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A working group is a team dedicated to a project or projects that fit under an easily definable umbrella. Perhaps they're designed to create and/or facilitate a particular feature set in Open edX. Or perhaps they're an authoritative body giving the community structure and a process for decision making. 

Open edX working groups are based on the model established by CentOS Special Interest Groups or SIGs. While CentOS SIGs are tailored to create separate package repositories for the CentOS Linux distribution, Open edX Working Groups are defined more loosely and with a different set of goals, depending on the initiative. What follows is a description of the WG proposal and incubation process, modified from the CentOS project. 

Proposal

Creating a new WG requires participation and/or permission from a member of the Open edX Governing Board (tbd) and someone in a leadership position in the Open edX community. Right now, that's a limited group that includes John Mark Walker (Deactivated), Ned Batchelder (Deactivated), Nimisha Asthagiri (Deactivated), and Braden MacDonald. Later this year, we will formalize a leadership group in the form of a board of governors (TBD). In order to be officially sanctioned in the Open edX community, a WG must meet some requirements:

Requirements

1. The topic must be related to Open edX, or a use case scenario for Open edX
2. There must be adequate control and feedback into the Open edX community - a WG functions with bidirectional communication with the larger community
3. Generally all communication as to the work of the WG should be public, understanding that sometimes a matter may need to be private. In such cases, please consult with the sponsoring Governing Board memberOpen edX leadership
4. All code produced within the WG must be compatible with a license presently used by Open edX
5. All documentation produced within the WG must be compatible with the license of the Open edX wikiOne member of the WG should be a member of the Governing Boardlicensed under a Creative Commons share alike license (CC-BY-SA)
6. Any code generated by the WG must be published in a repository in the openedx or edx umbrella organizations on GitHub 
7. All code contributors must either sign an individual CLA for edX or be specifically included under their organization's CLA

The Proposal Process

1. Check to see if the topic of collaboration is already covered by an existing WG
2. Post an introductory 'RFC' link to the #governance slack channel and ask for comments
3. Find an Open edX governing board member leader to join or sponsor the effort
4. The board member Open edX leader will:
   1. Request any initial resources be created

   2. List the WG on the Working Groups page in the wiki

Acceptance

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1. Create corresponding Slack channel and/or mailing list
2. Schedule, at a minimum, quarterly meetings and publish them on the community calendar

Acceptance

The Open edX leader involved in the WG will either approve or circulate among other leaders for approval. 

WG founders should stay in close contact with their sponsor leadership liaison through this process to work out any questions arising from the proposal.