Kibin's Quality Assurance Process for Edits
To ensure that Kibin is consistently meeting authors’ expectations, we’ve updated our quality assurance process. This process evaluates an editor’s work based on six elements Kibin users expect to be present (or addressed) in almost all documents, while also leaving room for the nuance that comes with the many different document types, subjects, and audiences we work with.
Wait! Have you read What is Comprehensive Editing at Kibin? It’s important to understand what’s expected to provide relevant context to the QA process.
Click here for a PDF of the evaluation sheet, which breaks down the following six elements:
Essential elements
1. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are resolved
2. Correct referencing and consistent formatting
3. Personalized feedback
Comprehensive editing elements
4. Edits for concision
5. Edits for fluency and word choice
6. Edits for logic, organization, and/or clarity
When evaluating your edits, a Kibin administrator will consider the above criteria along with the editing segment, doc type, audience, and the author’s original note (or specific complaint). It’s difficult to “standardize'' subjective elements that depend on the state of the draft as well as these other factors, which is why we use Yes/Sort of/No as our evaluation scale. “Sort of” provides a space for the gray areas of comprehensive editing. The sheet also includes a section for case-by-case concerns, such as the author’s specific requests, overediting, or an author complaint.
These factors inform the type of comprehensive attention a document will need from you. With that said, we encourage you to let your personality and style shine, because diversity in editing style is important. The goal of the evaluation sheet is to protect the quality of our work and the Kibin brand through guidelines that ensure customers receive the type of editing we advertise.
During a quality check, a Kibin admin will perform a detailed review of your edits and fill out the evaluation sheet accordingly. If an edit does not meet “Yes” expectations in all or most areas, the Community Manager or a CHC will reach out via email or Slack. They will inform you if the author was unhappy with the edit or if the quality check was random. You’ll receive a copy of the evaluation sheet, and you may receive a “QA version” of the edit that highlights remaining errors or points out areas that could have been edited further/differently to help you next time around. If there's still adequate time on the clock after submission, you may be asked to perform a second review to fix the remaining errors before it is returned to the client.
QA for new editors
When you first start as a Kibin editor, all of your edits are reviewed by the Community Manager, who will give feedback as needed to help you get your Kibin sea legs. Unless you’re leaving behind careless grammar errors, it’s typical to edit a few documents before receiving any feedback. The Community Manager and CHCs also perform random quality checks to ensure that editors are continuously doing great work.
Generally, new editors are moved to a “trusted” status if they demonstrate a good grasp of how to apply the editing elements in their first 10 or so edits. Note that your cash balance does not update automatically until your account is in a “trusted” status. The edit will show up on your history page as "pending review" until it is approved by the Community Manager, and then payment for the completed edit is added to your cash balance.
QA for trusted editors
Probationary measures may be implemented for “trusted” editors if administrators find patterns of repeated errors in documents or continued quality issues after providing feedback. Of course, we never want it to come to that, and we truly appreciate that you all give your best to our users by providing the quality they've come to expect from Kibin.