It’s not the initial 30-day public review that concerns
me, but the fact that we’ll need to do additional 15-day reviews if we change
ANYTHING, even adding a comma or correcting a typographic mistake. This is very
cumbersome. I also am concerned with the amount of administrative work required.
I estimate that it will take us three months longer to publish each feature
article.
The DITA Adoption TC has published nine, high-quality feature
articles in the last 15 months – and rapidly revised them when necessary;
I do not think we will be able to continue to do this work as easily under the
new processes.
DITA Adoption TC members, I have requested that a member of the
Process Committee attend one of our upcoming meetings and explain to us the
thinking behind the new processes. I also have provided them with the following
high-level outline of how we expect the new processes to affect our work
processes:
“Here
is a summary of how the new process will affect the DITA Adoption Committee:
1. We discuss, draft, revise, and
generate consensus on a work product. This usually takes several TC meetings or
longer, depending on the complexity or nature of the subject. This is the
process that the TC has followed as it has produced 9 feature articles during
the past 15 months.
2. We register the work product at http://marypmcrae.com/wptemplate-request
.
3. We approve the work product as a
committee note draft. This requires a full majority vote of the TC.
4. We approve 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.”
5. We request that the committee note
draft be uploaded to OASIS: http://marypmcrae.com/cnd-creation-request
.
6. We request a 30-day public review from
Mary McRae: http://marypmcrae.com/30-day-cndpr-request
.
7. Mary McRae announces the public review
to the OASIS membership list and “optionally on other public mail
lists.”
8. Non-TC Members post comments to the
TC's public-comment 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
Step
#1 is our current process; all the other steps will add time and additional
administrative work for the TC. It is going to add a minimum of 30 days plus
any turnaround time from the TC administrator on each of the requests; realistically,
I think that we’ll also need one or two or more 15-day reviews. All of
this is in addition to the work that we currently do to discuss, draft, revise,
and generate consensus on a work product; our TC members are adamant that we do
not want to issue a committee note draft for public review before it has gone
through our current process.”
Stay posted …
Best
regards,
Kris
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
From: Mary McRae
[mailto:mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org]
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 10:34 AM
To: Troy Klukewich
Cc: Kristen Eberlein; DITA Adoption TC
Subject: Re: [dita-adoption] Summary of new OASIS process
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
Hi Troy,
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.
Thanks and best regards,
Mary
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.
Troy
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
Key
links:
OASIS
Technical Committee Process: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php
TC
Administration Requests: http://docs.oasis-open.org/templates/TCAdminRequests.html
Here
is a summary of how the new OASIS processes will
affect our feature articles
· Our feature articles will need to follow
the guidelines outlined in “Section 2.1.8 Work Product
Quality”:http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#specQuality . This means, among other items, that
we need to provide editable source, XHTML (or HTML), and PDF.
· Our feature articles (now called committee
notes) must follow the processes outlined in “Section 3 Approval
Process.”
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#standApprovProcess
Here is my understanding of how the new process will affect our work:
o We register the work product: http://marypmcrae.com/wptemplate-request
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.”
o We request a 30-day public review from Mary
McRae: http://marypmcrae.com/30-day-cndpr-request . This request form requires the
following information, among others:
§ URI for the committee note draft at http://docs.oasis-open.org/
§ 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.
It’s
not clear to me whether we’ll need to request that OASIS create and
upload the committee note draft for us; there is a form for this at http://marypmcrae.com/cnd-creation-request .
Best
regards,
Kris
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
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