Special Interest Group (SIG) Guidelines

During 2002, POSC re-established Special Interest Groups (SIG's) as a means of organizing representatives from sets of organizations that share an affinity for various subject areas. In the 90's, Special Interest Groups were generally aligned directly with standards development projects, e.g. the Data Model SIG, the Data Access SIG, etc. 

The current practice is for each SIG to work in a commercially neutral and collaborative manner to determine and define consensus requirements for industry standards and for any related solution products or services. POSC will actively facilitate each SIG so that a set of agreed requirements is realized periodically. These results will be published by POSC along with supporting analysis with three audiences in mind:

• to industry - with recommendations for interim and longer-term procedures and practices
• to solution providers - with recommendations for features and standards compliance
• to standards groups/projects (POSC or other) - with recommendations for new or enhanced industry standards

To ensure that each SIG remains current and relevant, SIG's will be chartered for renewable six-month periods, generally aligned with the first and second halves of each calendar year.

To ensure that each SIG will have dedicated support resources to supplement the voluntary participation of the active members, SIG resources will be formally budgeted and supported by fees paid by the participants.

SIG fees will be administered under the following guidelines:

• POSC will determine an agreed level of facilitation resources for the next six-month period based on the anticipated level of activity.
• POSC will provide the facilitation resources and to determine the SIG fee for the next six-month period as a fraction of annual POSC membership fees. This will ensure that organizations of every size have an opportunity to participate in the SIG. For example, a 10% SIG fee for an organization that pays an annual POSC membership fee of $25,000 will be $2,500.
• Organizations that are not POSC members may join SIG's by paying a double fee to compensate for the POSC overhead otherwise supported by POSC membership fees. Such organizations can apply the additional SIG fee to a new POSC membership on a pro-rated basis. This will allow non-member organizations to participate in SIG's while encouraging all organizations to consider joining POSC as a member. 
• The minimum SIG fee will be $500 for a six-month period.
• As of January '04, POSC member organizations may choose to take the SIG Package consisting of several SIGs rather than joining individual SIGs. This represents a substantial reduction in cost. The SIGs that constitute the SIG Package are listed at the bottom of the list of SIG description on the main SIG Web page.