Re: Online document reviews

Subject: Re: Online document reviews
From: Nancy McDonald <nmcdonald -at- OTECH -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 14:51:56 -0400

John Madsen wrote:
>
> Does anyone know of any research on, or have any experience with,
> the effectiveness of conducting document reviews online rather than on
> paper for large (250+ pages) paper technical manuals?
>
> Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
>
> John Madsen
> Medtronic, Inc.

John, I've been writing here in Columbus and emailing my docs to my
reviewer 70 miles away in Dayton. We both use Word, I write, email an
attachment to him, he reviews it in the "revision" mode in Word, and
emails it back to me... . In my quest for control, I keep the two
versions separate... "clean out" my version after determining his
edits. Sometimes I do that with both docs open and "split" or sometimes
I print out his revisions and ponder through and rework my version.
Theoretically speaking, I could just work from his version, but would
rather not, mainly because -- yea, I guess they're control issues... But
other than that printout for reading purposes, the only "paper" version
is when it's ready for the deliverables. Frankly, it's great. Don't have
to sit down together and get snippy with each other, or defensive, etc.
And sometimes we talk on the phone to clarify certain items, or else I
dash off to Dayton once a week or so to update tasks, etc. But we don't
exchange paper to each other, even though the eventual product(s) will
be paper (among other things, like robohelp).
Hope this helps,

Nancy McDonald,
contract writer for Optimum Technology
Columbus, OH

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