Charter of the OSI Management Education Working Group (OSI-EDU-WG) 2014-2015

Version 4.19 by Joseph Potvin on 2014/06/10 03:33

The Open Source Initiative's Management Education Working Group (2014-2015)

Charter of the OSI-EDU-WG (2014-2015)

Version 0.3: Not Yet Approved by OSI-EDU-WG Participants or by the OSI Board as of 9 June 2014.

Contact: Joseph Potvin, Working Group Chair <jpotvin@opman.ca>

  1. Charter of the OSI-EDU-WG (2014-2015)
    1. Purpose
    2. Scope
    3. Participation
      1. Four "Working Committees"
      2. Three Modes of Participation
      3. Communications
      4. Three Types of Ongoing Activity and Resourcing Models
  2. Annex A. OSI-EDU-WG Participants
    1. Participants in the OSI-EDU-WG
    2. OSI Representatives in the OSI-EDU-WG
  3. Annex B. OSI-EDU-WG Workplan
    1. Scope of this Working Group
    2. Dates
      1. Months 1 & 2
      2. Months 3 & 4
      3. Months 5 & 6
      4. Months 7 & 8
      5. Months 9 & 10
    3. Sustainability
    4. Summary of EDU-WG Work Items
    5. Background Documents

Purpose

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

The strategic purpose of the OSI Management Education Working Group (OSI-EDU-WG) is to help managers of projects, portfolios, organizations and consortia to thoroughly understand and engage the free/libre/open way, encompassing ethics, methods, processes, governance, HR management, strategy, security, law or financing.

The operational purpose of the OSI-EDU-WG is to coordinate the maintenance, extension and resourcing of a collectively curated guide to the concepts and methods underlying free/libre/open work, named the Free/Libre/Open Works (FLOW) Syllabus.

The FLOW Syllabus is tailored to assist "educators" in their design of learning programs. The educators we have in mind are academic and business instructors, advisers (including legal counsel), as well as project and operations managers who need to effectively relate and discuss these topics with team members, executives, business partners, customers or constituents, and who therefore also function as educators.

The FLOW Syllabus is intended to be useful towards the development of on-site seminars or workshops, and online tutorials or webinars, in both formal or informal venues, including autonomous learning. It is adaptable to any venue or delivery methodology.

Anything in this charter that conflicts with requirements of the Bylaws of the Open Source Initiative shall be considered 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

The OSI-EDU-WG is concerned with anything related to discussing, developing and disseminating peer-reviewed learning assets to help the 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). 

Topics that are "out of scope" involve anything not directly related to the project-level through inter-organizational competencies required by managers of  free/libre/open works. The FLOW Syllabus does not address the relative merits of various economic, political or sociological theories or scenarios. And the Syllabus is not the place for marketing or evangelizing of particular free/libre/open software or services.

The OSI-EDU-WG is oriented towards the application of explicit free/libre/open arrangements for:

  • Computer programs and their related use cases, specifications, diagrams, code, tables, documentation, data;
  • Any other field through which ideas and experiences can lead to complementary learning and synergies .  

The OSI-EDU-WG is based on a pluralist premise that there is intrinsic value in communicating all logically reasoned perspectives on issues and topics, taking into account the ongoing merging and differentiation of various concepts and efforts through time.

The OSI-EDU-WG notes that at present (June 2014) the global governing bodies of the four most widely used frameworks in the field of project management education, standardization and certification each neglect the methods and processes of free/libre/open way in their documentation of competencies (ISO TC 258, IPMA, ICCPM, GAPPS). Furthermore they each operate under restrictive intellectual rights stances.  Through the FLOW Syllabus the OSI-EDU-WG will be able to pragmatically encourage such organizations to include the free/libre/open way in their respective domains and operations.

Participation

Four "Working Committees"

The Working Group will be comprised of four "Working Committees" whose members proactively assist with the maintenance and evolution of the concepts, methods and strategies of The FLOW Syllabus, and meet once month via audio conference. 

  1. The Educators Committee meets on the first Tuesday of each month
  2. The Lawyers Committee meets on the second Tuesday of each month
  3. The Technologists Committee meets on the third Tuesday of each month
  4. The Project & Organizational Managers Committee meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month

The OSI-EDU-WG seeks active participation in the Working Committees, at both individual and organizational levels. Committee Participants as well as OSI Board representation are listed in an annex to this Charter. Except for the Chair, no formal relationship with the OSI is required to be a participant in the OSI-EDU-WG. 

Three Modes of Participation

  • Coordinator (of a Working Committee)
    • Identified as the Coordinator in an online OSI-EDU-WG forum (i.e. a published record);
    • Facilitates monthly meetings of the Committee to the full extent of its mandate;
    • The four Coordinators of the Working Committees comprise a Steering Cttee with the Chair of the OSI-EDU-WG
  • Participant
    • Identified as a Participant in an online OSI-EDU-WG forum; 
    • Speaks in the monthly conference call.
    • Requirement for being a Committee Participant is that s/he must work professionally in the discipline named by each theme, OR may be voted in by working consensus of current team members (all either in favour or neutral, none opposed). 
    • Each Participant's accession must be ratified by the OSI Board with regard to consistency with FLOW principles, and any apparent conflict of interest.
  • Contributor
    • Identified as a Contributor in the online OSI-EDU-WG forum; 
    • For the monthly conference call, received live audio output, and has text-based access to the discussion, which the Participants monitor;
    • Anyone may be a Contributor.

Communications

Three Types of Ongoing Activity and Resourcing Models

  1. Development of particular educational modules to advance the scope, quality and utility of the syllabus, beyond routine updates, improvements and extensions. Such work can sometimes be contributed by suppliers of commercial/academic training. Modules can also be individually resourced by organizations that wish to advance the coverage of a certain topic within The FLOW Syllabus.
  2. Synthesis, coordination, administration, strategic direction and marketing of the Working Group and its four teams: Educational; Management; Legal; Technological. To ensure continuity this coordination work requires a moderate amount of regular core funding from one or more organizations that benefit from its overall availability and evolution. Business co-sponsors  are required. (WG Chair: At least 1/2 day per week at this time; Each Team Chair: At least 1/2 day per week at this time.)
  3. Information about commercial/academic training based on The FLOW Syllabus. However the development, marketing and delivery of training services are external to the the activities of the Working Group. Such services occur as financially self-sustained ad hoc offerings by any organization or individual. 

Annex A. OSI-EDU-WG Participants

NOTE: Updates to this annex do not constitute changes to the Charter.

Participants in the OSI-EDU-WG

  • Joseph Potvin, Chair, OSI-EDU-WG jpotvin@opman.ca  819-593-5983
  • The Educators Committee
    • Coordinator: Ken Udas ken.udas@usq.edu.au
    • First Tuesday of each month
    • Participants
      — Wayne Macintosh, OERu
  • The Lawyers Committee
    • Coordinator: Amanda Brock amanda.brock@origin.co.uk
    • Second Tuesday of each month
  • The Technologists Committee
    • Coordinator: TBD
    • Third Tuesday of each month
  • The Project & Organizational Managers Committee
    • Coordinator: TBD
    • Fourth Tuesday of each month

OSI Representatives in the OSI-EDU-WG

  • Working Group Sponsor: Mike Milinkovich, mike.milinkovich@eclipse.org
  • OSI General Manager: Patrick Masson, masson@opensource.org

Annex B. OSI-EDU-WG Workplan

NOTE: Updates to this annex do not constitute changes to the Charter.

Scope of this Working Group

In general, the topics that are "in scope" for OSI-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). (Read more.)

opics 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 OSI-EDU-WG 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

The FLOW Syllabus
Meeting Notes of the FLOW Syllabus Working Group (OSI-EDU-WG)
Version 1.x Project Completion Report
Task Management for the FLOW Syllabus

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