Structure and leadership#

This page describes the organizational structure of pyOpenSci as they related to governance and operations.

There are two levels of leadership described below. The first is organizational level. The second is program level.

Governing Committees#

Executive Council#

The Executive Council defines and steers the high-level mission, vision and values of pyOpenSci. It also sets the strategic direction and vision for the organization. The Executive Director (discussed below) is a voting member of the executive council.

Click here to view current executive council members

pyOpenSci advisory council#

Click here to view current advisory council members.

The advisory council is comprised of leaders in the Python scientific open source ecosystem. This council advises the executive director in both organization level and day to day decision making around

  • Python packaging guidelines

  • Peer review processes and guidelines

  • Program development that supports pyOpenSci’s mission

  • Community engagement

Most of the communication supporting advisory council activities happens in the pyOpenSci slack. The executive director will also organize several executive council meetings a year that will focus on high level goals of pyOpenSci programs.

Staff roles within the organization#

Executive Director#

The Executive Director creates and oversees the execution of the mission and strategy of pyOpenSci supported by the Advisory Committee. The Executive Director also:

  • is the the primary interface to the organization’s fiscal sponsor;

  • coordinates day to day activities

  • develops programs that drive the organizations mission

  • oversees staff and volunteers

  • makes tie-breaking decisions if they are at an impasse in decision-making.

The Executive Director reports to the Advisory Committee.

In the early stages of the organization’s development the Executive Director will take on other responsibilities including:

  • Managing the community in Slack and twitter

  • Serving as the defacto Software Peer Review Lead (below) until that position is funded.

Community manager#

The Community Manager is a future position to be created within the pyOpenSci organization. This position will:

  • Oversee social media communications

  • Create strategic communication plans

  • Write and oversee writing of blogs

  • Manage website content

  • Support communications within our online communication platforms (e.g. Slack, discourse, etc)

The Community Manager is a paid position in the pyOpenSci organization.

Open Peer Review Program: Program level leadership structure#

The peer review process is driven by several roles and groups:

Software review lead#

This role is responsible for overseeing the entire software review process. They are responsible for:

  • ensuring a diverse and active editorial board infrastructure development to support peer review

  • Maintaining the contributing guide

This role will also help manage conflict if it arises in the peer review process.

Peer review editorial board#

Click here to view the current editorial board

The peer review editorial board is a group of volunteers who are advocates for open source software peer review. This group helps pyOpenSci make decisions about it’s open peer review process. These decisions including but are not limited to:

  • Decisions about the scope of packages accepted into the ecosystem

  • Decisions about how we enforce / support ongoing maintenance of accepted packages.

  • Decisions about how we test for, evaluate and report package quality and health.

  • Metrics that we collect surrounding the peer review process

Volunteers on the editorial board will serve for 1-2 years.

The editors oversee 3-4 packages a year. editorial board can be found here.

Editor in Chief#

The Editor in Chief role is a rotating position that is held by someone on the editorial board. More on this position can be found in the pyOpenSci software peer review guide here.

Volunteer reviewers#

The review process is supported by volunteer reviewers. More on the role of reviewers can be found in our peer review guide.

Fiscal sponsorship#

pyOpenSci is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives.

pyOpenSci does not have its own standalone non-profit status. Instead, it inherits this status by being a fiscally sponsored project. This means that it relies on its fiscal sponsor for major administrative and legal services, including 501(c)(3) status and financial management.