Overview: the CORAL Project

Introduction

CORAL is an open source Electronic Resource Management system (ERM).

History

CORAL was originally developed locally by Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame, but since then, the development and support for CORAL has expanded into an international community with contributions coming from a variety of libraries and vendors.

The Team

Steering Committee

What is the Steering Committee?

The steering committee consists of the individuals and libraries that have decided to contribute their time to developing CORAL and with assisting others by answering questions on this list. There is a level of commitment made for this work which in turn gives the group members the chance to help plan and manage CORAL’s future development. It is our attempt at sharing ownership among interested and motivated parties without having to rely on just one institution to manage the product.

Who is on the committee?

Meet the Team

Anyone with a desire to contribute, and the time to do so, is welcome to join. Just email the Admin List and express your interest!

What does the committee do?

  1. CORAL development
    • submit any planned development to the email lists
    • share finished development publicly for comment
    • commit accepted features to CORAL module repositories on GitHub
  2. Community Tech Support
    • responds to general and technical questions
    • answer the question, or begin discussion on Admin list
    • help answer questions posted on the forums

Web Committee

What is the Web Committee?

The web committee consists of the individuals and libraries that have decided to contribute their time to maintaining and improving the coral website. The committee has the authority to plan and manage coral’s public web presence. The Steering Committee will offer advice and suggestions as the Web Committee does their work and will be required to sign off on major changes.

Who is on the committee?

Meet the Team

Anyone with a desire to contribute, and the time to do so, is welcome to join. Just email us at help@coral-erm.org to express your interest!

What does the committee do?

  • Manages the CORAL website (coral-erm.org) and makes decisions on features and content.
  • Assess CORAL’s public web presence, designs and implements improvements.
  • Reports regularly to the Steering Committee and integrates Steering Committee feedback.

Governance

Steering Committee’s Governance

There are currently three groups that oversee the CORAL project; the Steering Committee, Web Committee, and Affiliates. The Steering Committee is comprised of the tech services and IT representatives from member libraries. The Affiliates group is the for-profit vendors or software development/hosting companies that participate in the CORAL project. The Web Committee has membership from both libraries and affiliates and oversees and makes recommendations for the project’s public web presence including documentation, wiki space, and outreach.

Here is the proposed path for decision making authority.

  1. The Steering Committee and Affiliates group work toward consensus on decisions that are agreeable to all via the coral-admin listserv and the monthly conference calls.
  2. If there is no consensus between SC and Affiliates then the Steering Committee attempts to reach consensus.
  3. If there is no consensus within the SC then the majority opinion of SC members wins approval. If the majority opinion is not obvious then SC members will cast votes. Each steering committee member receives one vote. In the case of an even split the Chair casts the tie-breaking vote.

The Steering Committee will maintain a Chair position. The Chair position is restricted to the SC members with e-resources management experience. This restriction is not meant to belittle the contributions of developers but to make sure that the strongest voice in determining CORAL’s future is someone who has expertise in e-resources management. In the absence of the Chair, other members of the Steering Committee with e-resources management experience will fill in as needed.

The Steering Committee will seek volunteers from its members for the role of Chair to serve a two year term. If there is no volunteer for the role of Chair one will be appointed by a majority vote of SC members. If there are multiple volunteers one will be selected by a majority vote of SC members. If there is only one volunteer that person will be appointed as Chair. If there are no volunteers from its members for the role of Chair, and the existing Chair is open to re-election, the Steering Committee can choose to re-elect the existing chair for another term.

The Steering Committee will attempt to maintain a minimum of eight members representing four separate institutions. There is no maximum number of members but the Steering Committee will consider the appropriate functional size of the committee when considering new members. The chair of the Web Committee is automatically granted a seat on the Steering Committee.

Libraries may volunteer to join the Steering Committee or may be invited by the Steering Committee. Steering Committee members must have a local production installation of CORAL and will be asked to contribute two individuals; a technical services librarian/staff member with e-resources management expertise and an information technology professional/developer. New members are approved by a two-thirds majority vote of SC members. In special cases, the Steering Committee can choose to invite an individual to the committee that may not be able to meet the requirement of contributing two individuals. Libraries and affiliate members are strongly encouraged to contribute individuals not only to the Steering Committee, but also the Web Committee. Overlapping membership between both committees is permitted.

Affiliates may volunteer or be invited by the Steering Committee. New affiliates are approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the SC members. Affiliate members are allowed two participants on the coral-admin list and may have two participants join the monthly conference calls. The number of affiliate members participating on the coral-admin listserv and the monthly SC conference calls will not exceed the number of steering committee members.

The Steering Committee is the final authority for the CORAL project but will make every effort to encourage and include contributions from any party invested in CORAL as trusted partners.

The following Steering Committee members joined the Committee prior to these rules and are granted ex officio status. Emma Cryer, Doug Hahn, Eric Hartnett, Ben Heet, Jeffrey Mudge, Steve Oberg, Remington Steed, Katherine Swart, Scott Vieira.

Each SC member will be granted admin and ownership rights to the GitHub repositories. Each Affiliate will be granted two accounts with admin rights to the GitHub repositories that will supply merge rights for code contributions (if they want them). Steering Committee members are responsible for policing GitHub and making sure that all members follow agreed upon procedures (which we still need to hammer out and make clear first, this will be extremely important). IT reps on the Steering Committee have primary responsibility for policing GitHub activity and may remove admin rights from accounts as necessary.

Web Committee’s Governance

CORAL Governance

There are currently three groups that oversee the CORAL project; the Steering Committee (SC), Web Committee (WC), and Affiliates. The SC is comprised of the tech services and IT representatives from member libraries. The Affiliates group is the for-profit vendors or software development/hosting companies that participate in the CORAL project. The WC has membership from both libraries and affiliates and oversees and makes recommendations for the project’s public web presence including documentation, wiki space, and outreach. The WC falls under the governance of the SC.

Decision Making Authority for the WC.

  1. The WC and Affiliates group work toward consensus on decisions that are agreeable to all via the coral-web listserv and the monthly conference calls.
  2. If there is no consensus between WC and Affiliates then the WC attempts to reach consensus.
  3. If there is no consensus within the WC then the majority opinion of WC members wins approval. If the majority opinion is not obvious then WC members will cast votes. Each WC member receives one vote. In the case of an even split the Chair casts the tie-breaking vote.

The WC will maintain a Chair position. The Chair position is restricted to the WC members with e-resources management experience. This restriction is not meant to belittle the contributions of developers but to make sure that the strongest voice in determining CORAL’s future is someone who has expertise in e-resources management. In the absence of the Chair, other members of the WC with e-resources management experience will fill in as needed.

The WC will seek volunteers from its members for the role of Chair to serve a two year term. If there is no volunteer for the role of Chair one will be appointed by a majority vote of WC members. If there are multiple volunteers one will be selected by a majority vote of WC members. If there is only one volunteer that person will be appointed as Chair.

The WC will attempt to maintain a minimum of six members representing four separate institutions. There is no maximum number of members but the WC will consider the appropriate functional size of the committee when considering new members.

Libraries may volunteer to join the WC or may be invited by the WC. WC members must have a local production installation of CORAL and will be asked to contribute one or more individuals, generally a technical services librarian/staff member with e-resources management expertise. New members are approved by a two-thirds majority vote of WC members.

Affiliates may volunteer or be invited by the WC. New affiliates are approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the WC members. Affiliate members are allowed two participants on the coral-web list and may have two participants join the monthly WC conference calls. The number of affiliate members participating on the coral-web listserv and the monthly WC conference calls will not exceed the number of WC members.

Github Documentation Repository Governance

Each WC member will be granted admin and ownership rights to the GitHub documentation repositories. Each Affiliate will be granted two accounts with admin rights to the GitHub documentation repositories that will supply merge rights for contributions (if they want them). WC members are responsible for policing the documentation repositories on GitHub and making sure that all members follow agreed upon procedures and in accordance with the WC’s style guide. WC members may remove admin rights to documentation repositories as necessary.