International
Electrotechnical
Commission
Academia
The importance of teaching about standards
The WSC (World Standards Cooperation), which is a high-level group with representatives from the three world-leading standardization organizations IEC, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and ITU (International Telecommunication Union), is holding an Academic Day aimed at facilitating contact among academics, industrial leaders and experts and SDOs (Standards Development Organizations).
Industrial leaders often ignore the benefits of International Standards
It can be difficult to involve industrial leaders in international standardization activities. Many managers have little notion of the positive impact that participating in standards development can have. That’s why they often see the cost of experts participating in the standardization process as an expenditure, an unnecessary financial cost that can easily be cut.
Little training in business school curricula
One of the theories as to why leaders react in such a way is that during their business school education they rarely, if ever, received training or information on the subject. They are not familiar with business cases presenting the competitive advantages of standards development. As a result, they have generally no concept of the global business benefits of being involved in standardization activities right from the onset.
There are many advantages to participating in standardization, and academia is a key way for making this better known.
Central repository for academic institutions
The IEC and ISO maintain a repository of material destined for academic institutions. It provides them with suitable sources of documentation on the benefits of international standardization for teaching purposes and inclusion in course syllabuses.
WSC Academic Day 2011 in China
WSC representatives have organized an Academic Day during which they are to analyse needs and material in order to make better provision for university lecturers and those carrying out research in universities on standards development and so on. The 2011 Academic Day is to take place on 29 June in Hangzhou, China, under the banner, Cooperation between Standards Development Organizations and Academic Institutions.
ICES Workshop
The WSC Academic Day is being held in conjunction with the ICES Workshop (International Cooperation on Education about Standardization) on 28 - 29 June.
Register for the conference
Those who would like to attend this year's WSC Academic Day in China can refer to the dedicated website for further details. Or they can register directly by filling in the relevant details on: http://ices2011.cjlu.edu.cn/register.aspx.
The importance of teaching about standards.
China Jiliang University is the site for the 2011 Academic Day.
CJLU (China Jiliang University).
World Standards Cooperation
The WSC is a high-level group focusing on the common interests of its three member organizations, the IEC, ISO and ITU.
The primary goals of the WSC are:
- to strengthen and advance the voluntary consensus-based international standards system that its members represent, and
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to promote and increase the worldwide visibility of international standardization and related conformity assessment matters.
WSC members share information on their experience and develop policies and strategies to achieve these goals. The WSC also addresses such areas as promotion to academia, in particular engineering and management schools, and when needed it sets up ad hoc task forces with participation as required.
Each WSC member organization is represented by four of its current Officers. The chairmanship and secretariat rotate annually between the organizations.