The digital public goods standard is a set of specifications and guidelines designed to maximize consensus about whether something conforms to the definition of digital public goods as laid out by the UN Secretary General in the 2020 Roadmap to Digital Cooperation: digital public goods must be open source software, open data, open AI models, open standards and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable laws and best practices, do no harm, and help attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This standard establishes a baseline of quality that must be met in order to earn recognition as a digital public good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance and broader community. The standard itself is open to contribution and we invite anyone who uses and benefits from the standard to join our growing list of endorsers.
The Standard is currently at version 1.1.2, published on Nov. 16, 2020; view the changelog.
We encourage creators, maintainers, funders, implementers and consumers to use this standard to recognize, assess and support digital public goods. The standard is operationalized through a questionary that is required as part of the assessment process. We maintain a list of vetted digital public goods that meet the standard described above on our platform.
We apply this standard to projects on our platform that have either been nominated directly or have been pulled together from partnership databases. Projects that are submitted to our platform will undergo three stages of review to ensure that they meet the requirements laid out in the standard. As a project undergoes various reviews it will move from Nominee, to Candidate, to a fully reviewed Digital Public Good.
Movement through the process shall be transparently displayed on GitHub and can be viewed here. If a project meets the standard it will be officially considered a Digital Public Good and will be showcased on the website and may be eligible for additional recognition and support.
The Standard is endorsed by a growing list of open source, open content and open data advocacy and advancement experts. Endorsement means agreement with the standard for Digital Public Goods set out through the indicators, and a willingness to have your name and title publicly listed as having contributed to and endorsing the standard.
Add yours by editing the file, and submitting a Pull Request or filling out this form.
The Digital Public Goods Alliance is dedicated to building a welcoming, diverse and safe community. We expect everyone participating in the Digital Public Goods Alliance community to abide by our Code of Conduct. Please read it. Please follow it. In the Digital Public Goods Alliance, we work hard to build each other up and create amazing things together. 💪💜
At the Digital Public Goods Alliance, we envision a growing community of contributors and stakeholders around the Digital Public Goods Standard in an open, transparent and accessible manner. Our governance documents the processes for welcoming, reviewing and merging proposals for modifications to the standard, and managing clear expectations around these processes.
Thank you to all the individuals that contributed to and endorsed the standard, as well as well as to the participants of the Early Grade Reading Community of Practice. We also thank the following organizations: UNICEF, Norway, iSPIRT, Sierra Leone and the DPG Alliance Secretariat.
Image Credit: Badge by André Luiz from the Noun Project, released under a CC license.
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