|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The nameThe organization is usually referred to simply as "ISO" (IPA pronunciation in English: [ˈaɪsəʊ]). It is a common misconception that ISO stands for "International Standards Organization", or something similar. ISO can be mistaken for an acronym only in English (acronyms do not have to respect letter order); however, its origin is from the Greek word ἴσος (isos), meaning "equal". In English, the organization’s long-form name is "International Organization for Standardization", while in French it is called "Organisation internationale de normalisation." These initials would result in different acronyms in different languages, e.g., English (IOS) and French (OIN); thus the founders of the organization chose "ISO" as the universal short form of its name, which in and of itself reflects the aims of the organization - to equalize or standardize across cultures.[1] International Standards, and other publicationsISO's main products are the International Standards, but the ISO also creates Technical Reports, Technical Specifications, Publicly Available Specifications, Technical Corrigenda, and Guides.[2] International Standards are numbered, and have a format that contains "ISO[/IEC][/ASTM] [IS] nnnnn[:yyyy] Title" where "nnnnn" is the standard number, "yyyy" is the year published, and "Title" describes the subject. "IEC" will only be included if the standard results from the work of JTC1 (the "Joint Technical Committee"; see below). "ASTM" is included for standards developed in cooperation with ASTM International. The date and "IS" will always be left off an incomplete or unpublished standard, and may (under certain circumstances) be left off the title of the published work.
Technical Specifications are sometimes produced when "the subject in question is still under development or where for any other reason there is the future but not immediate possibility of an agreement to publish an International Standard". Publicly Available Specifications may be "an intermediate specification, published prior to the development of a full International Standard, or, in IEC may be a 'dual logo' publication published in collaboration with an external organization". Both are named by convention similar to Technical Reports, for example:
ISO will on rare occasions issue a Technical Corrigendum. These are amendments to existing standards because of minor technical flaws, improvements to usability or to extend applicability in a limited way. Generally, these are issued with the expectation that the affected standard will be updated or withdrawn at its next scheduled review. ISO Guides are meta-standards covering "matters related to international standardization". They are named in the format "ISO[/IEC] Guide N:yyyy: Title", for example:
ISO document copyrightISO documents are copyrighted and ISO charges for copies of most. ISO does not, however, charge for most draft copies of documents in electronic format. Although useful, care must be taken using these drafts as there is the possibility of substantial change before it becomes finalized as a standard. Some ISO standards are made freely available. For examples, see Freely Available Standards and Free Standards2 MembersImage:ISO members.png A map of standards bodies who are ISO members Key: members correspondent members subscriber members other places with an ISO 3166-1 code who aren't members of ISO There are 158 national members, out of the 198 total countries in the world. ISO has three membership categories:
Problems during the 1990sDuring the 1990s, ISO gained a reputation for being slow, bureaucratic, congested, and insensitive to feedback from both vendors and their customers. One problematic project was the enormous Open Systems Interconnection project, which attempted the development of one single computer networking standard, but was finally shut down in 1996 after becoming mired in interoperability problems and bickering between vendors. Attention then turned to the volunteer-based, open-process and non-profit Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which develops the standards necessary for the Internet to function. When IETF turned out to be too slow, vendors began funding more focused, agile consortia like the W3C, another open, non-profit organization headed by the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. Since then, ISO has undertaken modest reforms to decrease the time required to promulgate new standards. ISO International Standards are not in any way binding on either governments or industry merely by virtue of being International Standards. This is to allow for situations where certain types of standards may conflict with social, cultural or legislative expectations and requirements. This also reflects the fact that national and international experts responsible for creating these standards do not always agree and not all proposals become standards by unanimous vote. The individual nations and their standards bodies remain the final arbiters. Products named after ISOStill, the fact that many of the ISO-created standards are ubiquitous has led, on occasion, to common usage of "ISO" to describe the actual product that conforms to a standard. Some examples of this are:
ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1To deal with the consequences of substantial overlap in areas of standardization and work related to information technology, ISO and IEC formed a Joint Technical Committee known as the ISO/IEC JTC1. It was the first such committee, and to date remains the only one. Its official mandate is: Develop, maintain, promote and facilitate IT standards required by global markets meeting business and user requirements concerning:
There are currently 18 sub-committees:
Membership in ISO/IEC 17799 JTC is restricted in much the same way as membership in either of the two parent organizations. A member can be either participating (p) or observing (O) and the difference is mainly the ability to vote on proposed standards and other products. There is no requirement for any member body to maintain either (or any) status on all of the sub-committees. Although rare, sub-committees can be created to deal with new situations (SC 37 was approved in 2002) or disbanded if the area of work is no longer relevant. See also
References
|
Sites |
Searched sites for "International Organization for Standardization" |
|
No sites found. |
Sorry, no matching site records were found. |
Want your site listed here?
|
||||||||||||||
