Board Election Process

The procedures and candidate requirements for the OASIS Board of Directors and the OASIS Technical Advisory Board differ slightly, although the elections are held concurrently.

Table of Contents

OASIS Board of Directors
OASIS Technical Advisory Board (TAB)
Nominations
   Nomination Process
   Accepting Nominations
   Early Nominations are Strongly Encouraged.
Candidate Review and Selection Period
Member Questions to BoD Candidates
Voting Process

OASIS Board of Directors

The OASIS Board of Directors is comprised of executive-level officers, experienced in managing organizational growth, defining policies and dedicated to advancing open standards for interoperability. By serving on the OASIS Board, directors exercise a major impact on the strategic direction of the consortium. Recognized for their contributions by the entire standards community, the directors guide OASIS in its mission to drive the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for e-business.

The OASIS Board is comprised of 11 elected directors, each serving two-year terms. The terms are staggered annually to preserve management continuity. Elected directors serve as individuals; however, to be nominated for and serve on the Board of Directors, a person must be a member of the Corporation or an employee, designee or representative of a member of the Corporation. This year five seats are available for election.

OASIS Technical Advisory Board (TAB)

The OASIS TAB identifies opportunities and areas for standardization within the Consortium that are beneficial for the entire community. TAB members advise the OASIS Board of Directors on the Consortium's technical agenda and on interoperability and alignment issues: they also encourage activities to address those issues. OASIS TAB members possess the technical understanding to articulate relationships between the wide range of current standards work and the strategic vision to map the future technical direction of the Consortium.

The TAB consists of five voting members, four of whom are elected by the OASIS membership for two-year terms that are staggered for continuity. In addition, one representative from the OASIS staff serves on the TAB. This year three seats are available for election, including a seat left unfilled in 2010.

Nominations

Any OASIS member organization may nominate an individual for the Board of Directors or Technical Advisory Board. Nominees are required to be members of OASIS. Individuals should be nominated for their personal qualifications and commitment, not solely for their company or organizational affiliation.

Nomination Process

Nominations must be sent to nominations@oasis-open.org and be received during the nomination period.

Nominations must be made or approved by the Primary Contact of the member organization making the nomination. Members may identify their Primary Contact at http://www.oasis-open.org/kmembers/person/roster/

Accepting Nominations

Nominees must email formal acceptance to nominations@oasis-open.org during the nomination period. Nominations not formally accepted by the nominee by the end of the nomination period will be considered withdrawn. Nominees can accept nomination to either the BoD or the TAB, not both.

Each BoD Nominee's Acceptance Letter Should Include:

• A short biography and an optional statement describing the nominee's interest in and qualifications for serving on the OASIS Board.
• Platform information, identifying opinions on priorities and issues facing OASIS, ideas for technical activities, and suggestions for business development initiatives or strategic partnerships. This information will serve as the primary means for members to understand a candidate's vision for the future of the Consortium.
• A statement that the nominee has support from his or her management to devote approximately 10-20% of his or her time to OASIS Board activities and is able to travel to attend face-to-face meetings approximately quarterly at his or her employer's or own expense. The first such meeting will be held in Massachusetts, USA, where the newly elected Board members will be formally seated.

These acceptance documents are published on the BoD candidate profile page in the Members-Only section of the OASIS web site.

Each TAB Nominee's Acceptance Letter Should Include:

• A short biography and an optional statement describing the nominee's interest in and qualifications for serving on the OASIS Technical Advisory Board.
• Platform information, identifying opinions on technical priorities and issues facing OASIS.
• A statement that the nominee has support from his or her management to devote approximately 10-12 hours per month of his or her time to OASIS TAB activities and is able to travel to attend face-to-face meetings approximately twice a year, at his or her employer's or own expense. The first such meeting will be held according to the Election Schedule where the newly elected TAB members will be formally seated.

These acceptance documents are published on the TAB candidate profile page in the Members-Only section of the OASIS web site.

Early Nominations are Strongly Encouraged

No nomination information will be made publicly available until the opening of the ballot. Nominees are encouraged to submit their documentation as soon as possible, to ensure adequate time to review their candidate profile web pages, which cannot be edited after the ballot opens.

Candidate Review and Selection Period

BoD and TAB profile pages on the Members-Only section of the OASIS web site will be created for all candidates. The pages will include each the candidate's nomination acceptance letter. Once posted, the profile pages cannot be altered.

In accordance with the OASIS Bylaws, candidates may distribute material reasonably related to the election to all voting members via the mail alias voting@lists.oasis-open.org.

Members are encouraged to actively participate in the candidate selection process. Member can dialog on issues important to them in the candidate selection process by posting to and monitoring the oasis-member-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org mail list. Members can also send a message of support to the voting representatives of all members via the voting@lists.oasis-open.org mail list. All OASIS members with an active user account can post messages to these mail lists. The public archives can be found at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-member-discuss and http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/voting/

Member Questions to BoD Candidates

Members of OASIS are encouraged to submit questions for all BoD candidates on issues regarding the management and direction of the Consortium. Questions may be sent to member-questions@oasis-open.org. Staff will compile and summarize the questions and provide an anonymous, representative sample to all BoD candidates. Candidates are strongly encouraged but not required to address each issue. Their responses must be sent with their answers to nominations@oasis-open.org for inclusion in their profile pages. See the Election Schedule for question submission and response deadlines.

Voting Process

Each OASIS Foundational Sponsor, Sponsor, and Contributor organization is eligible to vote via one ballot. In order to participate in the voting process, member organizations must be in good standing when the ballot opens.

Notification of the availability of online ballots is distributed via email to each organizational member's Primary Representative and/or designated Voting Representative. Ballots list candidates by name and organization.

The OASIS Board and Technical Advisory Board elections are conducted using a preferential voting system, called Single Transferable Voting (STV), that allows the voter to rank their preferences amongst the candidates and a vote counting mechanism which takes advantage of this preference. STV allows your relative preference(s) between candidateds to be taken into account. See http://www.votescotland.com/stv/How_STV_Works.pdf. The ballot will contain instructions on preferential voting and how to indicate your preference(s) for the candidates.

Each OASIS Foundational Sponsor, Sponsor and Contributor member organization may submit one ballot indicating their preferences (first, second, third) for as many candidates as the voter wishes to express a preference. Completed ballots must be received by OASIS before the end of the balloting period. The balloting system confirms receipt of the ballot to the voting member. The balloting period ends at the time stated. If quorum is not reached, the balloting period will be extended by reasonable notice to all voting members.

Ballots will be counted using the Scottish STV Method to determine the election winners. The six BoD candidates receiving the highest number of votes join the OASIS Board of Directors. The four Technical Advisory Board members receiving the highest number of votes will join the TAB.

In the case of a tie, the STV process randomly breaks the tie and reports the results.

The results of the election will be announced to the candidates and members shortly after tabulation. The STV tabulation which indicates how votes were allocated will be posted to the Voting Group document repository. A sample of this tabulation can be found at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/36321/example-ballot-results.pdf

Further details on the OASIS Board of Directors can be found in the OASIS Bylaws. Contact Member Services, at member-services@oasis-open.org or +1 (781) 425-5073, if you have any questions regarding this process or if you require any other information.