Sakai Governance Position document
The next generation of SEPP should be called:
The Sakai Collaborative Community (SCC)
Institutional Membership
Initial membership will be the membership of SEPP plus the Core at the time of formation. Thereafter institutional membership will:
- Be open to higher education institutions anywhere in the world
- Require payment of a subscription, which should be set by the Board
- Give each Institutional Member shall have 1 vote in electing the Board
Individual Membership
Individual membership will be part of the meritocracy roles/levels. It will:
- Be open to any individual
- Shall not have voting rights
- Require nomination in one or other class by an existing individual member, institutional member, or corporate affiliate member
- Be free
- Individual members may be elected to the SCC management committees and to the Board
Corporate Affiliate Membership
Corporate affiliate members will:
- Be open to any organization supplying goods or services to the higher education sector
- Require nomination by an existing individual member, institutional member, or corporate affiliate member
- Require payment of a subscription set by the Sakai Board
- Representatives of corporate affiliate members may be elected to the Board but must remain in the minority, that is no more than 2/9 of the board members may be corporate affiliates
Composition of the Board
Number and Term of Directors
- The Board will be composed of 9 directors
- One third of the Board will be re-elected each year (3 year term for directors) and a director may be removed by a 2/3 vote of Institutional Members
Director Compensation
The Board should not be paid. Motivation to be on the board should be making a contribution to the greater good of higher education as well as recognition and prestige.
Election of the Board
- Nominations for election to board vacancies can be made by any member (institutional, individual or corporate affiliate)
- Nominations should be managed by a "Membership Committee" that creates the slate of nominees for Board positions (reference the Educause model)
- Voting will be at the annual meeting by institutional members only - one institutional member, one vote
- Any member (or their nominated representative in the case of institutional or corporate affiliate members) is eligible for nomination and election)
Transition of the Current Board to the New Board
- For continuity, the existing Board shall elect 3 from amongst it's members to stay on the Board
- Three new board members shall be elected for a two year term
- Three new board members shall be elected for a three year term
Regarding Tools:
- When new tools are contributed, a certain amount of documentation must be contributed with it.
- Tools should be able to be shared before they are finished or have been blessed by QA. There should be a download area that is titled: "Download at your own risk".
- We would like to make a broad variety of tools available for departments and faculty to use. For example it would be great to have three discussion tools to choose from, if they are significantly different in both function and feature. As long as a tool passes the Sakai QA process, then it should be allowed to be distributed in the enterprise bundle. An institution/department should be able to then try out multiple tools (perhaps overlapping in function) and make their own decisions about which ones they will make available to their faculty and research teams.