, the price of membership is to implement the standard protocol and processes. All institutions who have made that investment will have an equal voice in the consensus process that sets the standards. This seems only right since any changes to those standards will entail a further investment by these institutions to implement them.

Peer review

As a part of the academic community, OLAC places a high value on peer review. All of the standards and documents of OLAC will go through a process of anonymous peer review that is open to all who want to participate. All of the resources and services of participating sites will also be open to signed peer review.

3. Organization

This section describes the organization of OLAC in terms of the groups of participants that play key roles. This document only defines the groups; see [OLAC-Organization] on the OLAC web site for a complete list of the currently participating individuals and institutions.

Coordinators

The persons who oversee the operation of the process described in this document.

Advisory Board

The members of the advisory board are persons who are recognized by their peers as being leaders within a subcommunity (whether defined by discipline or by geography) of the wider language resources community. They serve at the invitation of the OLAC Coordinators. Their role is two-fold: to advise the Coordinators about how to respond to particular concerns of their subcommunities, and to promote OLAC within their subcommunities.

Participating Archives and Services

The data providers and service providers who are following the OLAC standards and have successfully registered their membership on the OLAC gateway. For each registered member, there is a designated contact person with whom OLAC communicates to conduct community business.

Prospective Participants

Institutions or projects that have communicated their intent to the OLAC Coordinators to become an OLAC data provider or service provider. For each prospective participant, there is a designated contact person.

Working Groups

Groups of individuals who participate in the OLAC process by drafting documents that are eventually submitted to the community as proposed standards, recommendations, or notes. A working group may also be formed for the purpose of cooperating in the implementation of standards, recommendations, or notes. For each working group, there is a chairperson who serves as the designated contact person.

Participating Individuals

Members of the wider user community who are interested in participating in the OLAC process and have registered with the OLAC gateway to receive community news and invitations to review OLAC documents.

4. Type and status of documents

The OLAC process is about how documents are developed and promulgated, for it is through documents that OLAC defines itself and the practices that it promotes. The documents published by OLAC are of three types:

Standard

A standard describes procedures that participating archives and services must follow when participating in the activities of the community or specifications they must follow when implementing data providers or service providers.

Recommendation

A recommendation describes the OLAC consensus on the best current practice regarding some aspect of language-resource archiving. Data providers and service providers (as well as the projects and individuals that create language resources) are encouraged, but not required, to follow these recommendations. The public review of data providers and service providers may include an assessment of degree of conformance to best current practice.

Note

A note is any document published by OLAC which is neither a standard nor a recommendation. One purpose of notes is to ensure that standards and recommendations stay focused on rules and principles. Extended discussion or details of implementations should be treated separately in supporting notes. For instance, a note could be:

• Experimental. A note could propose a new or different approach that is not mature enough to be put forward as a standard or a recommendation but that has enough merit to put forward within the community for peer review.

• Informational. A note could give helpful information related to some aspect of a standard or recommendation, such as a description of historical background, an elaboration, a rationale, or a non-normative explanation.

• Implementational. A note could give a description of a particular approach to implementing a standard or recommendation.

Orthogonal to the classification by type, OLAC documents are also classified by status. The first five status categories correspond to phases in the life cycle of a document; the sixth category represents withdrawal from the life cycle.

Draft

A document has draft status from its inception until the point at which its working group achieves consensus on its content.

Proposed

The status of a document moves from draft to proposed when it moves out of its working group and is posted for open peer review by the whole community.

Candidate

The status of a document moves from proposed to candidate when it has been approved by the community, but has not yet had sufficient experience with implementation to be considered for full adoption. (A note that needs no implementation may skip the candidate status.)

Adopted

The status of a document moves from candidate to adopted when it has been approved by the community following an adequate period of experience with implementation.

Retired

The status of a document moves from adopted to retired when it is no longer relevant.

Withdrawn

The status of a document changes to withdrawn when it is removed from the document process before attaining adopted status.

5. The document process

The OLAC document process defines how documents get endorsed and published by OLAC. This includes treatment of intellectual property rights, as well as the means by which documents enter the process and progress from one status to the next along the five-phase life cycle.

Intellectual property rights. All documents published by OLAC on its web site are published under the terms of the Open Publication License [OPL]. Typically, the authors or editors of the document will be listed as the copyright holders.

Entering the process. A document may enter the process by one of two means. (1) Any working group may develop a document and present it as a proposal for review by the entire community. (2) The OLAC Coordinators may present a document as a proposal for review by the entire community. Following the latter path, an author who is not part of a working group may submit a document directly to the Coordinators. The Coordinators may choose to pass the document onto the community as a proposal following review by individuals they designate, or they may direct the author to an existing working group or assist the author in launching a new working group.

Review. Documents must pass a review process in order to move to a higher status. When the developers of a document believe that it is ready for advancement to the next status, it is submitted for review within the appropriate segment of the community in order to ensure that there is consensus that the document is indeed ready to advance. Reviewers are asked to vote for one of four options when summarizing their evaluation of the document:

• Release. The document is ready as-is to be released to the next phase in the process.

• Revise. The document is ready for release without further review once noted minor revisions are made.

• Resubmit. The document should be revised and resubmitted for another round of review.

• Reject. The document does not have a solid enough basis to build on; it should be withdrawn from the process.

Life-cycle phases. The life-cycle phases are now defined in terms of expected activity, duration, audience for review, and criteria for advancing to the next phase:

Development phase

Within the development phase, a working group writes and revises the document. Only working group members are involved in the review process during this phase. The phase ends when the members of the working group reach consensus that the document is ready to be presented to the entire OLAC community for review.

Proposal phase

When a document achieves proposed status, a call for review with a specific deadline date is sent out to the community. Every participating individual is invited to comment. In the case of standards, only participating archives and services have a binding vote, though prospective participants will also be encouraged to vote as the outcome could have a significant impact on them. In the case of recommendations and notes, all participating individuals have a vote. The tally of votes and specific comments (protecting reviewer identity when desired) will be visible to the community.

At the end of the review period, the Coordinators will evaluate the results of the review to make a judgement as to whether there is a consensus in the community that the document should advance to the next phase. If the Coordinators feel that too few participants have responded to feel comfortable about declaring a consensus, they may extend the review period. Otherwise, they will advise the editors of the document as to the next step. A document could remain in the proposal phase for multiple rounds of review. The phase ends when the document is withdrawn, or when the community has indicated consensus that the document is ready for release and the Coordinators have determined that the editors have made any needed revisions.

Standards, recommendations, and some notes require implementation and community experience to ensure that they are ready for adoption. These documents achieve candidate status and enter the testing phase. Other notes may go straight to adoption.

Testing phase

When a document enters candidate status, a call for implementation with a specific deadline date is sent out to the community. The Coordinators will set the implementation period for a duration not shorter than one month nor longer than one year, depending on the anticipated difficulty of implementation. At the end of the testing period, a call for review will be issued in which the relevant community members (as per the proposal phase) who have actually put the document to use are invited to describe their experience and vote on whether it is ready to advance to adoption. The process for evaluating the results of the review and advancing to the next phase is as described for the proposal phase.

Adoption phase

A document may remain in the adopted status for an indefinite period. Its status remains as adopted until community action is taken to move it to retired status.

Retirement phase

A document enters the retirement phase when it is given retired status. This could happen when it is superseded by the adoption of a newer version of the same document, when it is superseded by the adoption of an altogether different document, or when the community agrees that it has otherwise outlived its usefulness.

Changes to adopted documents. In the case of corrections or editorial refinements, the Coordinators may authorize a new version of an adopted document without going through community review. However, any substantive changes should be processed via a formal call for review. In this case, the new version enters the process with proposed status and the adopted version maintains its adopted status until it is retired by the adoption of the new version.

6. The working group process

Working groups play a fundamental role in the OLAC process as the primary source of the documents that enter the OLAC document process. In keeping with the OLAC core value of openness, working groups are open to observation and participation by any member of the community. They are self-organizing in that members of the community may recognize the need for a working group and set it up on their own initiative.

Formation. A working group is formed by three or more eligible participants who represent at least three different institutions. Any person who is registered with OLAC as a Participating Individual is eligible to participate in an OLAC working group. In order to form a working group, the prospective group must submit the following to the OLAC Coordinators:

• the name of the working group

• a statement of purpose that is germane to the purpose of OLAC

• the names and email addresses of members representing at least three different institutions

• the name of the chairperson

• a list of planned documents and the projected date for completing the development phase of each

When the above conditions are satisfactorily met, the OLAC Coordinators will set up a web page for the working group and a mailing list that is seeded with the initial membership list. When those are in place, a call for participation will be sent out to the entire OLAC community. Any person who wants to participate in the development of the planned documents may subscribe to the mailing list and thereby become a member of the working group.

Chairperson. The working group chairperson serves as the point of contact with the OLAC Coordinators concerning the activities of the working group. The chairperson is responsible to keep the working group moving toward completing the documents listed on its web page and to communicate changes of plans for the working group to the OLAC Coordinators. A chairperson may resign or may be removed by a 2/3 vote of the working group members. A vacancy is filled by election from among members of the working group.

Meetings. Working groups typically conduct their business electronically, via their web page and their mailing list. If and when working groups do want to meet by teleconference or face-to-face, the working group members or their institutions will bear such costs.

Activities. The most concerted activity of a working group takes place during the development phase of its documents. Once a document reaches proposed status, the working group gets involved only when the community review calls for major revisions. Such revisions should be vetted within the working group before the document is resubmitted for community-wide review.

Dissolution. A working group will remain constituted as long as it is making progress towards developing planned documents or as long as documents it has developed are in proposed or candidate status. When these conditions are not met, the working group may elect to dissolve itself or may be dissolved by the OLAC Coordinators.

References