The model is organized based on the essential element identified by the GORC-IG, and we have found just under 400 specific items that commons may wish to consider within those elements. A commons should have something in each essential element, but other kinds of research infrastructures that might fit together in a commons environment, like libraries and repositories, may only find relevant items in a few of the elements. The point is to consider what is important for you and your community!
Human elements (in white) apply or are related to Governance and Policy aspects.
Governance & Leadership is focused on defining an organisation’s purpose and the development of the strategies, objectives, values, and policies that frame how that purpose will be pursued by management and internal personnel of the commons. It includes the development of strategic plans, policies and guidelines for financial and operational matters, the creation and maintenance of governance structures, their interactions with stakeholders, and the ways of working with management. Rules of Participation & Access refer to the policies that define the rights, obligations, and accountability for commons’ stakeholders. The rules of participation and access define how different stakeholder groups interact with the commons and each other and also define who belongs to each stakeholder group for each set of rules. Sustainability includes models and agreements made on how to ensure the viability and operations of the commons. It includes funding and resourcing activities that ensure the commons can be sustained over the long-term, strategies for sustainability for all operations and holdings, building and maintaining community trust, as well as keeping issues of sustainability in mind when choosing or building commons components. Engagement refers to the interaction between the commons and the commons’ community of stakeholders. Engagement activity is seen as an iterative cycle, which includes requirements gathering exercises, consultations, usability testing, communications, and events. A core attribute is an efficient and effective engagement plan to address community input and feedback. Engagement addresses active promotion of and participation in the commons by stakeholders, incentivizing the participation in and use of the commons, and encouraging interoperability with other commons, research institutions, and other potential partners. Human Capacity is the ability of the commons to create a human-friendly environment for all stakeholders and community members in all aspects, so that the commons can set and achieve objectives, perform functions, solve problems, and continue to develop the means and conditions required to do so. This includes efforts towards internal capacity; ensuring the accessibility of skills required for planning, managing and assessing service delivery; making clear the skill requirements for the commons community to engage with the commons; increasing the ease of use of the commons for stakeholders; and addressing these categories through training and education.
Note that standards are at the centre in dark blue and apply to both human and technology aspects.
A standard is a repeatable, harmonised, agreed and documented way of doing something. Standards can be either de jure or de facto. De jure standards, or standards according to law, are endorsed by a formal standards organisation, such as the ISO. De facto standards, or conventions, are adopted widely by a community. Conventions arise when they become part of the accepted way of doing things. Within the data commons context, standards and conventions may cover research objects (including semantic objects and metadata); applications, software, services and tools; quality and guidelines; persistent identifiers (PIDs); authentication and authorization; catalogs of digital objects; workflows, plans, mechanisms, and infrastructure; and regulatory and ethical compliance.
Technical items (blue) apply to infrastructure and technology. This includes:
ICT Infrastructure is the hardware and base software components that a computer system requires to function and are necessary to conduct research. These may be designed to scale with increasing volume, complexity and velocity of projects and expectations. To aid this, a review and update of ICT infrastructure may be scheduled to happen on a regular basis. Commons ICT infrastructure can include network, compute, storage, and authentication and authorization infrastructure. A service is any Commons element that can be invoked by the user to perform some action on their behalf . Tools enable researchers to perform one or more operations, typically on data, and often with data as the output. In this context we are explicitly excluding physical instruments as tools. Services and tools can address research object repositories, discovery, direct research tasks, workflows and middleware, PIDs, semantic objects, research object (and especially data) management, security and identification, helpdesk, and the availability of a commons catalogue of all services and tools. Research objects are the outputs of the research process and can also be inputs to later processes. The scope here is limited to digital research objects, specifically publications and research documentation; research data; research software; semantic objects; and collections.
KPIs are qualitative or quantitative measures that can be used to measure the uptake, engagement, or use of commons components. Metrics are quantitative measures used to assess the evolution or performance of specific processes. Broad themes of KPIs and metrics include: commons governance and policy, commons engagement with stakeholders, feedback and satisfaction of stakeholders, commons infrastructure and technology, and stakeholder engagement with technology and infrastructure.
Interoperability is the ability of data or tools from non-cooperating resources to integrate or work together with minimal effort. Interoperability enables cross-commons reuse of data and is of central importance to the Commons, encompassing technical interoperability (how artefacts are exchanged), including syntactic interoperability (how to structure information) and semantic interoperability (data are interpreted the same way); pragmatic interoperability (agreements between organisations); and legal interoperability (compatibility of licenses, policies, laws, and procedures). Interoperability is achieved through the model, so it’s a backdrop on which the elements exist
Our model can help navigate implementing open research practises for your commons or research infrastructure by guiding you through considerations on what to include. The elements here are the main themes in the model, but within each essential element there are specific considerations and examples. As this field evolves, the definitions and typology may need to be revisited, and we already have plans to continue working on the model.
GORC IG Typology and Definitions
Jones, S., Leggott, M., Lopez Albacete, J., Madalli, D., Pascu, C., Payne, K., Schouppe, M., & Treloar, A. (2023). GORC IG: Typology and Definitions (Version 1.01). Research Data Alliance. https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA00087
GORC IG Elements Diagram alone
Jones, S., Leggott, M., Lopez Albacete, J., Pascu, C., Payne, K., Schouppe, M., & Treloar, A. (2023). GORC IG Typology and Definitions Diagram (Version 1.0). Research Data Alliance. https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA/00095
GORC IM WG Model:
Woodford, C. J., Treloar, A., Leggott, M., Payne, K., Jones, S., Lopez Albacete, J., Madalli, D., Genova, F., Dharmawardena, K., Chibhira, N., Åkerström, W., Macneil, R., Nurnberger, A., Pfeiffenberger, H., Tanifuji, M., Zhang, Q., Jones, N., Sesink, L., & Wood-Charlson, E. (2023). The Global Open Research Commons International Model, Version 1 (Version 1). Research Data Alliance. https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA00099
GORC IM WG Model Report:
Payne, K., Corrie, B., Crawley, F., Harrower, N., Macneil, R., Sansone, S.-A., Treloar, A., Woodford, C. J., & Nyberg Åkerström, W. (2023). The Global Open Research Commons International Model Report, Version 1 (Version 1). Research Data Alliance. https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA00097