- Official review periods shall begin only after a formal request is received from the
sponsoring subcommittee or working group. A formal request must be in writing and
signed by the Chair.
- Sponsoring subcommittees and working groups shall provide the SWG advance notice of
the intent to submit a formal review request and the target date of that submission when
known. Advance notice will be used to issue a call for reviewers so that a review
subgroup can be put in place ahead of time. This will save time and also allows
reviewers time to adjust their schedules.
- A review subgroup shall be formed for each proposed standard submitted for review.
Ideally, 5-9 individuals that represent various segments of the FGDC will be selected.
Each subgroup shall have a designated lead from within the SWG. The SWG Executive
Secretary will act as lead whenever possible.
- The lead for the established review subgroup shall initiate the discussions, organize all
meetings, summarize comments, and report to the SWG the recommendations of the
subgroup. The SWG Executive Secretary may not be able to provide this support as lead
for all standards reviews. Other persons acting as lead must make a committment to
follow through on the above tasks.
- Subject to the size and complexity of a proposed standard, review subgroups will have
about 4 weeks from the time the subgroup is formed to review the standard. A definite
deadline for review shall be established by the Chair of the SWG for each standard
submitted, and in no case shall the review period exceed 12 weeks. Review periods of
two weeks shall be allowed for standards proposals.
- Reviewers shall use the SWG check list when reviewing proposals and standards.
Review comments shall be posted in that format.
- Reviewers shall post their comments to all SWG members using the SWG reflector
address. Any comments not posted to the reflector shall be considered "not substantive"
and may not be considered in the approval process.
- The executive secretary shall maintain a log of all SWG reflector traffic for each review.