DocReview was created to overcome the shortcomings of programs for reviewing documents. The principal shortcoming was lack of a universal platform; the advent of the WWW solved that problem. The program looks just like any WWW document to the reviewer, thus there is no learning required. DocReview is simple by design, universal and effective in the hands of any reviewer who cares to spend a few seconds reading the instructions.
Easy-to-use DocReview programs allow an editor to place any document on the WWW for review. The editor only needs to fill out a form to mount the document. The editor must do a small amount of preparatory work. The documents must first be converted to HTML, then the editor may add some special instructions, select a few options, and assign some titles and directory names. Reviews that have served their purpose may be deleted, or they may be archived. Offensive comments may be deleted by the facilitator. Archived DocReviews are read-only, and are just as accessible as the original DocReview. The document review may be conducted in a passworded directory for confidentiality, or the review can be public, with writing by password only.
Users have access to several "Special Features." They may use the "What's New" feature to review all commenting activity for a particular DocReview, or for the entire set of DocReviews on the web site. There is a summary of all comments on each DocReview. There is a report format that places all comments in-line in the base document. The base document may be viewed without header, footer, or DocReview segment tags. Those that wish to be notified by e-mail of comments made on a review may add or remove themselves from a notification list.
Documentation includes an Editor's Guide, and additional User Information.
The programs are free for personal non-commercial and educational use. To install DocReview on your server, you need to mount a few cgi scripts and several small html pages. Your server must have the perl interpreter installed. Memory requirements are small, both for the program (260Kbytes) and for the documents to be reviewed (typically less than a fifth the size of an equivalent Word document). UNIX commands pervade the cgi scripts, so Windows servers will not work without some minor reprogramming of the scripts.
You may download the files and installation instructions.
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 2002, 2003 Charlie Hendricksen All Rights Reserved. This product may be freely distributed for personal non-commercial use and educational purposes, provided this copyright notice remains intact. Commercial use by arrangement. August 31, 1997