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Governance & Policies

How the CLIF Consortium is organized, how decisions are made, and how to participate

01 Steering Committee

The governing body responsible for strategic decisions and consortium operations.

Purpose

The CLIF Steering Committee provides strategic direction, oversees the development and maintenance of the CLIF data format, and ensures the consortium operates transparently and effectively. The committee makes decisions on versioning, new table adoption, project approvals, and membership.

Membership Requirements

Steering Committee membership is open to individuals who meet either of the following criteria:

  • A Principal Investigator (PI) actively contributing data to the consortium and securing independent funding for their site
  • An active data scientist contributing to consortium projects and infrastructure

Membership Responsibilities

  • Attend weekly consortium meetings
  • Serve as Point of Contact (POC) for at least one CLIF table
  • Vote on project proposals and schema changes
  • Review and provide feedback on consortium policies

Leadership Roles

Co-Chairs

Set the strategic vision, lead weekly meetings, and serve as the public-facing representatives of the consortium.

Vice-Chairs

Oversee day-to-day operations, review membership applications, coordinate software development, and manage the data dictionary.

Operating Rules
Agenda Meeting agenda circulated at least 24 hours before each weekly meeting.
Voting Decisions are made by majority vote of attending members unless otherwise specified.
Quorum A quorum of at least 50% of Steering Committee members is required for votes.
Terms Leadership positions are reviewed annually. Members may serve multiple terms.
Amendments Charter amendments require a two-thirds majority vote of all Steering Committee members.

02 Table Point of Contact (POC) Responsibilities

Each CLIF table is assigned a POC from the Steering Committee who oversees its development and maintenance.

  • Reviewing and approving table schema changes
  • Addressing and resolving GitHub issues related to their table
  • Communicating changes to the Vice-Chairs for software development coordination
  • Documenting progress in the internal project tracker

See the full list of table POCs on the Data Dictionary page.

03 Versioning & Update Process

How CLIF versions are numbered, proposed, and released.

Semantic Versioning

CLIF follows semantic versioning (Major.Minor.Patch) to communicate the nature and impact of changes clearly.

Component When It Changes Example
Major Breaking changes to existing table schemas (renaming fields, removing tables, changing data types) 2.x.x → 3.0.0
Minor New tables added, concept tables promoted to beta, new optional fields 3.0.x → 3.1.0
Patch Bug fixes, documentation updates, mCIDE value additions, description clarifications 3.0.0 → 3.0.1

04 Authorship Guidelines

Standards for attribution and credit on CLIF consortium publications.

ICMJE Criteria

Authorship follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines. All four conditions must be met:

View All Four ICMJE Conditions
  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
  2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  3. Final approval of the version to be published
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved

Named Authors vs. Group Authorship

Named Authors

Individuals who meet all four ICMJE criteria are listed as named authors on the publication.

Group Authorship

Contributors who support the work (e.g., running code at their site) but do not meet all ICMJE criteria are credited under the "CLIF Consortium" group authorship.

Key Author Roles

First Author Reserved for the PI(s) who released the code repository and led the data science effort.
Last Author Reserved for the PI(s) who synthesized the multi-site results and supervised the overall project.
Middle Authors Ordering is randomized per manuscript to ensure equity among contributing investigators.

Authorship Timing

The authorship list should be established when sites begin running the analytic code, not at the time of manuscript submission. This ensures that all contributors are recognized from the outset.

Manuscript Review

All named authors must review and approve the final manuscript before submission. The corresponding author is responsible for coordinating the review process and ensuring all authors provide sign-off.

Dispute Resolution

Authorship disputes are mediated by the Steering Committee. Parties are heard confidentially and the committee issues a binding recommendation.

Amendments to the authorship guidelines require a two-thirds majority vote of the Steering Committee.

05 Joining the Consortium

How new sites and investigators can become part of the CLIF Consortium.

Site Requirements

To participate as a data-contributing site, your institution must:

  • Maintain independent IRB approval and retain full responsibility for your own IRB processes for each CLIF project run at your site
  • Complete the ETL of your local EHR data to create a local CLIF database at your site
  • Participate in weekly working group meetings to stay aligned on schema updates, project coordination, and consortium decisions

06 Funding & Grants

How consortium activities are funded and how sites can support each other.

Independent Funding

Each PI is responsible for securing their own funding to support CLIF implementation and participation at their site. The consortium does not provide centralized funding for individual sites.

Letters of Support

The consortium provides letters of support for members pursuing grants related to CLIF activities. Contact the Co-Chairs to request a letter.

Sub-Awards & Data Use Agreements

Sub-awards and DUAs between specific sites are permitted but not required. These are arranged between individual sites as needed for specific funded projects.