Charter of the OSI Working Group on:

Management Education About Free/Libre/Open Works Methods, Processes and Governance (EDU-WG)

Version 0.2 (Not yet approved by EDU-WG Participants, nor ratified by the OSI Board.)

Purpose

The purpose of the EDU-WG is to adapt, develop and disseminate modular learning resources to help project managers of projects, portfolios, organizations or consortia gain an advanced understanding of strategies, processes and methods to optimize value, to control costs, and to manage risk through effective coordination, resourcing and governance of Free/Libre/Open Works (FLOW).  

These learning resources:

• Are concerned with the application of explicit free/libre/open arrangements relating to:
  – Software, specifications, diagrams, tables, documentation and any other copyrightable works
  – Data, ideas and designs that might otherwise be restricted through practices and under laws besides copyright. 
• Are structured upon the pluralist premise that there is intrinsic value in communicating the multiple points of view on issues and topics, taking into account both the merging and differentiation of various concepts and efforts through time;
• Should be useful on their own, and as supplementary  modules to other professional and academic learning resources for managers of projects, portfolios, organizations or consortia.
• Are made available under the CC-by-sa v4 and the GNU-fdl v2 licenses to any organization or individual to use, re-brand, adapt, redistribute and independently host:
  – Those who prefer the CC-by-sa v4 can contribute dual-licensed content to the core and to their own derivative works, or add solely CC-by-sa licensed content to their own derivative works;
  – Those who prefer the GNU-fdl v2 can contribute dual-licensed content to the core, and to their own derivative works, or add solely GNU-fdl licensed content to their own derivative works;

The most widely used frameworks for learning and certification in the project management field — such as the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) and Projects in Controlled Environments v2 (PRINCE2)  — are currently focused upon projects and portfolios under hierarchical management, exclusive organizational terms and "positivist" perspectives. Their governing bodies have also adopted strongly restrictive intellectual rights stances towards how their own PMBoK and PRINCE2 (read more) reference materials evolve and are disseminated. Both in their content and operations, currently they do not accommodate free/libre/open ethics, methods, processes, governance, HR management, strategy, security, law, financing or "constructivist" perspectives.

The OSI Board charters the EDU-WG to resolve this gap by extending and refining an existing sharable asset entitled the “Management Education Syllabus on the Methods, Processes, Resourcing and Governance of Free/Libre/Open Works” to be hosted on the OSI site[1] and by facilitating the development of a global open market for service offerings based upon it, which meets the expectations and priorities of OSI supporters, and a global network of generally like-minded organizations and individuals.

 [1] (The original syllabus is located at: http: http://www.projectmanagementhotel.com/projects/course-free-libre-open/wiki  A derivative of this syllabus will be published through opensource.org under (at least) and will be further developed through collaborative community processes.)

Working Group Participants

Except for the Chair, no formal relationship with the OSI is required to be a participant in the EDU-WG. We are seeking expressions of interest from those who would like to participate in this Working Group.

Participants in the EDU-WG

• Working Group Coordinator: Joseph Potvin jpotvin@opman.ca  819=593-5983
• Amanda Brock amanda.brock@origin.co.uk
• (Under development)

OSI Representatives in the EDU-WG

• Working Group Sponsor: Mike Milinkovich, mike.milinkovich@eclipse.org
• OSI Outreach and Learning Committee Chair: Tony Wasserman, tonyw@acm.org
• OSI General Manager: Patrick Masson, masson@opensource.org

EDU-WG Communications (mailing list, SIP, IRC, web presence)

This Working Group communicate throught the following venues:
(Under Development)

• Mailing List

• SIP

• IRC

• Web Presence

Alignment to OSI Mission

The OSI has long played a role in community-building and education about how computer programs under free/libre/open source licenses, and related domains and business models, can provide both socio-economic and business advantages.

Anything in this charter that conflicts with requirements of the Bylaws of the Open Source Initiative is void.

Anything in this charter that conflicts with the parameters of the OSI's Working Group Characteristics and Process must be ratified by the OSI Board.

Scope of this Working Group

In general, the topics that are "in scope" for EDU-WG include anything related to discussing, developing and disseminating peer-reviewed learning resources and services to help project managers of projects, portfolios, organizations or consortia gain an advanced understanding of strategies, processes and methods to optimize value, to control costs, and to manage risk through effective coordination, resourcing and governance of Free/Libre/Open Works (FLOW). Some examples of these topics are:

• FLOW Decision-Making Under Uncertainty 
• Concepts, Methods, Approaches and Legal Cases Relevant to FLOW and:
  • Copyright / Droit d'auteur concepts, scope, limitations, management and legal cases
  • Artificial Monopolies (e.g. "Patents")
  • Licensing, Contracting, Trade Secrets (e.g. "Non-Disclosure Agreements"; "Non-Competition Agreements")
• FLOW Team and Organizational Performance and Strategy 

In general, the topics that are "out of scope" involve anything not directly related to management education about free/libre/open works. Some examples of these topics are:

• The relative merits of various economic, political or sociological theories. (i.e. The focus of this Community Group is on optimizing value, controling costs, and manageing risk through effective management of free/libre/open works under any economic, political or sociological scenario.)
• Marketing or evangelizing of particular free/libre/open software solutions or components. 

Dates

• Initial project proposal to OSI by Joseph Potvin, Nov. 7, 2013;
• Nov 2013 through Jan 2014, preliminary work;
• Focused work under sponsor contract from late Jan through April 2014. Workplan summarized below.

Months 1 & 2

• Design and begin train-the-trainer workshops based on existing materials and prior contractor experience
• Complete podcasts based on existing materials
• Refine initial syllabus based on initial review and preferences.
  • (LV comment: does this imply we should split this two month section into a set of month 1 deliverables - OSI feedback, commentary - and separate month 2 deliverables - the refinement? Or is that simply months 3&4?)
  • OSI: outreach to other relevant organizations and companies, to ensure broad representation in the feedback
  • (LV comment: realistically, even if we start outreach immediately, it is unlikely we'll get useful feedback during the first 1-2 months. If that is not possible, when is the next good deadline for receiving that feedback?)
  • OSI: goals
  • (LV: this was originally “content orientation and parameters” - we may want to discuss?)
  • OSI: commentary on existing materials

Months 3 & 4

• Priority syllabus additions identified, researched and integrated.
• Example additions/issues are listed below under “Example Possible Changes”, but final prioritization will be discussed and agreed upon amongst participants.

Months 5 & 6

• Hold workshop based on syllabus with Project Management Professionals/Educators

Months 7 & 8

• Scope, research and integrate any new changes resulting from workshop held in previous milestone
  • (LV comment: I believe this statement accurately reflects the intent of the initial proposal, but let's discuss if not.)

Months 9 & 10

• Plan special free/libre/open issue of a PM journal
  • (LV comment: we may want to drill down for more detail here, or make it a separate proposal? Just seems a little underspecified at the moment.
  • LV comment: I removed months 11 and 12 from the initial proposal; we're happy to discuss next steps once this is done but it didn't seem appropriate for this charter/statement of work.)

Sustainability

• OSI staff responsibilities
• OSI infrastructure needs
• Ongoing participant community
• Ongoing budgeting/revenue
• Resources

Summary of EDU-WG Work Items

This list is possible changes that could be made to the syllabus, for example purposes only. An actual prioritized list of changes will be agreed to by the working group.

• Shorten the course to 2 or 3 days only
• More specific targetting to developers' decisions
• More gradual and structured entry to each topic
• Follow the expert-discussions with group discussion of highlights
• More situational examples for discussion
• When actual legal documents are used, provide more specific pointers for discussion
• Update the content (esp. current major court case references)
• Produce a course delivery guide (“train the trainer”)
• Expand content on financial, benefit/cost & accounting to support ROI analysis
• Produce instructional audio files from interviews for syllabus
• Create a short evocative name for this syllabus

Background Documents

• Initial project proposal to OSI by Joseph Potvin, Nov. 7, 2013
• Brief Questionnaire/Interview to Identify Priorities for Advancing “A Management Education Syllabus on the Methods, Processes, Resourcing and Governance of Free/Libre/Open Works” Working Group
• The Opman Company - Project Portfolio (project site: overview, activities, wiki)