First TDWG Charter Under the New Constitution

By: Lee Belbin

Technical Advisory Group Has An Approved Charter

The TDWG Technical Advisory Group convened by Roger Hyam is the first group within TDWG to have an approved Charter.

The new TDWG Constitution and Processes approved at the TDWG 2006 in St Louis required that all TDWG groups must draft a new charter. This new charter was needed to reflect the new Interest and Task Group structure in TDWG and also a simplified charter template.

The Technical Advisory Group drafted a revised charter and submitted it to  'TDWG Charters', a 'journal' in our Open Journal System (OJS). The facilitities in OJS were considered ideal for the submission, review, tracking, approval and 'publication' of our new Charters. Using OJS circumvented the need to develop a separate web-based application, and also meant that the same 'look and feel' could be maintained between our three current 'journals' (The Proceedings of TDWG, TDWG Charters and TDWG Standards Track).

At the Executive Committee in Berlin March 15-16, it was decided that at least three members of the Committee needed to review new Interest and Task Group Charters. OJS helps (thanks to a grand effort by Ricardo Pereira of the TDWG Infrastructure Project!) to manage the review, editing and approval process.

Anyway, well done Roger; first' cab off the rank'!

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