| Thanks Troy,
It doesn't sound much different from any other TC in that respect then. Is there a concern that a public review is a waste of time? That is, that you wouldn't receive any feedback so it would just delay approval? This is always a hard thing to gauge. Some reviews garner numerous comments which result in making the work product better; others never receive a single one. The popularity of the subject tends to impact this significantly and certainly DITA is one of those Standards that garners a lot of attention.
It's important to remember that one of OASIS' strengths is that we are open. Open meaning that anyone, at any time, can view anything at all related to a committee - meeting minutes, documents, wiki pages, emails, and even ballots. And open also means that anyone can contribute to the work of a committee - either by being a member and actively participating on a committee, or by providing comments/feedback through the comment list. The public review is merely an official way of letting the public know that the committee is actively seeking their input and feedback - ensuring that the work product achieves its intended goal.
And of course a public review is announced to the entire OASIS membership and any other lists requested by the TC. Everyone is encouraged to forward the announcement to individuals or communities of interest. This should increase the visibility of both the Adoption TC and its Work Products, and be a win for both the TC and the end users.
Best regards,
Mary
On Nov 12, 2010, at 10:04 AM, Troy Klukewich wrote: Hi Mary: <quote> Can I ask what the typical turnaround time is for one of these articles? </quote> Varies: authorship of a first draft can take “forever” to very quick, say a week or so depending on the writer. Requests for review within the TC go out, and people review depending on availability. This can again be either quick, by the next meeting (two week period), or longer if certain key people are not available. The review in itself can be a slogging process due to conflicting work schedules and availability. So I am concerned that additional process complexity or steps will add to the turn-around time, perhaps dramatically given our schedules. Troy From: Mary McRae [mailto:mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 10:16 AM
To: Troy Klukewich
Cc: Kristen Eberlein; DITA Adoption TC
Subject: Re: [dita-adoption] Summary of new OASIS process Can I ask what the typical turnaround time is for one of these articles? I'm trying to better understand the timing concern. If someone can outline your current timeline, from initial conception of idea through approval and publication that would be extremely helpful for me. On Nov 11, 2010, at 9:06 AM, Troy Klukewich wrote:
I think we’re going to have to carefully evaluate who are audience is and where they hang out. The process following seems well designed for official documents relating to and speaking to OASIS members, or for wider public distribution of documents officially representing the OASIS standards charter. In terms of informal adoption documents, helping people get up to speed, as opposed to defining standards, I wonder if a public venue like dita.xml.org would be better, where anyone can join and contribute without a protracted review phase. I am very concerned that a protracted, complicated review phase with multiple votes and sign-offs is likely to curtail enthusiasm for writing helpful articles on a regular basis that are difficult enough to garner given our limited time and day jobs.
We could have a quicker, internal review as a “workgroup” within the Adoption TC, posting to dita.org. These would not be official standards documents representing the TC. Individual authorship could be noted.We might have a triage for those documents that are official, which follow the TC process outlined following, and those that are not official, which are posted outside the auspices of the TC. The downside I can see for unofficial documents is that they lose the “branding” of the Adoption TC, which I think is unfortunate, given that disseminating adoption information is the primary purpose of the TC (as opposed to coming up with standards). I do not know how to rectify branding, but perhaps this problem is better than curtailing article production. From: Kristen Eberlein [mailto:keberlein@sdl.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 11:25 PM
To: DITA Adoption TC
Subject: [dita-adoption] Summary of new OASIS process Here is a summary of how the new OASIS processes will affect our feature articles o We approve the work product as a “Committee note draft.” This requires a full majority vote of the TC. o We decide to submit a committee note draft for public review; this also requires a full majority vote of the TC. If approved by the TC, this draft becomes a “Committee Note Public Review Draft”; it must be accompanied by a “recommendation from the TC of external stakeholders who should be notified of the review.” § Link to the minutes for the Adoption TC meeting at which the TC approved the committee note draft and voted to request a review o Mary McRae announces the public review to the OASIS membership list and “optionally on other public mail lists.” o Non-TC Members post comments to the TC's public-comment list. [Do we have such as list?] We must acknowledge the receipt of each comment and track the comments received; at the end of the review period, we need to post a list of how each comment has been handled to our e-mail list. o If we make ANY changes to the committee note draft as a result of the public review, we need to start the whole process over. The review period this time is only 15 days. o After a public review that does not generates any comments that result in the changes to the committee note draft, we can approve the work product as a committee note. This requires a special majority vote of the TC. If the 15-day review generated any comments, this vote cannot be held before seven days have passed since the close of the public review. To conduct the special majority vote, we need to notify Mary McRae that the TC is ready to vote and provide her with the location of the editable versions of the files. She sets up and conducts the ballot. Kristen James Eberlein l DITA Architect and Technical Specialist l SDL Structured Content Technologies Division l (t) + 1 (919) 682-2290 l keberlein@sdl.com Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
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