Talk:IHE Membership Application Form

Comments on the Member Application Form

Questions from Niki Wirsz (Siemens):

• A rather formal issue: on the Member Organization Application I wonder if there is a need for more room at the bottom for 2 signatures & names, in some organizations there are sometimes 2 persons endorsing documents, a business owner and a legal person.

Questions from Karen Witting (IBM):

• How is a signed form submitted? The form lists an email address but that implies that I print the form, sign, scan, send scanned image. What is the common approach to this? Shouldn't there be a mailing address to mailed signed forms?
• I agree with the comments below especially about not including naming of primary/alternate on this form. That should be done using another process since it is expected to change frequently.
• I disagree with "Profiles of Interest" as this changes over time and could be large. If added it must be clearly marked as optional.

I agree it could be optional and as stated, Interests are allowed to change. The contents would not affect approval of the membership, but it does give us a sense of the scope of the applicants interest and would affect the information and contacts that are provided to the applicant as the result of applying.

• What type of person should be listed as "Primary Contact"? What would that contact person be used for?

Some edits to consider:

• put a stronger divider between the Organization line and the Primary Contact so that it's clear the address information, etc. is for the primary contact, not the organization
• should we also have the HQ address for the organization? At the very least, maybe the state/country to determine which legal system they live in?
• add Organization Description so they can describe (a few lines) the nature of their business. Unless we require the applicant to attend the meeting of the Board when their application is reviewed (and even if we do), the Board members may not be familiar with the organization.
• add Organization Website (same reason as above)

• Joyce reminded me we need to use the new IHE logo with (R) instead of TM

• In the governance I think we require the choose their dominant Organization Type, and Interest Category since we refer to that in some of the guidelines (e.g. User co-chair), so people shouldn't register as several.
• Put a blank line for Organization Type and another for Interest Category and add a note that these are to be filled with values from Section x.y of the governance. Where we have defined what they mean, we want them to register based on our defined meanings instead of what they think it ought to mean from the 2 or 3 words.

• For the Committees, since members can assign reps to committees freely at any time by contacting the chair, maybe we should get them used to that process. Replace this section with just a line for "IHE Domains of Initial Interest:" and one for "IHE Regions of Initial Interest:". Then the approval email we send to the primary contact can point them at where to find/contact the relevant cochairs to assign representatives.

• I'm half tempted to add a line for "Profiles of Initial Interest". It wouldn't limit them in any way, but it would give the board a feeling for where the organization was coming from, and we might be able to point them at specific current work that might interest them so they can start getting their feet wet right away rather than just starting with a broad domain/region.

• The discussion of both the Principles of Governance and the Intellectual Property Agreement above the signatures in the Declaration makes it ambiguous as to whether these signatures are intended to bind the member to the terms of the IPA or if the IPA is signed separately.

---

From Harry Solomon:

The application must be derived more strictly from the Governance Document.

First, an applicant must describe its "Direct and material interest in the work of IHE", and its "Qualifications and willingness to participate actively". This needs to be a free form text area on the application form.

The Governance Document states that a member organization must select one of the User, Developer, or General Interest categories. The list of organization types reflects a table in the Governance Document that is meant to assist in the selection of an appropriate category. That table should be provided as informative to applicants, but they do not need to assert their organization type, only their participation category.

Finally, the form must provide for "indication of any Parent/Subsidiary relationships with other IHE Member Organizations".

Comments on the National/Regional Committee Application Form

• the template should include names/contact information of officers/directors of the proposed national/regional initiative
• should include confirmation that the national/regional initiative is incorporated and has a terms of reference document that aligns to the IHE International governance document

Wouldn't the application typically be submitted prior to formal formation of the national/regional committee? If so, they would not yet have elected officers and would not yet me incorporated. (Kevin)

• should the national/regional initiative have to sign the declaration included in the Member application (re: IP rights, principles of goverance etc.)?

I think the idea is that members of the regional/national initiative would have to be members of IHE International first in which case they have signed the declaration. I always thought of IHE-Country just as a grouping mechanism, but I suppose if IHE-Country incorporates, it might be in a position to sign declarations. (Kevin)