Online Standards Development

Tiller wheel on a ship

ISO+IEC have been working hard to develop, pilot, refine, document and now release a new system for developing standards collaboratively. 

"Online Standards Development" allows editors, expert contributors, reviewers, proofreaders, project managers, officers and the ISO Secretariat etc. to work on the same document at the same time as a globally-distributed/virtual team.

Over the years, I have found Google Docs valuable for collaborative online teamworking. I've developed numerous documents in conjunction with friends and colleagues from the ISO27k Forum and clients, but to be honest it's not entirely plain sailing. The page layout options are more limited in Docs than in Microsoft Word, and I miss other Word functions ... so I prefer to draft in Docs then finalise in Word. Furthermore, it can be hard to maintain editorial control over a document if everyone has full access, especially if they are strong-willed and determined to make specific points in certain ways. This may make things difficult for ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 WG 1, despite the intention of ISO's House Style to steer everyone towards a common objective in terms of the language.

I understand the OSD process is only for the early drafting stages as a standard is being developed or updated, leading into the traditional rounds of 'committee drafts' and voting to finalise and release it. It sounds as if OSD also assists with the document formatting aspects  

I hope OSD speeds up the process by surfacing issues and ideas early in a supportive environment, where contributors feed off each other's creative energy, generating a better product as a team than any of them would have done alone. I'm looking forward to it.


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