1 The Sakai Community Practice Work Group: Progress Statement Mark J. Norton, Chairman

2 SCP Formation Formed in Dec. of 2005 to document Sakai Community practices at the request of the Sakai Board of Directors. Originally co-chaired by Chris Coppola and Mara Hancock. First project was a group charter.

3 Members Mark Norton –chairman. Chris Coppola Mara Hancock Anthony Whyte Charles Severance Peter Knoop Tom Lewis Clay Fenlason Duff Gillman Ruth Sabean

4 Definition A permanent working group that serves the Sakai community by collecting and documenting it’s processes. While it may author some of these, the group encourages people who are currently managing a process to submit it for approval and wider distribution.

5 Objectives Coordinate the development, documentation, communication, and maintenance of a consistent set of community practices. Minimize the barrier to community participation. Maximize the effectiveness of our community

6 Document Characteristics Specific –Practical matters of day to day work. Consistent –Allows people to participate more easily. Transparent –Clearly communicated and easy to find. More …

7 More Characteristics Maintained –Evolve as the community evolves. Comprehensive –Describe all areas of the work. Sustainable –SCP is committed to sustaining the community practices.

8 Process

9 Proposals Proposals can come from several places and be in many forms: –Suggested by the community –Documentation submitted by a stakeholder –Descriptions from a work group leader –Revisions to existing practices

10 Draft Created The proposal is used to create a draft practice document. SCP document templates exist for Word and Confluence. Draft is worked for consistency and clarity. Where possible, this work is done in close cooperation with the proposal author.

11 Public Comment Proposed practice is distributed widely through out the Sakai community for comments and feedback. Typically, a two week comment period is used, longer for more complex documents. All comments are reviewed and addressed by the SCP-WG and the proposal author.

12 Final Approval Finished practices are submitted to the Sakai BOD for final approval. This is done in to be inclusive of their direction and leadership and to make sure that any legal issues are considered. Approval doesn’t require a BOD meeting Approval is assumed unless there is an objection by a BOD member.

13 Publishing SCP documents will be published on the project website ( PDF formatted documents allow easy viewing on-line and clean prints to be made. SCP documents are numbered consecutively as they are approved.

14 Work Status Four Documents have been finished: –001: License Management –002: Criteria for Provisional Status * –003: Sakai Software Organization * –004: Group Management Process * * Waiting on BOD approval.

15 License Management Educational Community License –Our distribution license. Contribution Agreements –All contributors must agree to Sakai IP. Using code from third party releases –Allows code to be used with permission and allow original party to retain rights. SCP-001

16 Criteria for Provisional Status Defines provisional status for tools in Sakai. These are distributed, but hidden. Allows new tools to be tested in production without fully recommending them. Describes technical, design, documentation and desired elements. SCP-002

17 Software Organization Describes how Sakai software is developed and released. Defines roles in the process. Code committers control the process. People become committers based on the merits of their contributions to the project. Creating projects and how to join them. SCP-003

18 Group Management Process Defines Sakai working groups. How to create and run them. Guiding principles. Intended to be compatible with the Sakai Software Organization practice. SCP-004

19 Documents in Progress The following documents are still being developed at this time: –Sakai Requirements Process –Sakai Fellow Selection Process

20 Call to Action Submit proposals for Sakai processes that should be documented. Read and use the published practice documents. Please respond to request for comments – this is your say into how Sakai runs!