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Responding to Review Comments from Subject Matter Experts

One of your responsibilities in the review process is responding to the review comments. Of course, you need to formally respond to the review comments. But before you can do that, you first need to personally respond. The next section suggests how to do that, the section that follows that one suggests how to formally respond.

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Personally Responding to Review Comments

"Vague. " "WRONG!!!!!" "It doesn’t work like this."

One of the most challenging aspects of a course developer’s job is receiving comments on your work. Some comments might not make you feel good about our work. Other comments might not make you feel badly, but also don’t help you do a better job. Responding to such comments with dignity and grace is one of the true tests of professionalism for any course developer.

But how do you do that? How can you respond to vague and derogatory comments with dignity and grace? Consider the following suggestions.

• Whenever possible, schedule comments to arrive on a Monday or Tuesday. By receiving comments on a Monday or Tuesday, you can immediately begin work on correcting them instead of brooding about them all weekend long.
• Wait 1 business day before responding to any comments. At the least, the extra day gives you an opportunity to calm down. At the most, the extra time gives you chance to plot an alternate course of action.
• Try to understand where reviews are coming from. Sometimes, in the haste of reviewing, reviewers make comments without thinking about what they are saying. In some cases, they are unintentionally abrupt. In other cases, they write only part of what they are actually thinking and you might be arriving at conclusions based on incomplete data.
• Speak to the reviewer. Rather than avoid the situation, face it head on - and with an open mind.
• When responding to vague comments, first tell the reviewer that you need some clarification on the comment. As best as possible, explain what you do not understand.
• When responding to derogatory comments, first ask the reviewer to clarify the meaning.

These approaches open a dialogue without creating a confrontation and, in the process, forge a stronger relationship with the reviewer. Through dialogues like this, other course developers have often found value in the comments and reviewers better appreciate the work of course developers.

Another annoyance is comments that focus on matters of presentation, grammar and style. Some course developers respond in a huff, "That’s not the reviewer’s job." To some extent, they're correct. But in some cases, the editorial suggestions are good ones; the source is irrelevant.

In other cases, reviewers provide editorial feedback because they don’t how to give technical comments. By deftly handling this situation, you can coach the reviewer. For example, if nearly all of the comments focus on grammar and style, you might follow up with a reviewer by: (1) thanking the reviewer for the comments, (2) noting the comments are primarily editorial in nature. (3) asking the reviewer if they had any overall impressions of the technical content. The last question usually elicits specific comments. When you receive them, you can suggest that the reviewer provide such comments on future drafts.

Admittedly, this section has primarily focused on negative feedback from reviewers. Those types of comments seem to command our attention.

But rest assured that reviewers often have positive comments to share, too, like "Great job." "Excellent work." and an old favorite, "This is the best user’s guide we’ve ever seen!"

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Formally Responding to Review Comments

After technical reviewers complete their work, they return comments to you. Because they have invested time and effort in the draft, technical reviewers usually want to know whether you intend to incorporate their suggestions or not. As the course developer, the ultimate decision about how to handle a comment is usually yours.

Some comments might raise issues that are beyond your scope to address, but need to be resolved before you can determine how to respond. For example, a reviewer might note that a certain aspect of the content is in flux. Although you cannot resolve that issue, it must be resolved for you to proceed with your work.

The following suggests how you might approach comments from technical reviews. The comments also apply to other types of reviews, especially editorial comments and usability tests.

1. Read through all of the comments, one set at a time. For each comment, determine what you intend to do:
• Incorporate as suggested
• Incorporate, but using your own words
• Not use
• Ask for additional information (perhaps the comment is clear)
2. Prepare a response to each technical reviewer. You might respond to reviewers in one of these ways:
• By writing responses on the draft. Mark the comments you intend to incorporate with a check mark (ü) and comments you do not intend to incorporate with the word no and a brief explanation (one or two words). Indicate questions with a question mark and schedule a follow-up conversation with the reviewer to get answers.
• By conducting a review meeting. The meeting can be informal (just you and reviewer) or formal (all of the reviewers attend, a formal moderator leads the proceedings). At the review meeting, participants identify major concerns and attempt to resolve them, such as comments that conflict with one another. Do not use this time to discuss corrections that can be made with the change of a sentence or two. See "How to Conduct a Review Meeting" for tips on conducting review meetings.
As protection against possible liability, ask reviewers to sign a statement of accuracy after they have reviewed the draft, saying that they validate the quality of the technical information.

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