Study Groups may be initiated by request of the CC or the SAC, or directly by the EXCOM. In all cases, the following steps will occur:
- A Study Group leader will be appointed. This individual may be anyone within the SISO community. The appropriate committee(s) will work with the SG leader to flesh out the SG Terms of Reference (TOR) and to recruit additional members of the SG core team. The SG TOR will identify which of the CC, SAC, or EXCOM will provide oversight to the SG.
- The TOR will be reviewed by the CC and SAC and passed on to the EXCOM for final review and approval.
- An open email reflector/discussion board will be established for the use of the SG. An announcement will be posted to the SISO community so that other people interested in the SG's topic will have an opportunity to participate in their deliberations and comment on their outputs. SG documents may be posted in an appropriate area of the SISO Web site for community review and comments as they are developed.
- The committee having oversight responsibility will assign a member to keep the committee informed of the SG's progress. This committee will review the SG's outputs as they are completed, and will provide recommendations to the EXCOM regarding their disposition.
- Standing Study Groups will provide to the EXCOM through the committee having oversight responsibility an annual report describing their progress over the previous year and goals for the following year. The annual report will be due 1 September of each year for consideration during the Fall Simulation Interoperability Workshop.
- The EXCOM will consider the SG's outputs, along with the overseeing committee’s recommendations, and determine what actions (if any) should be taken.
- Upon acceptance, the SG's report will be considered a SISO Reference Product and will be archived for future use by the SISO community.
- The committee having oversight responsibility of any study group may recommend, to the EXCOM, the dissolution of the study group under the following circumstances:
- Completion of the effort as outlined in the Terms of Reference
- SG or SSG determines it is unable to complete the proposed effort
- SG or SSG is not making adequate progress toward effort completion