This documentation describes the Ed-Fi Governance Polling Process.

Contents

Overview

The Ed-Fi Polling Process is designed to gather information regarding membership approval and support for concepts or proposed changes that may affect core data standards and/or technology. A component of the Ed-Fi Alliance governance, the polling process ensures:

1. Community engagement and transparency in decision making
2. Alignment of data and technology decisions with Ed-Fi Community needs

This document outlines the high-level processes and procedures to conduct a community polling process.

Polling Registration

The Ed-Fi Alliance maintains a list of member organizations and their representatives.  Any employee or representative of an Ed-Fi member organization may participate in the polling processes. To be added as a new representative for a member organization, an email may be sent to governance@ed-fi.org  and include:

1. Name
2. Organization Name
3. Position/Title

Process Overview

The polling process may be in two forms - a work group internal poll and a community-wide poll.

Work Group - Internal Poll 

A work group may, without the need for approval from the GAT, conduct polls that include only their work group members.  This type of polling is to gather the opinions or views of the work group members.  These polls may be conducted by whatever method is most appropriate for the purpose of the poll - including email or a survey tool.  

Community-Wide Polling

A proposal under consideration for approval through the governance process may be vetted through the polling process to confirm that it is supported and needed by the members of the Ed-Fi Community. This type of poll is not a vote but rather a gathering of information regarding the degree to which the Ed-Fi Community finds value in and will support a proposed concept or change.  The need for such a poll may be originated at any of the 3 tiers of the governance model.  However, the GAT must approve all polls that go beyond the scope of a single work group.

The results of the poll assist the GAT and the Ed-Fi Executive Committee (see Figure 1) in determining whether a proposal is in the best interests of the community.  Results of all polls are to be made available to the participating audience.