Approving charters
I'm thinking that the process is different for community wide workgroups and the more ad hoc working groups that form around OER content. I don't think the council needs to/should be involved in approving charters for ad hoc groups. Maybe all groups should evaluate and come to consensus on their own charter based on a set of criteria that they determine: is the charter complete?, does it adequately address all concerns/dissenting opinions?, are the outcomes achievable (with respect to resources, timeline)?... Also a group could request community review and comment. If so, a criteria for approval would be that they've addressed all review comments.
Community wide workgroups have extra steps for review and comment by the community and approval/endorsement by the community council. Wayne suggested in an older thread on establishing a workgroup that "Council's role should be to ensure that due transparent process has taken place rather than exercising value judgements on the charter." Council members would have an opportunity to review and comment during community review. The Council endorsement would be a last check to make sure the process has been followed.
So, in this document about generally using a charter, I suggest directing groups to develop a set of criteria to use for approving their own charter, maybe with some examples. The additional steps needed for community-wide workgroups can go in the workgroup guidelines.
Other thoughts?
Ad hoc work groups, OER content groups or project nodes in WE should have the freedom to operate as they see appropriate. I don't see any need for ad-hoc groups to use the workgroup guidelines and these may perhaps be counter productive and work against the principles of self-organisation in open wiki communities. There may be ad hoc groups that are looking for tips on how to operate or work in a wiki environment and they would be free to use these guidelines for their own projects.
Similarly, a specific project (eg externally funded project) may have different process and membership requirements to those we are suggesting for community-wide work groups. These groups should be free to organise themselves as they may require.
I firmly believe (and have seen) Governing boards fail when they start interfering in operations. Ultimately -- work groups (of any type) work in the realm of operations. For this reason, Council should not exercise value judgements on a charter but rather ensure that open and transparent development has occured.
With regards to the criteria for a proposed workgroup to become an "official" workgroup, I've posted a few thoughts. Bar the exceptions of workgroups which may result in financial, legal or technical dependencies -- I don't see that Council needs to approve a charter. In my view, Councils role is to foster due process -- the Charter guidelines provide a benchmark for due process. If these have been adhered to -- then Council will need to approve the policy proposals developed by the "official workgroups." If not, they will need to be deferred back to the community.
Cheers Wayne
