The BigCode Project Governance Card
It addresses governance transparency for open research projects, but is incremental as it documents existing practices rather than introducing new methods.
The paper describes the governance mechanisms of the BigCode project, aiming to provide transparency about its organizational and ethical decisions, and to serve as a model for future open research projects.
This document serves as an overview of the different mechanisms and areas of governance in the BigCode project. It aims to support transparency by providing relevant information about choices that were made during the project to the broader public, and to serve as an example of intentional governance of an open research project that future endeavors can leverage to shape their own approach. The first section, Project Structure, covers the project organization, its stated goals and values, its internal decision processes, and its funding and resources. The second section, Data and Model Governance, covers decisions relating to the questions of data subject consent, privacy, and model release.