Student Success Plan (SSP) Open Source Project Governance
- Russ Little
Governance Structure for Student Success Plan (SSP) Open Source Software
Overview of Governance: The governance structure for SSP is to be guided by the user community subject to modification identified later in this document. As users identify the need for software enhancements and develop these enhancements at their individual sites, it is expected that users will contribute the code for these enhancements back to the larger adopting community. The governance committee will evaluate proposed submissions and will, by a collaborative process, make recommendations to the Project Director concerning the introduction of enhancements into base code.
The Student Success Plan (SSP) software suite includes Case Management, Early Alerts, Action Plans, Reference Guides for Referrals, Student Self-help Tools, and My Academic Plan (MAP) components. The software is downloaded as a complete package and during the configuration process users activate either a subset of the components or the complete suite. Consequently, a user’s adoption of the software may be either at the component or complete suite level. The governance model allows for active participation and input from all adopters regardless of the level of software implementation.
Through October, 2014, SSP is supported by funding from the EDUCAUSE Next Generation Learning Challenge grant program. Consequently, software development and enhancement efforts of the original development team will be guided by the expected deliverables of this benefactor. Nothing in the above is to be interpreted as limiting an individual adopter from developing their own enhancements and/or contributing those enhancements back to the larger adopting community.
Who governs SSP: The following individuals and/or roles will serve on the governance decision committees for SSP through December 2014. This committee configuration will be reassessed once the SSP project is beyond the timeframe of the NGLC grant.
Russ Little, Project Director
Jason Elwood, Product Manager (o & t)
Dan McCallum, Lead Software Architect (t)
Archna Jindal, Member, Development Team (t)
Patty Wolfe, Vendor Support Representative (o)
James Simonson, Adopting Institution Representative (o)
How SSP is governed: Separate groups exist for the governance of organizational (o) and technical (t) decisions. Organizational decisions will involve questions concerning product feature enhancements and setting the general direction for software development. Technical decisions will focus on the expectations/requirements of code submissions such as level of testing, version management, code integration, quality assurance, etc. Outcomes of group related decisions are documented on the SSP Project Wiki when appropriate.
For the duration of the NGLC funding period, final decisions on both organizational and technical matters will rest with the Project Director. However, these decisions will be informed by the deliberations and advice of the supporting administrative and technical committees/Groups. Committee/Group members serve at the pleasure of the Project Director.
In practical terms SSP is currently a "Benevolent Dictatorship" with long term aspirations to be much more democratic, once existing grant funding obligations are fulfilled. However we are actively seeking adopters, code contributors, active members, and forming partnerships with non-profits and commercial organizations to ensure a healthy and vibrant Open Source community. We want to collaborate and share governance more directly as soon as is practical to do so.
Participation with SSP: SSP is licensed under the Apache 2 from the Apereo Foundation. This license is considered a "highly permissive" license in the Open Source community and one of the most conducive to derivative works,and wide unrestricted adoption.
An SSP wiki has been established at https://wiki.jasig.org/display/SSP/Home.
The wiki is open to both anonymous and registered users and is the site where the SSP community is expected to transact its SSP related communications.
The wiki contains all needed information to download the SSP Source and associated documents needed for an SSP install, in an anonymous and non-restricted manner.
The SSP source code is kept in a public repository at Git Hub: https://github.com/Jasig/SSP
The SSP Issue Management is publicly available in JIRA: SSP
There are content and comment elements in the wiki of interest to adopting institutions, developers, code committers, subject matter experts, third-party partners, and commercial companies. Users must be signed in to the site, and granted authorization, in order to contribute to the wiki. Requests for access to the wiki can be made through the Project Director.
The wiki contains detailed instructions on the process to use for submitting, approving, and committing code enhancements. The wiki also contains access limited areas for the core technical development team. To gain access to these areas, you need to be an active project participant, preferably a code committer, and request access to the Wiki future development area.
Please contact the Project Director or Product Manager with any questions or requests about participation with the SSP Open Source Project.
Transparency: As of the date of this document (Dec, 2013), using the 2-3-98 Project five point openness scale of Awareness, Repeatable, Defined, Managed and Optimized, SSP is clearly at the Defined stage on the openness continuum. Learn more: Welcome To The 2-3-98 Project
As noted above, there is an SSP wiki that allows open perusal for any interested party. This wiki presents a clear picture of the current state of the software’s development and provides potential users with all of the relevant information they need to successfully install the software on their site. In addition, an information-packed website has been developed at www.studentsuccessplan.org. This website provides links to third-party vendors who can assist adopting institutions with implementation, configuration, internal process redesign, and ongoing support that may be needed. The website also gives contact names for individuals at adopting institutions and offers valuable insights concerning the organizational factors that should be considered when implementing a holistic student support model.
With many institutions currently running all or several of the SSP components in their production environments it is evident that the software can be replicated across multiple institutions. Furthermore, the software is supported with user documentation, training guides, technical documentation, full API's, email archives, blog posts, and a JIRA feature/issue/bug tracking system – all of which can be accessed publicly, and unrestricted via the wiki.