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Procedures for handling public review comments go into effect Friday, 15 February 2013

After several rounds of discussion, the procedure for handling comments received during public reviews is finished and ready to put into effect. Please review the information linked to this message. As of this Friday, 15 February 2013, TCs will be expected to follow this procedure when acknowledging, tracking and reporting comments they receive during public reviews and their decisions on how to dispose of them.

Please note: this procedure does not create any new rules in the OASIS Process. It simply provides a uniform, consistent approach to how the existing rules are to be satisfied. In a nutshell:

– Someone on the TC must send a reply to the commenter acknowledging receipt of their comment;

– The TC must record and track, at a minimum, the date received, the link to the email, the name of the commenter, a short summary of the comment and a statement of the TC’s decision on how to handle it. The TC can do this in whatever way the members choose;

– Before the next action taken on the work product (e.g. the next public review), the TC must create a stand-alone document — a comment resolution log – and load it to the TC’s document repository. The loading will send an email to the TC mailing list with a pointer to the document, satisfying that specific requirement;

– When requesting the next action on the work product, the pointer will have to be provided to TC Admin in the support request form. (For now, please provide it in the Notes field.)

The complete narrative of the procedure is available on the TC Administration home page at [1]. A shorter form with just the key information – what you need to do and when – is in the checklist outline available at [2]. These should give you all the information you need to follow the procedure.

Please let us know if you have any questions on this. Having a uniform, published process for satisfying the TC Process requirements will help avoid friction and frustration as more TCs bring their working drafts through the OASIS workflow.

=== Additional information

[1] “Handling the comments received during a public review,” OASIS TC Administration How-to Guide. https://www.oasis-open.org/resources/tcadmin/handling-the-comments-received-during-a-public-review

[2] “Technical Committee Comment Handling Checklist,” OpenDocument format. https://www.oasis-open.org/sites/www.oasis-open.org/files/TC-comment-handling-checklist-wd01.ods

“Technical Committee Comment Handling Checklist,” Office format. https://www.oasis-open.org/sites/www.oasis-open.org/files/TC-comment-handling-checklist-wd01.xls