Standardization through the European Committee for Standardization Thomas Fischer SUB
Topics What is CEN? How does CEN work? Examples of recent activities What does this mean for CASHMERE-Int? 2
What is CEN? CEN stands for Comité Européen de Normalisation European Committee for Standardization Europäisches Komitee für Normung CEN s office is in Brussels. The website is at http://www.cenorm.be/. 3
Self description: CEN, the European Committee for Standardization, was founded in 1961 by the national standards bodies in the European Economic Community and EFTA countries. Now CEN is contributing to the objectives of the European Union and European Economic Area with voluntary (emphasis ThF) technical standards which promote free trade, the safety of workers and consumers, interoperability of networks, environmental protection, exploitation of research and development programmes, and public procurement. 4
CEN Is made up of a system to carry out formal processes shared between: 28 National Members and the representative expertise they assemble from each country 8 Associates; 2 Counsellors (EC, EFTA) The CEN Management Centre based in Brusssels 5
Partners common work with CENELEC and ETSI over 300 trade and professional bodies in liaison with technical committees organizations providing first drafts: -Aerospace industries (AECMA, ECSS) -European Committee for Iron and Steel Standardization (ECISS) CENELEC:European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute 6
and also Affiliates (from Central and Eastern Europe, intending to become full National Members) Partner Standardization Bodies (national standards bodies outside Europe which are interested in adopting European Standards) 7
CEN works like this: (quote) openness and transparency: all interested stakeholders may take part in the work; representation is secured primarily through the national standards bodies which send balanced delegations to the policy-making bodies and technical committees. Depending on specific terms of reference, the committees are also open to Associate Members, Counsellors, European trade federations and international organizations; consensus: standards are developed on the basis of voluntary agreement between all parties; 8
Continued: National commitment and technical coherence: formal adoption of European Standards is decided by a weighted majority vote of the CEN National Members and is binding on all of them. They must implement the standards at national level and withdraw conflicting standards; Integration with other international work: standardization is expensive and time-consuming. Wherever possible CEN works with other European bodies and international bodies. 9
Key values (1) consensus in drafting voluntary application transparency of work programme independence of committees from any single interest group publicly available drafts and standards 10
Key values (2) performance rather than prescriptive orientated; verifiable criteria for compliance state of the art five-yearly review 11
Types of document European Standard EN Technical Specification CEN/TS Technical Report CEN/TR CEN Workshop Agreement CWA CEN Guide 12
How it works (1) 1. European Standards Industrial and social needs Request Decision Technical Board 13
How it works (2) Use existing document (e.g. ISO) OR Work with ISO (Vienna Agreement) OR Set up new Technical Committee Public enquiry Formal vote National implementation 14
Examples of European Standards EN 13444-1:2001 Document title Electrically propelled road vehicles - Measurement of emissions of hybrid vehicles - Part 1: Thermal electric hybrid vehicles EN 12240:1997 Document title Touch and close fasteners - Determination of the overall and effective widths of tapes and the effective width of a closure 15
ISSS: Information Society Standardization System CEN/ISSS provides market players with a comprehensive and integrated range of standardization services and products, in order to contribute to the success of the Information Society in Europe. CEN/ISSS was created in mid-1997 by CEN (European Committee for Standardization) as the focus for its ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) activities. 16
Committees and Workshops In addition to formal CEN Technical Committees, CEN/ISSS providesa less formal environment through CEN/ISSS Workshops. These offer the opportunity for direct participation in the standardization process. They are ongoing working groups that are open to all interested parties, including vendors, service providers, regulators, users and consumer groups. 17
Examples of Committees: CEN/TC 224 Machine readable cards, related device interfaces and operations CEN/TC 225 Bar coding CEN/TC 278 Road transport and traffictelematics CEN/TC 287 Geographic Information 18
How it works (3) 2. Workshop agreements Drafting of a business plan describing the scope, objectives, financing and schedule Kick-off meeting confirming the business plan, rules of the workshop, chairmanship and secretariat 19
How it works (4) Adoption of the documents through consensus, working preferably through the internet CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) Published by CEN National Members Workshop closed 20
Examples of Workshops ebusinessand ecommerce ebes(ebxml) Workshop ecataloguing/classification Workshop einvoicingworkshop eprocurement Workshop elearning ICT-Skills Workshop Learning Technologies Workshop Applying Technologies J-XFS Workshop XFS Workshop Meta-Data (Dublin Core) Workshop 21
Some Members of MMI-DC WS Palle Aagard Leif Andresen (secretary) Anne Apps Tom Baker Robina Clayphan (chair) Makx Dekkers Erik Duval Rachel Heery Pete Johnston Luc Van den Berghe(Workshop Manager) 22
CWAs of the current MMI-DC WS 1. General Guidance for Dublin Core Guidance information for the deployment of Dublin Core metadata: ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/public/ws-mmi-dc/mmidc145.pdf 2. E-government metadata -2 CWAs EU e-government Metadata Framework: ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/public/ws-mmi-dc/mmidc143.pdf Guidance for the Deployment of the EU e-government Metadata Framework: ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/public/ws-mmi-dc/mmidc147.pdf 23
CWAs of the current MMI-DC WS 3. Metadata in corporate environments Guidance information for the deployment of Dublin Core metadata in Corporate Environments: ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/public/ws-mmi-dc/mmidc145.pdf 4. Application profiles guidance -2 CWAs Guidelines for machine-processable representation of Dublin Core Application Profiles: ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/public/ws-mmi-dc/mmidc144.pdf Guidance information for naming, versioning, evolution, and maintenance of element declarations and application profiles: ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/public/ws-mmi-dc/mmidc148.pdf 24
What does this mean for CASHMERE-Int? Left as exercise to the reader or for the discussion. 25
Thank you for your attention! Questions? Thomas Fischer (fischer@mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de) 26