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Join OpenRefine's Advisory Committee

· 4 min read

OpenRefine is seeking a new member for its Advisory Committee (unpaid position).

OpenRefine is a powerful tool to clean messy data, popular in a diverse range of communities. It has been serving the needs of journalists, librarians, Wikipedians, scientists for more than ten years and is taught in many curricula and workshops around the world. OpenRefine received a two years grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation via the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative under their Essential Open Source Software for Science program, specifically focusing on improving Diversity and Inclusion in open source projects. OpenRefine is a fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science & Society Inc, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in the USA.

Starting in 2019, OpenRefine explored a new sustainability model by leveraging grants and corporate sponsorship. Three years into that process, OpenRefine is now fiscally sponsored by Code for Science & Society Inc and secured four significant grants from three different organizations. As a result, the project matured with the creation of the Advisory, Steering, and Code of Conduct committees and started hiring contractors to advance our roadmap. During that time, we went through tremendous growth as we doubled the number of active contributors, increased the number of languages translated, and continued to see more users relying on OpenRefine.

Today we are looking for (a) new Advisory Committee member(s) to support our new model, strengthen our governance and continue to engage at an organizational level with our partners and community.

As its primary responsibility, OpenRefine's Advisory Committee oversees the project and coordinates with Code for Science & Society for its operations. So far, the advisory committee has taken care of the following executive responsibilities:

  • Manage grant applications;
  • Oversee hiring and management of contractors;
  • Prepare and approve budgets;
  • Work together with OpenRefine's Steering Committee to establish strategic partnerships with other communities and organizations.

In the next two years, we also want to:

  • Improve our governance and community diversity;
  • Renew our Advisory and Steering Committees, focusing on bringing users and institutions into the project's governance;
  • Formalize OpenRefine's roadmap;
  • Ensure the project’s financial sustainability by searching for new sources of funding

We are looking into hiring a project director to support the advisory committee in those missions (see the corresponding job posting for details).

About the position

We are seeking at least one new Advisory Committee member to help us pursue the goals described above, bringing their perspective on how OpenRefine should evolve.

This position is for you if you:

  • Care deeply about the future of OpenRefine;
  • Have good communication skills in English;
  • Are able to join a monthly call with Code for Science and Society where we coordinate the project's operations.
  • Are ready to invest at least 3 hours per month (between calls and document review).

This is a volunteer (non paid) position.

How to respond

Please nominate yourself or other members of the community by contacting advisory.committee@openrefine.org. The current advisory committee will engage a conversation with the nominees and select one or more new members. New members will be announced on our blog and mailing list.

OpenRefine is fiscally sponsored by Code for Science and Society (CS&S). CS&S is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring a diverse workforce at all levels of the organization thereby creating a culture that allows us to better serve our clientele, our employees and our communities. We value and encourage the contributions of our colleagues and strive to create an environment where everyone can reach their full potential and drive outstanding results. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, age, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, gender identity or expression, or any other basis protected by local, state, or federal law. This policy applies with regard to all aspects of one's employment, including hiring, transfer, promotion, compensation, eligibility for benefits, and termination.