Do we submit the Open Content Assessment checklist anywhere?

[henry-ngo]

I am ready to create a new repository and I have everything on the Open Content Assessment Checklist checked off, except for the DM (or delegate) signature. Before I submit that for DM approval, just would like to know if we need to submit the signed checklist anywhere or if we need to put it on the repository etc. ?

Thanks!

[ashjolly]

I might add to this issue that it would be great to update the Open Content Assessment in general. It's a bit confusing as to whether DM approval is necessary for packages that were created solely in house by BC government employees, and what approvals are still necessary for being able to post packages on GitHub and what documentation is required (to also satisfy the lurking COMPLIANCE.yaml bot...)

Thank you!

[henry-ngo]

I just wanted to close the loop on this. I got an answer from discussing with others in the community of practice and my own Ministry leadership.

The signed checklist is not submitted anywhere. It does not need to go in the repository. For my project, I decided to store all of the emails approving my project and related correspondence within my branch's LAN, the same way we document all of our other projects. I am guessing each employee may follow their own team's procedures for record keeping?

I ended up asking around in my Ministry for the equivalent of DM ("or delegate") approval. It eventually went to an executive in our IM/IT branch and their decision was that Health is going to delegate this approval to each branch responsibility as the leadership in each branch would know best whether or not this type of work should be on GitHub. The IM/IT exec decided that if there were going to be a large number of HLTH analysis repos, then they might consider some centralized approval process for the whole Ministry, but for now, it will be on a branch-by-branch basis. So with that, I only really needed my supervisor's approval (which was easy to get since we were on the same page about getting stuff on GitHub from day 1!)

[rdrll]

Hi Henry,

I hope you're doing well. I came across your post regarding the process of approval for getting a repo in the bcgov organization. I'm currently also with the Ministry of Health and have been trying to navigate this as well. Although it has been a long time, it still seems there isn't a well-documented procedure available yet. I'm wondering if you mind me asking a few more question to check my understanding on this?

So from what I understand, the initial step is to create a repo under the Ministry's private organization to place the project, and following that, we fill out the Open Content Assessment and present it to the branch leadership. Once it's approved there, we forward this to IM/IT, is that correct? I also have a few detailed question: Should the assessment be in a specific format, like a Word doc? I noticed that the one provided by bcgov is in .md format. And could we complete the entire assessment on our own base on our knowledge, or is there a need to liaise with the legal or intellectual property team for validation before seeking for approval by branch leadership? And I'm also wondering who in the IM/IT should we be sending to after this has been signed off by leadership?

I hope I'm not inundating you with too many questions. I've been a bit lost on whom to approach, any guidance or suggestion would be invaluable.

Many thanks in advance!

[henry-ngo]

Hi @rdrll ! Happy to chat further. I think things have changed a lot since this thread so it may not make sense to continue it here any more. For instance, back in 2020, there was no Ministry private organization GitHub!

Maybe the best place to discuss this process specific to Ministry of Health is on the Health Data Science Community of Practice Teams space? That way, other people who have navigated this or looking to navigate it for MoH specifically can see the discussion too. Please make a post there and tag me!

[rdrll]

Hi @henry-ngo ! Gotcha, thanks so much for your response! I've made a post of my questions in the Teams general channel and tagged you. Looking forward to your insights!