2018-04-12 GNSO Review WG

Notes/ Action Items

Action Items:

Action Items: Status of actions items re: implementation charter for recommendations 1, 2, & 3:

1. Staff will send out an email after this call with the links that were gathered regarding the fellowship program.
2. Staff will update the charter to point to data already being collected on CROP and the Fellowship Program.
3. Staff will update the determination part of the charter to state that there are existing metrics and point to those.
4. Staff will check with fellowship staff about whether data is self-reported from former fellows or confirmed by staff.
5. In referencing the GNSO Council comment on the fellowship program, Staff will note that the Council comment is focused on its role as manager of the PDP and does not necessarily incorporate more views of individual SG/Cs. SG/Cs submitted comments separately.

Action Items: Discussion of the implementation charter for recommendations 7 & 12:

1. Staff will add a note in the determination that there are cost-effective solutions available, such as translation provided by technology rather than live human translators. Specifically, “The Working Group notes that a traditional RTT solution typically includes professional translators.  Understanding that the costs for such translators may be prohibitive for some uses, other solutions may include automated services, volunteers or translations of executive summaries of transcripts after public meetings.”
2. Staff will put the revised charter out for consensus call and if it is approved, this item will be put on the next available Council meeting.

Action Item 9: Discussion of the implementation charter for recommendations 20 and 21: Staff notes that if the WG supports bringing the proposal to Council to expand the scope of the SCBO to include recommendation 20 this can also be raised in the update to Council.

Notes:

1. Review agenda/SOIs: No SOI Updates.

2. Status of Consensus Call for revised implementation charter for recommendation 22 (closed 30 March): The consensus call closed and no objections were noted. The recommendation is updated by full consensus. The wiki has been updated.

3. Status of actions items re: implementation charter for recommendations 1, 2, & 3:

-- Work on recs 1,2,3 is ongoing but there are updates.

-- Staff is in the process of researching metrics and received some feedback yesterday.

-- The Fellowship Program consultation just ended. As part of that consultation process, a number of metrics and information were gathered and put on the website where the consultation was announced.

-- Data is available on fellows that have gone on to participate in the SO/ACs, broken out by SO and AC.

-- Staff will send out an email after this call with the links that were gathered.

-- The second action item involved metrics for the CROP Program.

-- Staff circulated with the agenda, links to reports on the CROP Program.

-- The window for providing input about the Fellowship program is closed, so there is not an opportunity for this WG to provide a response to this consultation at this time.

-- It might be helpful to review the GNSO Council response to the consultation.

-- In particular, the Council recommends objective metrics for determining what makes a fellow “active” in addition to the metrics already being captured by the program.

-- The charter could point to the recommendation of the Council in the Council response to the consultation rather than duplicating these recommendations.

-- The revisions to the implementation charter for recommendations 1, 2, and 3 will be reviewed on the next call.

-- Support expressed for the WG pointing to the GNSO Council comment in addition to the material already developed for this implementation charter.

-- Question: Are the metrics provided by the fellowship program self-reported by former fellows or confirmed by staff? There have been some discrepancies between fellows reporting membership in certain groups and actual membership of those groups.

-- The Council comment is focused on its role as manager of the PDP and does not necessarily incorporate more views of individual SG/Cs.

4. Discussion of the implementation charter for recommendations 7 & 12:

-- Additional edits have been made in the WG determination language.

-- Wolf-Ulrich provided suggested edits to the text. Staff made a suggestion in addition to these edits.

-- In recommendation 12, the recommendation pertains to the feasibility of providing real-time transcription service. In the determination, it states that there should be a clearly defined rationale for the decision whether or not to provide these services, based on demand.

-- Any request for translation or transcription has a budget implications. Staff suggested to add text that requests for these services in channeled through the GNSO Council.

-- Question: Can we note that there are cost-effective solutions available, such as translation provided by technology rather than live human translators.

-- Agreement to add this.

-- Should we make any recommendations to Council about how to deal with this recommendation from a budget perspective going forward?

-- We are not mandating a change to procedures, but we are invoking the GNSO Council.

-- Translation is a shared pool resource in some cases. Is it possible to check the proposed budget for FY19 to see what is budgeted for language services? If the resource is shared, maybe the cost consideration is less of a concern for Council.

-- Within the draft budget, language services were listed under GSE.

-- There are several sub-sections under the main category of language services, for example transcription services.

-- There are no specific allocations to the policy department with respect to language services.

-- The bulk of expenses are under that portfolio.

From the chat:

from Marika Konings to All Participants: with the current budget situation, it would likely require the Council to decide what services would no longer be provided to be able to provide these services - so basically the Council and/or WGs may need to decide what their priority is for resource allocation.

from Marika Konings to All Participants: I believe language services is one of the areas that was proposed to be reduced and be more demand driven?

from Berry Cobb to All Participants: Stand corrected.  FY19 Language Services = $2.9M at 6.7 FTE

from Berry Cobb to All Participants: A bulk of which is for project: Recurring Activity - Language Services Support (All Services)

from Berry Cobb to All Participants: Description: Provision of translations, transcription, teleconference interpretation and scribing support throughout the organization. Including Scribing support for Board meetings, retreats and workshops.

from Lori Schulman to All Participants: [Added language] The Working Group notes that a traditional RTT solution typically includes professional translators.  Understanding that the costs for such translators may be prohibitive for some uses, other solutions may include automated services, volunteers or translations of executive summaries of transcripts after public meetings.

-- It should be kept in mind in our response that many of the language services are pooled.

-- Staff will add language suggested by Lori.

-- Should the WG consider this set of recommendations implemented or call out to the Council the recommendation included in the determination?

-- One possibility is to give Council an update in an upcoming meeting, and call out the recommendations in this charter in that discussion. WG members support this approach.

-- Staff suggests that we could send this revised charter out for consensus call and if it is passed, we can put this as an item on the next available Council meeting.

-- Support expressed for this approach.

5. Discussion of the implementation charter for recommendations 20 and 21:

-- Review of the text of the draft charter.

-- With respect to recommendation 20, the most important consideration is to link ICANN strategic objective and policy development objectives. The suggested path forward could make sense. Was this discussed in strategic discussions in the Council (in January and in San Juan)?

-- This was not discussed by Council. This is something that staff would need to explore with Council leadership before it should be finalized in the Charter. Staff can initiate this conversation unless the WG has an alternative suggestion for a path forward. This could also be included in the update to the Council in an upcoming meeting. The WG members support including it in the update to the Council.

-- Regarding recommendation 21, there have been many initiatives developed since the recommendations were forward, and these sources are useful.

6. Next Meeting: 26 April 1300 UTC

7. AOB: None