Version Control
Ensure that your group has an acceptable way to manage version control. Google Docs’ revision history feature is a built-in version control tool that helps reduce the number of separate drafts to manage. When I use Google Docs to write and edit publications collaboratively, I create a new document at the following moments:
- After internal review
- Before community review
- Before copyedit
- During design (there may be several drafts created here)
- After design – this is the copy that gets deposited
Further steps may be required to clearly communicate active and deprecated versions; for example, creating a new folder for each round of review and/or using a file naming convention that makes the draft sequence clear.
