Agenda and Notes

Owned by Wendy Thomas
Last updated: May 08, 2020 by Hilde Orten (Unlicensed)
32 min read

Attendees

Achim (first part of the meeting), Dan G., Hilde, Ingo, Jane, Jared, Jon, Nicolas, Ron, Wendy

Apologies

None

Agenda

To achieve consensus around a short proposals document based on the document in Google drive, to be cleaned up post-meeting, reviewed by everybody and then revised, with the aim of providing a partial working group deliverable to be sent to the DDI Alliance on Monday 11th , if possible.

Goal of the meeting

Ingo started the meeting by indicating that a full deliverable for the Annual meeting, consisting of a short proposal document, a proposal for amendments to the bylaws, as well as a longer explanatory document including differences between the Sydney proposal and the proposal of the working group, would not be possible by the deadline of May 11th.  Ingo then raised the question when a full deliverable could be available.

The goal for this meeting as expressed by Ingo is specified under ‘Agenda’ above, focusing on three core topics:

  1. Definitions  

  2. Internal voting/decision making of the new SB

  3. To provide a consensus summary of a short proposals document for cleanup and revision

1)      Definitions

Hilde started the discussion by indicating that while the definitions of what Scientific and Technical means look fine, she is worried about how it would work in practice, from an organization perspective, to split the current Scientific Board representative role into Scientific and Technical. The version of the document in Google drive discussed at the meeting states that three roles (Administrative, Scientific and Technical) are required for each member organization.

Wendy expressed the need of a distinct Technical role as the TC needs technical input, and having this role would potentially facilitate recruitment as well. She also argued that having the three roles in could motivate organizations to sending more than one representative from the organization to the Annual meeting of the Alliance.

Ingo argued that it would be important to word the text in a way that would motivate organizations rather than scaring them off. The discussion then centered around the word ‘required’ rather than around having three distinct roles. Jon proposed to use ‘invited’ rather than ‘required’ which was tentatively agreed.

A discussion then followed on whether the bylaws needs to be changed at this point. Jared meant the bylaws would need a clarification, as people are supposed to go to the bylaws to look for information about the organization. Wendy meant it might be too specific to include the information about the roles in the bylaws, but that a reference to an explanatory document could be put in the bylaws. Ingo then expressed he would like to leave this decision with the people in the group with more expertise in bylaws than himself.

Following from this Ron commented on that it was not clear to him whether the three roles would have a formal connection to three committees the TC, the SB and the EB or not. Should they serve as possible members of those groups, or be contact persons within each organization for each of these individual groups? Dan meant a combination of both would be the best option.

Ron argued additionally that the formal voting and role of the designated member representative needs to be clarified.

2)      Internal voting/decision making of the new SB

Ingo started by asking how much should be about SB voting in the bylaws, and how much decision making power is granted the SB from the member organizations.

Ingo and Hilde then referred to an email from Achim that addressed some related topics. The email was a reply to a query from Ron and Hilde to Achim and Ingo where they asked for some recommendations regarding SB voting (Ron) and decision making power of the new SB (Hilde). The following topics from Achim’s email were addressed:

SB decision making

Achim’s assumption, as expressed in the email, is that the new SB has the power to make any decision in the frame of the strategic plan (created by the EB) and in the frame of an annual plan (created by the SB) which should be presented to the members at the annual meeting. Achim indicates that maybe this should be described in the bylaws. Only then can the new SB in his view be active and agile (similar to the existing rules for the EB). Ingo and Hilde argued for the importance of this, and agreement was made at the meeting to include a related text.

In his email Achim further comments that the above would be in line with the general idea that members are delegating power to committees by election (the Executive Board for strategic and budget issues, the Scientific Board for the old/new areas which should be described in the bylaws).

 Voting topics in the bylaws

Based on the above, Achim suggests that only decisions which shouldn’t be made by the new SB should be listed in the bylaws like approval of new specifications (others?). This was agreed at the meeting.

Wendy commented that who should have voting rights in within the SB would be fine to include in the bylaws, but that topics to be voted for by the SB would not need to be described there. Jon wanted to have a passage included somewhere that decisions within the SB should be supported by the majority of that committee. It was also agreed to remove the current SB voting section from the proposal, as originally suggested by Ron.

 Distinction between SB and EB tasks

In his email Achim further pointed out that a critical thing is that the description of activities of the SB and the EB are clear and distinctive in the bylaws, and that it would make sense to describe the type of working groups these committees are responsible for. Otherwise it can end up in not clear conditions and possibly overlapping responsibilities. For example, is the SB responsible for the training group and marketing or the EB? A discussion on whether the Marketing group and the Training group naturally belongs under the EB or the SB then followed. Dan and Hilde agreed with Achim that Marketing seems to belong more naturally under the EB. Jared pointed to the Breckenhill report and expressed agreement this is an important issue, and agreed to follow up on this. He meant a broader discussion involving more groups are needed in order to clarify this.

In connection with this discussion Jared asked if it would be possible to put up rules for the forming of working groups. There was a discussion, but as different opinions exist within the working group regarding how much control/coordination the SB should have over the working groups and their formation it was agreed not to address this now. Ron recommended that in general it would not be a good idea to over specify this, to in order to empower the SB and at the same time attracting volunteers.

3)      Document cleanup and further plans

The process for revising the document in Google drive, with the with aim of providing a short version of a proposals document for Ingo to send to the Alliance on Monday 11th, was discussed.

Hilde argued that the document in Google drive currently is difficult to understand, and that the member representatives would probably feel the same. Wendy then commented that this could be because of the mix up in the document between text for a proposal description and proposals for changes to the bylaws.

She offered to clean up the document, and to make a separate document or section that would explain the proposed changes to the bylaws. She would try to get this done by Friday and send an email to the group, otherwise on Monday.

Ron pointed out that Monday would probably be too late as everybody in the group would need to have a chance to review the writings before sending a deliverable to the Alliance. It was agreed that the new writings should be reviewed by everybody. The writings would then need to be revised based on the outcome of the review.

Agenda:

To make progress on Jared’s document in google drive. This could be used as a basis for further deliverables.

Attendees:

Achim, Dan G., Hilde, Ingo, Jane, Jared, Jon, Nicolas, Ron, Wendy (last part of the meeting).

Apologies:

None

Discussion

The bigger group – role and name

Hilde asked what the bigger group of scientific and technical staff the SB would work with should be called, and what this group would be like. The discussion started by questioning whether the Scientific Assembly should be kept as a name or not. Dan G. meant that to have a constitutional larger group other than on the level of members would not be needed, but to speak about an informal group that could fulfill scientific and technical roles would work. Different proposals for the relationship between the SB and the larger group were mentioned. Should these people only fulfill roles, or as Ron suggests, is the not the community building aspect also important?

Ingo then asked Dan G. to provide a related proposal for discussion at the next meeting.

Group reports and related discussions

Short reports from work on document sections was presented and discussed.

Purpose

Jon and Wendy had provided a proposal for a text for Purpose. Jon commented that the voting clause was removed, as the new SB is expected to have a more coordinating role.

A proposal for revision of the related bylaws was also provided. Ingo suggests the same to be provided for all sections.

Organization

Dan and Nicolas have been working on a proposal for Organization. They will upgrade with proposed changes to the bylaws for the next meeting.

Jared asked for a clarification about the term ‘voting members’ used. He also raised a concern of whether a group consisting of seven members, two external experts and two ex officios (the Excecutive Director and TC chair) would be small enough to perform its task efficiently. A question of seven or up to seven would be the correct wording. There are different opinions in the group regarding group size, where some mean a smaller group would be better. The wording seven members is however kept in the proposal.

Nicolas asked if a quorum for internal SB members voting would be useful. A quorum of four of seven was tentatively agreed.  

It was stated again that, as agreed earlier, external experts and ex officio members will not have voting rights, and that the chair and vice chair of the TC as a standing committee cannot be officers of the SB.

Achim and Ingo proposed that a similar change could be relevant to include in the bylaws of the EB, that the chair and vice chair of another formal body cannot at the same time be chair and vice of the EB.

Elections

Jared and Jane provided a proposal for a new section on Elections for the bylaws. Jane commented that it would be good if the chair and vice chair could be elected for periods of different time length, in order to facilitate some overlap between them. Ron commented however that this preferably should be handled within the SB to avoid confusion.

Voting

While the members should vote on the larger issues, day to day voting, for example to elect chair and vice chair, to form working groups etc. is done within the SB.

Ron and Hilde had been working on this and suggested that SB voting is described in guidelines rather than in the bylaws.

Jon, however, mentioned it could be useful to have them in the bylaws.

Ron agreed to provide some recommendations on how and for what to vote within the SB for the next meeting, based on input from the group members.

Roles

Ingo and Achim have been working on Roles. Hilde asked whether it should be mentioned that the proposed scientific and technical roles together make up the scientific assembly/community. Ingo agreed to this.

Next meeting

Next meeting is scheduled to Wednesday May 6th

The groups were asked by Jared to update their sections till Monday 4th for further review and discussions.

Attendees

Achim, Dan G., Hilde, Ingo, Jane, Jared, Jon, Nicolas, Ron, Wendy

Apologies

None

Agenda (provided by Ingo at the meeting)

  • Agree on what the deliverable should look like.

  • Decide who would work on what.

What the deliverable should look like

Regarding what the deliverable should look like Ingo started by raising three questions:

  • How many documents should the deliverable consist of?

  • How long should the document(s) be?

  • What should their structure look like?

He also stressed the importance of providing something that people whould read. Would a short two page with bullet points be enough?

Wendy proposed a threefold deliverable:

  • A short document containing the proposal

  • A longer outline of its rationale

  • A document describing possible changes to the bylaws

Status: Agreed as a working plan

Discussion

Dan then raised the question: What do we agree about? A discussion regarding unresolved issues then followed.

Ingo meant that agreements had been reached that as much of the old structure as possible should be kept, and add what is needed added as new. Hilde, while agreeing with Ingo, argued en passant that a takeover of name (Scientific Board) from an existing body to a new one be confusing. Dan G. then repeated his argument for the smaller SB to replace the current (larger) SB, but pointed to the proposed contact roles as a way for the smaller SB to involve scientific and technical staff within the member institutions in the work of the DDI-Alliance.

Hilde then argued the for the need to strengthen rather than weaken the scientific member representative role, in order to make it easier for scientific and technical staff to get worktime and funding from their institution for taking part in activities and meetings of the DDI Alliance. She fears that replacing the scientific membership role by contact roles would weaken rather then strengthen the possibilities for involvement. While Dan G. means that a section about contact roles usefully could be included in the bylaws, Hilde agrees with Jared’s proposal from earlier, to include contact roles as a set of recommendations in guidelines.

Ron argued that decided structures should be implementable. A leadership body for the governing of the activities is important. For the organizations it is important to avoid confusion of voting and representation. Ron also argued for the importance of empowering the scientific and technical staff to contribute to the work of the Alliance and asks what is needed to make this possible. Bylaws cannot be very specific. We need to look at the language in our documents. What is supporting and what is blocking the above goals? Do specific interpretations need to be pushed etc.? What could be done this way to maximize participation?

Timeline and procedures for producing the deliverables

Jared proposed all deliverables to be final by May 11th. A draft of the proposal (short document) should be available for the next meeting on Wednesday April 29th.

A procedure for how to produce a draft of the proposal was discussed, resulting in the following:

  • Groups of two/one work out proposals for text for chosen topics, and include the proposed text in Jared’s google drive document. This work is scheduled to the end of the week.

  • Everybody comments on the proposals through Monday.

  • Then each section is updated by the group responsible for it, taking comments into account. This is scheduled to next Wednesday, before the next meeting.

  • On the next meeting (Wednesday April 29th) each facilitated section will be discussed by the whole group with the aim to finalize it.

Who would work on what? 

People were asked by Ingo to sign up for providing text for topic-based sections of Jared’s document, based on their preference. The outcome was as follows:

Purpose - Jon/Wendy

Organization - Dan G./Nicolas

Election - Jared/Jane

Voting - Ron/Hilde

Roles - Ingo/Achim (decided post meeting)

Ron also proposed that Achim and Ingo reviews the proposal.

Agenda

  • Go through open issues and try to reach agreement

  • Jared’s consensus document (in googledrive)

Attendees

Achim, Dan G., Hilde, Ingo, Jane, Jared, Jon, Nicolas, Ron, Wendy

Apologies

None

Administrative

Ingo reported that the DDI Alliance will hold two shorter virtual annual meetings this year, one on the 18th of May (Meeting of the Scientific Board) and one on 26th May (Meeting of Members).

The proposal will be presented at the SB meeting and further discussed at the members meeting. This means that the work of the temporary working group will need to be finalized in time good time for the first meeting. Then there will be a vote, and a call for participants to the new SB will go out if the proposal is approved. This process is expected to last 6 weeks to 3 months. Achim and Ingo have agreed to act as chair and vice chair of the SB on an interim basis, until a new leadership has been elected.

Ingo recommends to let the budget reserved for the cancelled Chur meeting of the temporary working group to be transferred to next year, to support a first meeting of the possible new SB.

Discussion

Number of elected members in SB

Jared’s consensus document as of 1st April states in the ‘Organization’ section that agreement was reached for the SB to have 5 voting members, in addition to 2 external experts without voting rights and the director of the DDI Alliance attending ex officio. Nicolas commented that 7 voting members would be preferred, in order to account for unexpected, instances like that people sometimes cannot meet or resign within an election period. Achim, on the other hand, expressed the concern that groups with a high number of participants could be less effective in leading something.

Status: After some discussion the proposal of Nicolas was agreed for the reasons mentioned. Jared’s document has been updated accordingly post meeting.

Voting/involvement of scientific representatives

Dan G. proposed voting has two levels. On the one hand the SB may need to vote on issues with in itself. For bigger things like products approval and strategical decisions the Alliance members will be brought in to vote. This was tentatively agreed.

Ron express consent with this idea. He then raised the question on whether the relationship of the SA to the SB should mirror the relationship of the Members to the EB when it comes to voting. That is, should the SA be an assembly with voting rights (on the scientific and technical issues of the Alliance). He also mentioned that a good SA body usefully could contain external experts.

Hilde likes the idea to have an SA with voting right, in order to strengthen the role of the scientific (scientific and technical) representatives.

Dan G. then repeated his view that the SA should bring in scientific and technical expertise, but the member organizations should decide who should vote.

Ingo then repeated his idea to have scientific, technical and administrative contact roles. An open question is whether contact roles should be described in the proposal or not.

Ingo and Wendy both underlined that a designated member representative does not need to be the person who votes, but according to the bylaws would be free to assign voting rights to a person with expertise in a specific field.

Status: Needs revisiting.

TC chair/vice chair’s role in SB

Ron reminded that the TC belongs in the SB, as a working committee under the SB. A question then arose if members of the TC should be in the SB or not. Hilde then proposed that members of the TC could be in the SB, but that the chair and vice chair of the TC should not at the same time be chair or vice chair of the SB. Dan G. expressed skepsis to have the chair of the TC as a voting member. Ron then proposed for the TC  chair to be member of the SB ex officio, in order to maintain the connection between the SB and the TC sub-group. Wendy expressed consent with this.

Status: Agreement for the TC chair to be ex officio member of the SB. It was also agreed that the TC  chair and vice chair couldn’t at the same time be chair/vice chair of the SB. Jared’s document has been updated accordingly post meeting.

Next meeting

Next meeting will be scheduled to Wednesday April 22nd.

Topic for the meeting will be the organization of the report of the group’s work. Dan G. agreed to provide a structure for the report in advance of the meeting.

Designated persons in charge of each section of the report will be assigned at the forthcoming meeting.