Circular 3/94: Standards Working Group

1. The Jisc's Standards Working Group (SWG) is charged with the co-ordination and encouragement of sensible use and development of standards by the higher education community.  In order to facilitate this responsibility, a small budget has been made available to give limited support for academic involvement in standards effort.  In addition each sub- committee of Jisc has a responsibility for standards in its area of work.
2. The SWG has been set up to oversee standards work and identify gaps and/or duplication.  The group will be responsible for nominating individuals to sit on standards bodies and will award, in certain cases, limited support.  This support will be to cover reasonable travel and subsistence costs.  Payment for time will be made only in very exceptional circumstances.  Although the attached taxonomy only shows DISC standards groups, work in other standards bodies would be encouraged. The SWG have an interest in de facto standards bodies such as CCITT (ITU-T), IETF, and TEI and de jure bodies such as DISC and  ISO/IEC etc.
3. Academic involvement in standards has grown over the years in a somewhat ad hoc manner. There is no overall clear picture of who is involved and what the areas of interest are.  As a first step to the understanding of the situation it would be appreciated if you would pass on the attached short questionnaire to any individuals you know who are presently, or propose to be engaged in standards activities.  More detailed information will be required from individuals requesting financial support for their activities.  It is then proposed to "publish" a concise list of all individuals involved so that the HE community is aware of areas of involvement in standards work.
4. Please can this circular be copied to all those within your institution who are active or would like to become active in standards
   work.  The main Jisc sub-committees involved in networking, information services and new technologies have co-ordinators who will play a main role in their specific areas and should act as a primary contact. However, in this case, can all completed questionnaires be marked for the attention of Caroline Bardrick in the Jisc Secretariat.

   Thank you for your co-operation in this matter.

   Yours sincerely

   Dr Malcolm Read
   Secretary to the Jisc