Operations Steering Committee

The Operations Steering Committee (OSC) was established to coordinate, recommend, and review changes regarding the operational activities of the Generic Names Support Organization (GNSO) and its constituencies.

Goals

The main goal of the OSC is to provide the necessary recommendations to help in implementing operational changes comprised in the Board Governance Committee Working Group (or BGC WG) Report on GNSO Improvements.

The OSC is responsible for assessing as well as reviewing the efficiency of the recommendations that have been implemented. It is also assigned with the task of providing the necessary further operational enhancements as and when they are required. The OSC may also be assigned other responsibilities from the GNSO Council, such as to examine the process of enhancing the constituency support in the future, or to identify the new training process for constituency members. The GNSO Council can also ask the OSC to align the Council’s work in accordance with the strategic plan of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on a regular basis.

Membership

The OSC comprises of a GNSO Council Chair or Vice Chair, one representative from every constituency, and one NomCom appointee to the GNSO. Other participants may include the GNSO Secretariat, one ICANN policy staff representative, optional liaisons or appointed representatives from the GAC and the ALAC, and OSC Work Team Chairs.

Working method

The Operations Steering Committee established three working teams to work on the three operational areas. The main reason behind establishing these teams was to reduce the volume of work which could arise out of the wide range of topic areas covered in the recommendations, as well as make sure that the implementation of any reported recommendations is successful. These teams are:

• GNSO Operations Work Team, which is charged with determining steps to establish the Council’s role as a strategic manager of the policy process
• GNSO Stakeholder Group and Constituency Operations Work Team, which is assigned with the job of developing proposals that would help implement the recommendations for improving the stakeholder and constituency group operations
• Communications and Coordination Work Team, which is assigned with the task of developing proposals to enhance the communication and coordination for Council consideration.

The OSC decisions are mostly taken on a full consensus of the members unless and until determined by the OSC members. The ICANN staff may provide support in the form of document drafting, editing and disseminating the documents, and meeting support, among others.

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).