Requirements for external editors of SNOMED CT International Release

The policy is reasonable in principle, but may require more formal details in some sections. For the Exceptions, should SI confirm with a test that all Knowledge, Skill and Ability are met? In the SNOMED Educational Requirements, it seems that all listed courses are mandatory. Would it make sense to consider two level types of external authors? Perhaps this could help in achieving simple requests vs more complex requests... In the Approval process, it is not clear if the external author will be asked to develop the documentation or will follow it. The later may require more skills, experience and efforts. In the SI role, I don't see the establishment of a formal process to ensure external authors are aligned to internal authors processes. I would have expected some KPIs as well. Thank you for the review opportunity! 

JTC Reply;  For authoring in the Internaitonal release, we had not considered two levels of KPIs.  As the impact of authoring in the international release is global, we feel that having the more extensive requirements is necessary to 1) insure high quality editing and 2) reduce the burden of extensive review by internal SNOMED International staff.  We would be interested int he areas of the proposal that you feel need more detail. As for confirmation that the SKAs are met, it is challenging to develop a "real-world" test other than what is currently done in the AL1 and AL2 courses.  As all editing will be reviewed by internal staff, the SKAs of external editors will be demonstrated as their assigned projects are undertaken.  As to the documentation necessary for external authors to follow, in some cases these project plans will have been developed by SNOMED staff; in oters, if the project originates from a member country with an apprived editior, thent he docuemntation would be the responsibility of the external author and approved by SNOMED staff prior to the beginning of the project.

This seems like a practical approach to enhance the authoring capability of SNOMED, however it is not clear to me, if these resources will be working on behalf of their own country and have a requirement to author new content that is Internationally applicable or are they authoring for SI, is the work allocated at SI level? Otherwise it seems like a good plan. Thanks for opportunity to give feedback on this.

JTC reply: It is the intention of this approach to facilitate the addition of content from member countries by having an approved external author representing that country perform content changes in the international release; however, in cases where the external author would like to assist in the improvement of SNOMED International content outside of country-based content requests, this would be welcomed.