Ballot Download Options

Ballot Development

Ballot Development

Ballot Download Options

Introduction

Ballot Sections

Voting Procedures

Introduction

V2 Voting Procedures

V3 Voting Procedures

Future V3 Voting Procedures

Normative Balloting Policy

Introduction

Recommendation

Ballot Download Options

Introduction

The purpose of this section is to outline how the Ballot V3 will be distributed and identify any tasks or activities required to support this distribution.

It is assumed that V3 ballot will not be shipped on CD as this is not currently the case for V2 or previous V3 ballots. The ballot will be available for download from the HL7 website. Due to the anticipated size of the V3 ballot and the availability of extensive support material it is not reasonable to package the ballot and all supporting material as a single download as this would be prohibitively large.

Ballot Sections

The V3 Publication is organized based as documents linked to a common backbone, refer to diagram attached. The following table lists the downloadable sections:

Note: If a Specialty is downloaded, the parent Section must also be downloaded.

Due to the extensive linking between documents it is possible that the user will activate a hyperlink to a section that was not downloaded. If this should occur in the HLML rendition, a screen will appear indicating that the linked material was not downloaded and providing a hyperlink to the HL7 website where it may be downloaded if required. In the PDF rendition, there will also be hyperlinks between the documents, however, if one is activated, the user will be given an informational message indicating where the document may be downloaded. When printing the PDF format a blank page will print indicating the sections that have not been downloaded with an appropriate informational message.

If the user accesses the downloaded documentation and

Appropriate web page must be developed within the HL7 Website to support this download.

Voting Procedures

Introduction

The purpose of this section is to outline the voting procedures for V3 ballots and identify any tasks or activities required to support this procedure.

V2 Voting Procedures

The current V2 voting procedure is as follows:

1. HL7 announces opening of voting period (at least 30 days prior to vote period start)
2. Voter must register in the voter ballot pool.
3. Vote period starts and is open for 30 days.
4. Voter may download ballot documents from HL7 website
5. Voter may download voting MSWord template from HL7 website
6. Voter reviews ballot and documents votes and comments in MSWord template manually identifying the section to which the comment/vote applies and the severity of the vote/comment. Severity levels included:
7. Affirm - Query
8. Affirm – Comment
9. Affirm – Typo
10. Negative – Minor
11. Negative – Major
12. Organizational members may compile and combine MSWord vote/comments.
13. Voter submits vote with MSWord document to HL7 HQ website indicating voter identity and indicate an overall Affirm or Negative.

V3 Voting Procedures

In the first publication and committee balloting the basic procedure will remain the same.

Due to the large amount of supporting, reference, or previously balloted content that will be distributed with the V3 ballot it is necessary to indicate to the voter the sections that are available to be voted or commented upon.

The following symbols will be displayed beside each section of the V3 document indicating the status for balloting:

These symbols will not be included in the final published version of V3.

For the August 2001 committee ballot, the existing V2 procedure will be used. The voter will be expected to manually indicate the section and document to which the vote/comment applies. As with V2 HL7 will manually combine the votes/comments and distribute them to the technical committees responsible for their resolution.

Future V3 Voting Procedures

It is the intention that the voting may be automated for future ballots. The design will be for a ‘Vote’ button to be available when reviewing the ballot using the HTML form (not available in PDF form). When selected this button will prompt the user for their vote/comment and the severity level (from the existing V2 severity codes). The vote/comment will be stored in an XML based document on the local system and subsequent votes/comments will be appended to this one document. The user may manually edit and review the XML document as desired.

Once the ballot review is complete, the voter will submit the vote in the same manner as now using the HL7 website and indicating their identity and overall vote. Instead of submitting a MSWord document with the votes, the XML document will be submitted.

HL7 will develop tools to extract vote/comment from XML and distribute more efficiently to all interested parties.

The voter may continue to use the MSWord voting template and manual voting procedures if desired or if they only have access to the PDF format of the ballot.

Normative Balloting Policy

Introduction

The purpose of this section is to outline the Normative Balloting Policy for V3 ballots and identify any tasks or activities required to support this policy.

The format of the V3 publication as an HTML or PDF document and the structure of the links between separate documents raises questions that require a policy decision and verification by the HL7 Board.

1. Is it valid to combine both normative and informative content in a single ‘document’?
2. Is it valid to combine both normative and informative content in a single ballot?

The following decisions impact these decisions.

1. The V3 Publication is organized based on ‘documents’ linked to a common backbone. Refer to diagram attached.
2. As defined in the Ballot Download Options the ballot may be downloaded in its entirety, or in sections for each document.
3. The Voting Procedures outlines the icons that will be attached to each section of the V3 documents to indicate if the section is Reference Material, Normative, Informative or if it has been previously balloted.

Recommendation

The publications committee recommends that normative and informative content should be permitted to be combined in a single document and balloted in a single ballot. This will allow the content can be presented in a format that is logical to the user. The optimal use of the HLML format is to allow links to reference and previously balloted material that supports the normative and informative information being balloted.

By providing the ability for the voter to download sections of the ballot that are of interest and exclude sections that are not relevant allows the voter to exclude previously balloted or reference documents if desired.