Draft supplier comparison table — submissions
The 14 submissions received, published in full with declared interests and secretariat responses.
§2Submissions and responses
14 submissions were received. Each is published in full below with its declared interest, the secretariat response and the disposition. The Institute publishes submissions it did not accept in the same form as those it did.
A printed copy loses the information that makes it checkable
This is a submission on supplier comparison table, from a respondent who reads these documents on paper.
The respondent states that printing a document produces pages without the identifier, the version or the retrieval date, so that a printed copy cannot be tied back to what it was printed from.
The respondent proposes that these be printed in a fixed position on every page.
The secretariat accepts this submission. A printed assessment circulates for longer than the browser tab it came from.
The print stylesheet now carries the identifier, version, publication date and retrieval date on every page, expands link destinations into the text, and prints the full reference list rather than a link to it.
A withdrawn document should not simply disappear
The respondent notes that supplier comparison table will govern a great many documents, and submits accordingly.
The respondent states that a reader arriving from an external citation at a withdrawn document needs to know that it existed, that it was withdrawn and why, and that a redirect to an index gives none of that.
The respondent proposes a notice at the original address.
The secretariat accepts this submission. A silent removal makes the citation that led there unresolvable.
A withdrawn document is now replaced at its own address by a notice recording its identifier, its title, the date and ground of withdrawal, and a link to whatever supersedes it, and the withdrawal is recorded in the corrections log.
A printed copy loses the document identifier
The respondent’s comment on supplier comparison table arises from consulting the series for reference rather than writing for it.
A page printed and circulated arrives without the identifier, the version or the date, so a recipient cannot tell whether it is current or find it again.
The respondent proposes that the print stylesheet carry all three in a footer on every page.
The secretariat accepts this submission.
The print stylesheet now carries the document identifier, the version, the publication date and the address in a footer on every printed page.
The citation format offered cites the document and not the part
This submission concerns the draft of supplier comparison table. The respondent’s interest is in retrieval: whether a document can be found again, and cited, after it has been superseded.
A reader citing a specific section is given a citation for the whole document, so a citation cannot be checked without reading the whole of it.
The respondent proposes that the citation block offer a part-level citation carrying the section number.
The secretariat accepts this submission.
The citation block now offers a part-level citation carrying the section number and the part identifier alongside the document-level one.
Indications for which compounds are supplied are absent from the set
This submission addresses supplier comparison table from the standpoint of a reader arriving from a search engine rather than from the front page.
The respondent states that the indication set is drawn from approved and investigated uses, and that several uses for which compounds are widely supplied have no entry, so no document can address them.
The respondent proposes that such uses be added as indications with no anchor outcome and an explicit statement of the evidence position.
The secretariat accepts this submission. An indication set that omits the uses a reader is most likely to encounter cannot serve that reader.
Uses observed in supply are now included in the indication set, marked as having no approved status and no anchor outcome, and each carries an explicit statement that no trial evidence was identified where that is the case.
The front matter delays the reader from reaching the assessment
The respondent has read supplier comparison table in draft and makes one submission.
The respondent states that a reader must pass through identifiers, dates, contributor lists and declarations before reaching any content, and that the most important sentence in the document is the furthest from the top.
The respondent proposes that the front matter be moved to the end.
The respondent supports submission 004 so far as it goes and adds the matter set out here.
The secretariat accepts this submission in part. The assessment statement is moved to the top. The front matter is not moved to the end, because it is what allows the assessment to be checked and a document whose provenance is at the bottom will be quoted without it.
Every document now opens with its assessment statement and its certainty rating, with the identifiers, dates and declarations following immediately beneath rather than above, so that the first thing read is the finding and the second is its provenance.
A multi-part document does not indicate how many parts it has
The respondent has read supplier comparison table and submits on a matter of presentation.
The respondent states that a reader landing on part two of a document from a search result has no indication that parts one and three exist.
The respondent proposes a parts index on every part.
The secretariat notes this submission. Every part already carries the full parts list in the margin, which the respondent may not have seen at a narrow viewport where the margin is collapsed.
No amendment to structure arises. The parts list is now rendered above the body rather than collapsed at narrow viewports, so that it is visible in the setting where the respondent found it absent.
A wide table is unusable on a telephone
The draft of supplier comparison table was read from the standpoint of someone who will navigate the series rather than write for it.
Several tables in the series carry more columns than a narrow screen can show, and the reader loses the row heading on scrolling, so a number cannot be attributed to a row.
The respondent proposes that tables be restructured for narrow screens.
The secretariat accepts the diagnosis and adopts a different remedy.
Wide tables scroll within their own container and the first column is held in place, so a value keeps its row heading. Restructuring by screen width was rejected because two readers would then be citing different tables.
Declared interests should appear on the document rather than on a separate page
The respondent submits on supplier comparison table. A document series is a set of promises about where things will be found, and this submission concerns one of them.
The draft links to a central conflicts register. The respondent argues that a reader assessing whether to rely on a particular document should not have to leave it to find out who assessed it and what they declared.
The respondent proposes that the interests of every named contributor to a document be printed on that document.
The secretariat notes this submission and records that the draft already provides for it, which the respondent could reasonably have missed because the provision sits in an appendix.
Every document carries the declared interests of its named contributors in its front matter, and the central register exists so that a reader can see a person across all documents rather than one at a time. No amendment arises; the provision has been moved from the appendix into the body of the methodology document so that it is findable.
Point estimates are given without an interval
Having read the draft of supplier comparison table, the respondent puts one point to the secretariat.
Several estimates in the draft appear as single figures. The respondent states that a point estimate without an interval invites a precision the underlying data do not support, and that the effect is worst where the estimate is drawn from a small contributing set.
The respondent proposes that no point estimate appear anywhere in the document set without its interval, including in summary tables and in the abstract.
The secretariat accepts this submission in part. Intervals are added wherever the source reports one. The proposal is declined for figures the source published without an interval, because the Institute will not compute an interval a source did not report.
Every estimate now carries its interval where the source reported one, and where it did not, the estimate is annotated as reported without an interval rather than left to appear as a precise figure.
The identifier encodes the document type, which is a property that can change
This submission concerns supplier comparison table and a convention used across the Institute’s output.
An identifier containing a type segment will have to change if a document moves between series, and an identifier that changes is not an identifier.
The respondent proposes that the type segment be dropped or that a commitment be published never to change one.
The secretariat accepts the second limb.
The identifier is retained in its present form and a standing commitment is published that no identifier will be reassigned. A document that moves between series keeps the identifier it was issued with, and the type segment is documented as historical rather than descriptive.
The same quantity is rounded differently in two parts of one document
This is a submission on supplier comparison table.
A figure appears to one decimal place in the results table and to none in the summary, and in one case the rounding changes which of two values is larger.
The respondent proposes a single rounding convention applied at the point the quantity is computed rather than at each point it is displayed.
The secretariat accepts this submission.
Quantities are now rounded once, at computation, and displayed identically wherever they appear. The convention is stated in the series description.
A field the Institute could not verify should be shown rather than omitted
The respondent read supplier comparison table in draft and has confined this submission to a single provision.
The respondent states that omitting an unverifiable field leaves a reader unable to distinguish between a fact that does not exist, a fact the Institute did not seek and a fact it sought and could not confirm.
The respondent proposes that unverified fields be displayed with their status.
The secretariat accepts this submission. Three different situations were being rendered identically as blank space.
Every field now carries one of four states, being verified, claimed and unverified, sought and not established, or not applicable, and the state is displayed rather than inferred from an empty cell.
The default ordering of a comparison table carries an implication
The respondent submits on supplier comparison table. The point would apply equally to any document in the series.
The respondent states that whatever column a table is sorted on by default will be read as the column that matters, and that the draft sorts on a score.
The respondent proposes an alphabetical default.
Submission 013 raises an adjacent matter. The respondent regards the two as separable and addresses only this one.
The secretariat accepts this submission. A default is a claim whether or not it is intended as one.
The default ordering is now alphabetical, a standing statement above every comparison table records that the ordering is not a ranking, and the sort state is reset on reload so that a shared link does not carry an ordering the sender chose.
References cited on this page
References are numbered in order of first citation in this document. Each superscript in the text links to its entry below.
- International Organization for Standardization. ISO/IEC 17025:2017 General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories. ISO/IEC Standard 2017;3rd edition. identifier not held by the Institute
Identifiers are reproduced only where the Institute holds them. Where a digital object identifier or PubMed identifier is not shown, the Institute has recorded the journal and year and has not constructed an identifier.