This document describes the terms of reference (ToR) for the activities of the openEHR Specification Program. The Specification Program has members drawn from the wider openEHR membership. Ideally the membership of the Program will include individuals from multiple language groups, cultures as well as with a diversity of technical, clinical and informatics backgrounds.
This document is currently in pre-version 1.0 development. The development process is described here .
Version |
Change description |
Who |
Completed |
|---|---|---|---|
0.93 |
Incorporate detailed feedback from Koray Atalag (U of Auckland, NZ): Improve consensus-based decision-making process of EC. |
T Beale |
28 Apr 2012 |
0.92 |
Incorporate detailed feedback from Pablo Pazos (Uruguay). Added content to do with publicity and communications activities. |
T Beale |
26 Apr 2012 |
0.9 |
Incorporate feedback from David Moner (UPV) - scrap 'stacking' rule for single CMGs and SAGs (since these groups can have 1 member); |
T Beale |
22 Apr 2012 |
0.8 |
Incorporate detailed feedback from Ken Rubin (HP), Stephen Chu (Nehta) |
T Beale |
03 Apr 2012 |
0.5 |
Initial development |
T Beale |
23 Mar 2012 |
Useful references from elsewhere in the e-health standards world:
The Specification Program consists of an Editorial Committee (EC), and two kinds of Groups - Component Maintainer Groups (CMGs), and Standards Advisory Groups (SAGs). CMGs are classified as 'core' and 'implementation-related'.
The Editorial Committee membership consists of 1 representative from each CMG and has up to 3 co-chairs.
The following chart illustrates the structure. Initial membership of the Program starts with membership of a CMG and/or SAG (PPT source here ).
The Program has an Editorial Committee (EC) which is the formal body for review and decision-making.
The responsibilities of the Editorial Committee are:
In addition, the openEHR Operational Group may advise of requirements for releases and prioritisation of work.
The responsibilities of the co-chairs are as follows:
These processes are described in detail in the Change Management Plan .
Decisions are primarily made by consensus, i.e. general agreement with no serious objections voiced. Where there are objections, the following process will be used:
Where there is any outstanding dispute, it can be by the EC co-hairs to referred to the openEHR Operational Group for resolution. This may require an extraordinary meeting / conference.
The EC membership consists of one representative from each CMG and each SAG. Each CMG and SAG must have a distinct representative on the EC, in order to ensure that a dedicated person takes responsibility for representing the relevant interests.
Up to three, and preferably at least two, EC members are elected as co-chairs by the Program membership.
Membership of the Editorial Committee is for 2 years. New members come from nominations among the Program membership. At least one candidate is required from each CMG and SAG. Candidates are elected to the EC by the whole Program membership voting for each CMG / SAG position on the EC from among the candidates for that position.
Elections are held every 12 months, at a fixed date, or earlier in the case of resignation. At election time, the positions of all EC members who have spent 2 years in the position come up for re-election by the whole Program membership. Members who are not co-chairs may re-nominate directly for EC membership.
Co-chair positions last 2 years. Elections are held every 12 months at a fixed date, or earlier in the case of resignation. A vacating co-chair may not re-nominate for a successive term but may re-nominate after at least one 12 month period since the previous term served.
Most Program members are members of one or more component maintainer groups (CMGs), where each component has such a group.
The responsibilities of a CMG are:
A Program member can be in one or more CMGs, according to breadth of expertise. Each core CMG requires a minimum of 3 members. Non-core CMGs must have at least 1 member.
Each member must be sufficiently technically qualified to understand the relevant specifications / artefacts, and be able to participate actively in the processing of changes to the artefacts in that component.
The membership of each CMG is recorded online at the SPEC tracker location .
There is no limit on the duration of CMG membership, as long as the participation and competence are maintained, and the Program Fairness Rules are not broken.
A new core CMG is created by the EC, based on the requirement for a new specification component. It must be created with at least 3 members.
A new non-core CMG is created based on a successful proposal by any Program member to the EC, which details:
In addition to the EC and CMGs, there are Standards Advisory Groups (SAGs) for interfacing with de jure standards development organisations (SDOs). The SAGs exist to address the existing gaps between SDO offerings (and those of non-SDOs like openEHR), which are a critical problem that needs to be resolved for major stakeholders, such as national e-health programmes and major vendors, because it prevents the individual offerings, no matter how good, from being easily adopted.
Each SAG is constituted for a particular standard or group of related standards managed by an official standards organisation, e.g. ISO 13606, SNOMED CT, etc.
The responsibilities of a SAG are as follows:
Each Standards Advisory Group includes members from the Specification Program who are knowledgeable about the standard and/or are directly involved in the relevant organisation's work. Each SAP elects one member as the representative to the EC. The Standards Advisory Groups do not create openEHR specifications, rather they create formal proposals for a) change to openEHR specifications - ultimately resulting in CRs and b) the target SDOs.
The membership of each SAG is recorded online at the SPEC tracker location .
A new SAG is created based on a successful proposal by any Program member to the EC, which details:
There is no maximum number of members of the Program. In the future it may well be possible that with say 8 core CMGs, 4 non-core CMGs and 4 SAGs, the membership could be as high as 50. The minimum number of members is that required to satisfy the 3 member-per-Component Maintainer Group rule (below). Since a Program member can be a member of more than one maintainer group, the actual total membership is variable.
To ensure fairness and representativeness of the Program, the following rules are provided.
If any of the above rules is broken by resignation, change of employer or other events, the appropriate election or other action will be taken.
This section describes the conditions for membership in CMGs and SAGs.
New members of the Specifications Program join as a member of one or more CMGs and/or SAGs. New nominations may be made in the following situations:
Note that the membership status of the CMGs and SAGs will be posted at all times, including vacancies / requests for participation.
A prospective new Specification Program candidate self-nominates as a member of one or more CMGs and/or SAGs. The nomination requires the support of two existing Program members. The candidate must satisfy the following criteria.
In addition, a successful nomination cannot cause any of the Program Fairness rules to be broken.
The candidate should supply a CV and other qualifying information describing:
The process is as follows:
There is no limit on duration of membership of the Program, as long as the participation and competence are maintained, and the Program membership rules are not broken. Membership of the EC and co-chair positions are limited to 2 years and are filled by election (described in the relevant section above).
An existing Program member may resign at any time from the EC, and additionally from all involvement. In either case, the fact and effective date of resignation will be published, and the published Program membership updated accordingly.
If the resignation is of an EC co-chair, nominations for a new co-chair are called for, and the EC rules for co-chair election described above followed.
If the resignation is of any EC member, another member of the resignee's CMG or SAG are invited to fill the position on the EC.
If the departure leaves a CMG (see below) with less than 3 members then a new volunteer for the relevant component is sought initially from within the Program . If none is found, a new nomination is sought from the general membership.
An existing member who has been referred to the openEHR board by the Editorial Committee for disruptive or other unprofessional behaviour may be removed by he openEHR board following an appeal process, if all attempts at arbitration fail.
Where termination leaves a vacancy, the same rules as for resignations are followed.
The Specification Program needs to maintain communications with the other openEHR Programs on a fairly constant basis. Necessary communications include:
Do we need official liaisons? How should other Programs be represented on the Spec Program (they need to be, since specifications affect everyone)?
In order to keep the openEHR community at large informed about events in the Specification Program, regular and visible communications is needed. These include the following:
At least one face to face meeting, open to the Program membership is required per year. Ideally elections would be held at this meeting.
Online meetings of the Editorial Committee are held by teleconference at least once a quarter, in order to discuss pending PRs and CRs.
In order for the SpecP development and decision-making processes to occur efficiently, and to provide an enjoyable experience for participants, contributions should follow the following guidelines:
In the unlikely event of a member's participation causing problems, the matter should be referred to in the first instance to the chair of the Editorial Committee, and if necessary, an extraordinary meeting or meetings called for the purpose of arbitration. Arbitration will proceed with the Editorial Committee. If an agreement cannot be reached this way, the matter will be referred to the openEHR Board.
The governance structures and procedures described above will inevitably need to change over time. The process for proposing and executing changes is as follows:
Any number of people from a given organisation can participate in the Specification Program. However, two rules are designed to ensure that no single organisation can have an inappropriate influence. The first is that no organisation can have a majority of the members on any given CMG or SAG; the second is that no more than 2 members from a single organisation can work on the EC simultaneously.