Draft Statement of Fundamental Policies for Collaboration

From BiomedGT

The BiomedGT Wiki Statement of Fundamental Policies for Collaboration

Version 0.1.2 draft, December 3, 2007 (Adapted from Citizendium project)

The BiomedGT Wiki (Biomedical Grid Terminology Wiki) project is launching with some fundamental notions about collaborative terminology development. Those who support these commitments are invited to contribute to the initial shaping of the project. Those who reject any of these commitments are hereby asked to abstain from participating.

I. The nature of the project

• The goal of the BiomedGT Wiki is to provide a mechanism for the research and clinical community to collaboratively create and edit biomedical terminology used by the Cancer Bioinformatics Grid community and other interested users.
• A workflow process is under development that will enable a group of terminology collaborators to work on the terminology until they feel that it is ready to be updated in the BiomedGT.
• NCI Editors are available on request to consult with the subject matter collaborators as they work to provide advice.
• The BiomedGT Wiki will be read only by the public and editable by people who have requested and been granted access to collaborate on the terminology development in specific areas.
• The BiomedGT Wiki will be a wiki. Edits will not be required to be approved by NCI editors before appearing on the wiki. Tools for collaborative development, including "talk" and chat, are available for collaborators to work together on a subset of terminology. Collaborators should tell NCI staff what changes they would like to see to improve the ability to collaborate.
• Either initially, or as a collaboration proceeds, one collaborator should take lead responsibility for coordinating work and telling NCI when content is ready for incorporation into BiomedGT. A flag will be available to flag concepts as approved .
• NCI Editors will act as integrators and incorporate the content into BiomedGT in description logic format and, unless the changes are minor, the NCI will then refresh the BiomedGT Wiki with the updated content so that the terminology collaborators can review the updates to determine that NCI editors have correctly interpreted the collaborators' intents.
• The content from the BiomedGT Wiki will be published as part of BiomedGT in OWL for use by browsers and programmatically through the API to the LexBIG terminology server.
• The BiomedGT Wiki will initially be managed and controlled by the NCI. At some point in the future, it may be transitioned to management by a non-profit or academic organization.
• The BiomedGT Wiki will not sell advertisements.

II. Fundamental policies concerning content

• The content of the BiomedGT Wiki will be open content, reviewable by the public. The BiomedGT terminology will be open source, published periodically, and downloadable or accessible by browser or API.
• The project's aim will be to make the content of the BiomedGT Wiki and the BiomedGT
  • accurate
  • based on common experience, published and credible research, and expert opinion
  • legal and responsible
  • containing only appropriate content

III. Fundamental policies concerning community governance

• All contributors to the BiomedGT Wiki must contribute using their own real names, unless special and unusual permission is granted by project management.
• The BiomedGT Wiki will be open to contribution by anyone (tentatively, "authors") who is able to make a positive difference and who is willing to work collaboratively under the policies and management of the project.
• The BiomedGT Wiki will invite subject area experts to serve as terminology collaborators and reviewers. Others may join a collaboration as interested and able to contribute. NCI editors’ main role will be as terminology experts who can integrate content in terminology and ontologically correct format into BiomedGT. NCI Editors will not have the right, except perhaps in very unusual cases, to "lock" articles and thereby prevent the collaborative process from continuing.

IV. Statement of rights

• The general public has the right to expect the quickest possible removal of copyright-protected and libelous material. Processes and tools will be created that make it difficult for libel to appear on articles concerning living persons and their activities, and for such to be removed as quickly as it is found.
• The BiomedGT community members reserve the right to make changes to this Fundamental Policy Statement as necessary.