Public Comment Process

This article is a component of the Technical Framework Publication Process.

All IHE Technical Framework supplements and white papers are published for public comment to ensure stakeholder representation, transparency and quality review. This is a chance for both regular participants in IHE Activities and those who don't have the time to dedicate to regular participation to contribute thoughts on proposed specifications before they are formally released.

Public comment should be considered the prelude to publication. A committee should be largely satisfied with the contents of a document before it is sent out for Public Comment.

The typical steps are shown below. The entity responsible for each step needs to make sure it happens, but they may do so by delegating the action.

Period: 30 days (minimum)

• Approve document for public comment (Domain Technical Committee)
• Notify Domain Coordination Committee document is going out for public comment (Domain TC Cochair)
• Place PC draft of document to be published at ftp.ihe.net/DocumentPublication/CommitteeSubmitted/<Domain> (Domain TC Cochair/Author)
• Notify Documentation Specialist document is avaialbe for publication (Domain TC Cochair/Author)

• Prepare PC draft of document (Editor)
  • Move PC draft of document to ftp.ihe.net/DocumentPublication/Archive/<Domain>/<Year>/CommitteeSubmitted (Documentation Specialist)
  • Turn on line numbers
  • Prepare PDF (to steer people away from inline comments and towards comment form)
• Notify Domain Secretariat by email that document is ready (Editor)
• Post PC draft of document on www.ihe.net Public Comment Page (Domain Secretariat)
• Announce PC to IHE News (Domain Secretariat)
  • Public Comment Announcement Template
  • detail location of document to be reviewed, deadline for comment submission, method of comment submission
  • provide a link to the Public Comment Form
• (Optional) Announce PC to associated stakeholder organizations (Domain TC Cochairs)

• Submit comments to secretariat (Commenters)
  • please use the provided comment form, it saves the editor having to transcribe your comments
  • rank each comment
    • H: Important issue where there is major issue to be resolved; requires discussion and debate.
    • M: Medium issue or clarification. Requires discussion, but should not lead to long debate.
    • L: Typo or other minor classification that an editor can manage; requires no group discussion.
• Collate all comments into a spreadsheet (Secretariat/Editor)
  • sort by line number and priority (Low/Med/High)
• Resolve comments with priority Low (Editor)
  • if any Low comments prove problematic, elevate to Med
• Distribute comment spreadsheet and updated draft with Low resolutions to Technical Committee (Editor)
• Review Med & High comments (Technical Committee)
  • walk through document
  • each comment may be:
    • accepted = proposed text accepted as is
    • rejected = committee does not agree with issue (document reason, e.g. out of scope, )
    • resolved = issue accepted but resolved differently than proposed
• Record resolution in comment spreadsheet (Editor)
• Update document to reflect resolutions (Editor)

• Post comment spreadsheet (either to ftp.ihe.net or to Google Docs) (Editor)
• Link spreadsheet to the Public Comment Resolutions wiki page for the domain (Editor)

See Also

Public Instructions for Public Comments