Special Interest Groups

Existing SIGs

• Metadata Management
• Resource Management
• User Management
• Resource Access
• Forum Facilitators
• Internationalization SIG
• Consortia SIG
• Reporting SIG
• Privacy SIG
• System Operations and Management SIG
• Accessibility
• Public Library SIG
• Support SIG
• App Interaction SIG
• Acquisitions SIG
• ERM SIG
• Open Access SIG
• Data Migration

FOLIO Special Interest Groups (SIG)

Charge

FOLIO Special Interest Groups are the project’s community of subject matter experts (SMEs). SIGs serve as FOLIO’s collective authority on topics included in the scoped area of focus (e.g. metadata, sysops, resource access) with expectations for achieving certain outcomes through dedicated engagement. Guided by priorities set out in the FOLIO Vision, Strategic Objectives & Initiatives and  FOLIO Roadmap, SIGs form consensus on FOLIO functionality through the creation of use cases, documents, reactions to prototypes, and code snippets. They also document existing functionality and contribute to user acceptance testing and bug identification to ensure functionality performs as specified. SIGs serve as a forum for product owners, subject matter experts, developers, and end-users to exchange ideas, develop shared goals for the FOLIO project, and research and develop new interchange standards with widely used software. 

The work of a SIG is multi-focused on functionality, user-experience, and documentation. The scope of a SIG’s work includes:

• Providing a regular forum for discussion, in-depth exploration, and task or project recommendation, refinement, or prioritization for a functional domain area, including modules, apps, and related app dependencies.
• Assisting Product Owners with defining functional requirements and providing user stories to inform development.
• Providing regular consultation and collaboration with project leads, functional and technical owners, and other SIGs.
• Identifying, creating, and updating lists of workflow tasks to drive content for FOLIO documentation as well as individual apps info tips, and tricks content to benefit the project and community of end-users.
• Participating in QA user acceptance testing, regression testing, and troubleshooting issues encountered by implementers.  
• Actively participating in FOLIO governance structures, project outreach and engagement including community on-boarding, progress reporting, assessment, and initiatives as requested.

There are many roles critical for the productivity of a SIG. These include:

•  SIG members are subject matter experts who make up the dedicated membership of the group, with a registered FOLIO confluence profile, and also agree to abide by the FOLIO Code of Conduct. While attendance at meetings is a component of SIG membership, attendance in and of itself does not constitute membership. SIG meetings, for the most part, remain open to anyone regardless of membership.
• Member responsibilities include:
• Regular attendance and participation  in SIG meetings, activities and discussions. 
• Completing necessary homework, supplying use cases, or performing other preparation outside of meetings as needed.
• Participating in user acceptance, bugfest testing, regression testing, documentation writing, and other activities as needed.
• Serving as an institutional representative SME by providing input on  the ranking of features, supplying feedback on development, and reporting bugs (if already implemented)
• Leading or serving on ad hoc subgroups or taking on time-limited roles, as needs arise
• SIG convener is a person(s) selected by the group participants to facilitate, and to some extent moderate, the group’s discussions and activities. The convener tries to make good decisions about, for example, at what point rough consensus has been reached and therefore the discussion should move on to another topic. SIG conveners are responsible for onboarding new members. SIGs typically have a single convener, but can have up to three if needed.  SIG conveners, or a designated subgroup, coordinate meeting agendas and ensure that minutes are posted to the SIG's wiki space.  Conveners, or someone designated by the convener(s), are responsible for communicating SIG activities to the Product Council to promote inter-SIG communication and coordination.
• SIG liaison/rep: someone who volunteers or is designated by the convener(s) to represent the SIG in a separate group and responsible for communicating, advocating, and coordinating specific activities or areas of work as assigned to achieve good utilization of resources (e.g. Documentation Working Group).
• Note taker – person responsible for taking rough, but organized meeting minutes that capture significant updates, agenda discussion, decisions, and links to related documents, action items or follow-ups. Meeting notes provide an important record of decisions made and actions taken by the SIG. Decisions made by the SIG should be documented in such a way that they can be found and referred to. This can be a dedicated role or done by rotation. 

Although SIG meetings are generally organized by a SIG convener(s) in regular consultation with product owners and on rare occasions developers in the particular area of expertise, all members of the SIG are expected to be active contributors. Decisions are made by lazy consensus (see Product Council charge for a fuller definition), and will be recorded within meeting notes. Meetings are generally recorded as well, and SIG members are expected to review materials in case of missed meetings. While time contributions may vary depending on the activities of the SIG, members are expected to contribute at least 2 hours a week on SIG-related work.

Former SIG charge and engagement document