Language Update: Evolving from 'cooperative' to 'collaborative'
Since its inception, the Intergovernmental Software Collaborative has put names and definitions to the work of government software collaboration where previously there were none.
As we try to better understand and make sharing and collaboration in government software development more visible, the language we use is evolving.
Earlier this year, we changed our name from the State Software Collaborative to the Intergovernmental Software Collaborative. This reflected our updated understanding that this work wasn’t just happening between states, but across and between all levels of government.
Now, we’re changing what we call the groups of governments working in this way. Historically, we’ve referred to governments working collaboratively to develop the software they need as cooperatives. Moving forward, we will now refer to these groups as collaboratives.
Why?
We already know that we’re using language to describe groups of governments working together to build shared software that they don’t use to describe themselves. This is because there is no shared language to describe such groups and work to date. We hope to contribute to building that common vocabulary.
Part of that process is engaging with our community to understand what language resonates with them. The term “cooperative” tends to elicit confusion, because it has specific legal connotations that suggest frameworks for ownership which don’t always apply to the groups we work with.
Therefore, we’re moving to the term “collaborative” instead. We feel that collaborative is a more general term that better captures the breadth of intergovernmental work that we’re interested in, from software projects with more ad hoc governance models to organizations with more formalized structure or which are incorporated under more complex ownership frameworks.
What’s next?
Practically, this means that we’re scrubbing our website to replace most instances of “cooperative” with “collaborative.”
We’ll keep “cooperative” in previously published blog posts and reports to preserve artifacts of our scholarship to date and leave a papertrail of how our thinking has changed over time.
New blog posts, reports, and other resources will use “collaborative” instead.
Defining “collaborative”
Our current working definition of an intergovernmental software collaborative is:
two or more government agencies jointly supporting the development of software for their collective use, operating under some kind of a governance structure.
Stay tuned for more updates on our ongoing refinement of what “supporting” entails and what models governments use to share and collaborate on software.