OGP Governance

At the OGP Northeastern Summit in April of 2012 and the National Summit 2013 we drafted  lightweight governance framework to determine best-practices and governance structures as we move forward working together.

Our Mission: we are geospatial professionals, programmers, information architects, librarians, and metadata specialists working together to develop open source software, expand metadata sharing and standards, and provide innovative services to our respective institutions.  We are collaboratively building an integrated infrastructure supporting metadata creation, data ingest, and data discovery and delivery.  Our work is open, we encourage individuals and organizations to join us, share their resources or simply use our technology.

Governance Working Groups

Governance of the Open Geoportal Project is coordinated by three working groups

The Open Geoportal Steering Group (OSG)
The Open Geoportal Steering Group (OSG) oversees our efforts. Our model is based on a meritocracy: those who contribute more resources have a stronger role on the Steering Group. New members are nominated and approved by the OSG. Our responsibilities include:

  • Coordinates organizational governance structures
  • Coordinates the future developments and directions of the Open Geoportal.
  • Coordinates licensing issues.
  • Works with the Developer Working Group to coordinate the development of the Open Geoportal.
  • Works with the Metadata Working Group to establish community metadata standards and metadata sharing between organizations.

The OSG values openness and strives to reach decisions by consensus.  Its initial members are volunteers, interested in collaborative development and building sharable resources.  We expect the focus and structure of the OSG to evolve over time as the needs of the community change.
The OSG uses Working Groups (WG) to accomplish many strategic goals and tasks.

Open Geoportal Steering Group Members

  • Patrick Florance, Tufts University
  • Christopher Barnett, Tufts University
  • Bonnie Burns, Harvard University
  • Len Kne, University of Minnesota
  • Daniel Sheehan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  • Steve McDonald, Independent
  • Garey Mills, University of California–Berkeley
  • Susan Powell, Yale University
  • Sri Vinayagamoorthy, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University
  • Jeroen Ticheler, GeoCat. Founder of Geonetwork
  • Julie Sweetkind-Singer, Stanford University