One important aspect of the ICANN multistakeholder model is the Advisory Committees and the advice they provide to the ICANN Board of Directors. The ICANN organization (org) developed an Action Request Register (ARR) several years ago and uses that process to ensure advice is tracked and updated correctly. However, the ever-increasing volume of advice has made understanding the status of each piece of guidance challenging.
To address this, a new ICANN Community Wiki workspace has been created to capture the status of each Board advice item. The space can be accessed directly on this page or by clicking on the wiki link above, then on the "Cross Comm" tab and choosing "Board Advice." This new wiki tool complements the objectives of the Advice Improvements Project, underway since September 2021, and ensures ongoing and proactive improvements to the advice process. In consultation with the ICANN Board and the At-Large Advisory Committee, the Root Server System Advisory Committee, and the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, this work evolved the process to identify improvements to 1) the predictability of the ICANN Board's process to review and respond to advice received, 2) transparency around how and what decisions are taken by the ICANN Board, and 3) implementability of advice provided. For further information about advice, please see https://features.icann.org/board-advice.
The content is publicly available – no login is required. However, those who request a login from engagement@icann.org can use platform features such as the ability to "watch" a page and receive notifications when pages are updated. Requests for wiki logins are processed in the order received and timing varies by the volume of requests at any given time.
The Board Advice Home page provides a summary of open advice for each Advisory Committee, a link to the landing page for each Advisory Committee, and direct links to specific advice documents. Please note that advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee is still available on the ICANN org site at https://features.icann.org/board-advice/gac.
Information is organized in several sections that are explained below.
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Advisory Committee Landing Pages
The direct landing page links for each Advisory Committee are below. Each page includes tables with open and closed advice. Each row in the table includes the date the document was issued, a link to a detailed status recommendation page, a link to the original advice document, and the number of items from the advice document that are open, closed, or deferred.
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Recommendation Pages
Each recommendation landing page contains the history of the advice item. For example, the RSSAC028 link in the Open Advice Items table shows the status (as of this date) for each of the five recommendations: Recommendations 1, 4, and 5 are closed; Recommendation 2 is in Phase 4, Implement; and Recommendation 3 is pending the completion of Recommendation 2 (see here for more information on Board Advice phases).
To view the history of each advice item, click on the recommendation hyperlink. Using Recommendation 2 as an example, the page shows the date the document was issued, a hyperlink to view the document, the Advisory Committee's reference ID, and the current phase are displayed. All status updates from the Advisory Committee, the ICANN Board, and the ICANN org are listed in the Status Updates table. Specifically, this recommendation was published on 3 August 2017, was acknowledged by ICANN org, an understanding of the recommendation with the advice provider was confirmed, the Board considered the advice and documented a resolution, and it is now in the Implement phase.
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Advisory Committee Action Items
The last view to highlight is an Action Items page. This was created based on feedback from the Advisory Committees and consolidates action that may be required. The Advisory Committees can quickly and easily view outstanding action items. For example, view the open SSAC action items on this page.
We would like to thank everyone in the community who has provided feedback on these wiki Board advice pages, as well as ICANN org staff who participated in the effort to enhance the presentation. We sincerely hope you find these pages useful.
Please contact us at globalsupport@icann.org with questions or feedback.
