San Francisco Bay Area Conservation Commons
Member Charter
Draft for review, January 2007


I.    PURPOSE
The purpose of this Member Charter is to identify the activities that member organizations will undertake and the benefits realized as a member and participant of the San Francisco Bay Area Conservation Commons. By signing, an organization pledges to one of the several roles of participation in the San Francisco Bay Area Conservation Commons.

2. THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA CONSERVATION COMMONS
The San Francisco Bay Area Conservation Commons (SFBACC, the Commons) is a regional multi-organizational partnership for sharing and expanding the use of environmental data of all types. This partnership works toward making environmental data openly accessible in order to support community decision-making, environmental management, and education in the San Francisco Bay region of California. It works toward this goal by promoting good data management policy, offering training in data management and sharing, and by collaboratively developing the technology and content of an open digital library network accessible to everyone. The costs and effort of developing this collective is shared across participating organizations, with the goal that overall costs be reduced. For more information, see http://sfbayarea.calconservationcommons.net.

3. PARTNER PLEDGE
As a San Francisco Bay Area Conservation Commons Partner, the member organization will cooperate with other SFBACC Partners in one of several roles to participate in, design, and/or implement an environmental digital library network for the San Francisco Bay Area. Please refer to the definitions of SFBACC Roles and associated information for the organization on the SFBACC Website.

‘PARTNER NAME’ pledges to join the San Francisco Bay Area Conservation Commons in the role of [choose one: Data provider, Online Data Service provider, Technology Developer, Web Service Provider, Funder or Supporter].

‘PARTNER NAME’ hereby agrees to make a good-faith effort to do the following:

*  learn about data management and sharing by attending SFBACC trainings and workshops
*  report projects and data holdings using the SFBACC standards for metadata, or to a participating database
*  keep metadata up to date
*  make pertinent, federally and state funded, non-sensitive data and information publicly available through personal contact or Internet access
*  attend SFBACC Steering, Content, and Technology Development Committee Meetings, appropriate to the role of the organization
* develop software collaboratively with others in the SFBACC
*  put software and innovations that forward the cause of the Commons in a Public License or the Public Domain

It shall be the responsibility of each SFBACC Partner to secure the resources required to participate in the SFBACC. It shall be the responsibility of parties negotiating an exchange of data or information to address any financial requirements associated with any such exchange.

This pledge becomes effective on the date of signature by the member organization and continues until modified by mutual consent or unless terminated by any party, and should be reviewed annually and amended or revised when required.


SIGNATURES


Name:
Date:
Organization:


SFBACC Acting Chair Name:
Date: