Shutdown on short notice as a result of decisions made by others.
abstinence solution
A proposed solution that requires people to behave in ways they actually won't.
Its real purpose is to allow its proponents to pretend they have solved the problem.
advance directive
A document written while a project is still healthy that specifies conditions for shutdown,
who has authority to decide,
what assets must be preserved,
and what obligations must be honored.
anticipatory mourning
Grief that begins before an expected loss rather than after it,
involving simultaneous processing of past, present, and future losses.
asset
Anything of value belonging to a project, from code and data to social media accounts and goodwill.
asset transfer
The transfer of selected assets and obligations from one party to another
while leaving the original legal entity intact.
attention narrowing
A cognitive effect of acute stress
in which focus narrows to the most visible problem while other concerns become invisible.
Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL)
A governance model in which one person holds final decision-making authority over a project
for as long as they choose to lead it.
bullshit
Communication that disregards truth in favor of achieving an effect,
in which the speaker is indifferent to whether their statements are true or false.
civil society
Organizations, networks, and communities that operate outside government and the commercial sector.
collective understanding
Knowledge distributed across a team rather than held by any single member.
community threat
A threat that affects a large group of people simultaneously,
overwhelming the community's capacity to absorb the shock.
continuing bonds
A theory of bereavement that states that
healthy mourning does not require severing the relationship with what was lost
but can instead involve ongoing connections.
cosmology episode
A moment during a crisis when the world stops making sense and people freeze
because the structures that normally coordinate action have disappeared.
deliberate closure
Shutdown decided by project leaders
with enough advance notice to plan and make corrections along the way.
dignity therapy
A brief structured intervention involving a guided life-review interview
in which a person reflects on what has mattered most,
producing a legacy document intended to extend their influence.
digital object identifier (DOI)
A persistent unique identifier assigned to a digital object such as a dataset or software release
so that it can be reliably cited and located.
emotion-focused coping
A response to stress that addresses a person's internal emotional state
rather than the external situation causing the stress.
FAIR principles
A set of guidelines requiring that research data be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
fantasy document
A plan that gives the appearance of preparedness
but bears no relationship to what would actually happen if the plan were needed.
global threat
A threat that affects an entire community or society,
leaving no external community available to provide support.
individual threat
A threat affecting one or a few members of a team,
arising from career changes, life events, or external pressures targeting specific people.
leadership threat
A threat aimed specifically at a project's leader,
such as a reputational attack based on the leader's research or public positions.
Martha's Rules
A consensus procedure in which a proposal passes unless enough participants formally object,
balancing efficiency with broad participation.
MoSCoW method
A prioritization technique that sorts tasks into four categories:
must do, should do, could do, and won't do.
normalization of deviance
The process by which repeated small deviations from safe practice come to be accepted as normal,
increasing the risk of eventual catastrophic failure.
obligation
A legal, financial, or ethical commitment a project must fulfill,
such as a contract, funding report, or data privacy requirement.
ORCID
A persistent digital identifier that uniquely identifies a researcher across institutions and over time.
password manager
Software that stores and manages login credentials securely,
enabling strong unique passwords for each service.
problem-focused coping
A response to stress that addresses the external situation causing the stress
rather than the person's emotional reaction to it.
psychological first aid
A framework for supporting people in the early stages of a crisis
by promoting safety, calm, self-efficacy, connectedness, and hope.
recognition-primed decision making
A form of decision-making in which
an expert recognizes a situation as an instance of a familiar type
and acts on the first workable response
rather than comparing alternatives.
research software engineer
A professional who develops software as an integral part of academic research,
typically combining disciplinary expertise with software engineering skills.
street-level bureaucracy
The practice by which frontline workers use their own judgment to depart from institutional rules
when applying those rules would produce worse outcomes.
succession plan
A document specifying what a departing leader is handing over,
when each element will transfer,
and what the successor will be responsible for.
suffrage
The right to participate in a binding governance decision,
as distinct from the right merely to be consulted.
sunk cost fallacy
The tendency to continue investing in something because of past investment
rather than expected future value.
supply chain attack
An attack in which a malicious actor compromises a project
by gaining acceptance as a contributor.
survival arc
A three-stage pattern of response to disaster consisting of denial, deliberation, and decision.
threat modeling
A structured technique for identifying and categorizing risks to a system or organization.
tight coupling
A design property of systems in which components are so interdependent that
a failure in one triggers failures in others.
total pain
The concept that suffering is never purely physical but has
psychological and social dimensions that amplify each other.