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Dear EC Members, Last month I received the below request for comment by the SA on a proposal for a "New Model for the Maintencance of IEEE Standards". They are requesting feedback by 28FEB2011. On the 16th of December Geoff requested I put this on the interim EC meeting agenda (remember we have a telecon scheduled for 01FEB2011 from 1-3PM ET). I will do so, at the moment, it is the only item on the agenda other than a status update from me regarding the DEC SA BoG meeting If there are other items you would like to put on the agenda, please do so immediately. Regards, --Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: d.ringle@ieee.org To: std-liaison-reps@IEEE.ORG Cc: stds-board-comm@IEEE.ORG ; y.hoSang@IEEE.ORG ; topp.claire@dorsey.com Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 5:50 PM Subject: New Model for the Maintenance of IEEE Standards To: IEEE-SA Standards Sponsors RE: New Model for the Maintenance of IEEE Standards For several years now, the IEEE Standards Association's Standards Board (SASB) has dealt with a number of issues/concerns related to maintenance activities, such as: · Reaffirmation ballots, which are supposed to lead to yes/no decisions, often have technical comments that cannot be resolved, as no changes to documents are allowed; this is a continuing concern in IEEE-SA Standards Board Standards Review Committee (RevCom) reviews of Reaffirmation ballots. · Revisions PARs are not always initiated to resolve issues raised during Reaffirmation, and this increases risk/exposure to IEEE when we do not adequately address concerns. · Reaffirmation ballots (and heavy workloads) have led to cursory voting as many voters cast default 'yes' votes without really reviewing the standard(s); this has led to questions on whether the approval percentage for a Reaffirmation should be raised, which would make our procedures more complex. · There are differing (and strongly held) views on what levels of technical errors/inconsistencies might be allowed in approving a Reaffirmation ballot. · The desire to gain ballot group input on issues (and Sponsor reaction) before a yes/no Reaffirmation vote has led to proposals for two-stage voting procedures, which would introduce more complexity into our procedures. · Stabilization (see the definition in SASB OpMan 1.2) is not allowed if: the standard is a 'health or safety standard'; if the technology is 'immature'; if it contains 'significant erroneous information'; etc. - items that require clear decisions from a risk perspective and that have led to much discussion/concern. In the past year, the Standards Board's Reaffirmation Ad Hoc has considered these issues and is now proposing a resolution that is described in the attached flowcharts and three Bylaws/OpMan documents. We have discussed these revisions with ANSI, and pending their formal review of our final procedural documents, ANSI does not have concern with our path - and we will retain our ANSI accreditation. In addition, the revisions proposed will reduce Sponsor and staff effort, and put focus squarely on the need to actually revise maintained standards. The key points of this proposal are: 1. 'Reaffirmation' and 'Stabilization' processes are eliminated. Standards are either 'Revised' or 'Withdrawn from active status'. 2. Sponsors have to complete a Revision on a maintained standard every 10 years, as opposed to starting a Reaffirmation every 5 years; the Revision may be as simple as minor reference updates or even just changing the ':yyyy' designation in the title to indicate it has been examined. 3. If Sponsors cannot form ballot groups or otherwise complete their work, staff can initiate an administrative action to make the standard inactive at the 10-year mark. 4. Each year, Sponsors will receive a list of standards under maintenance, with special highlighting of standards that are at or past the 5-year mark to encourage them to start considering Revision PARs. Staff will file the necessary notifications to ANSI to insure that ANSI is aware that we are working to maintain the standard. 5. Sponsors will decide (internally) how they process this list each year and consider whether to either start a Revision PAR or 'do nothing'. If nothing is done (and the 10-year point has not arrived), the standard will simply move forward for reconsideration by the Sponsor in the following year. 6. Transition plans will be developed in early 2011, but it is expected that standards currently under maintenance plans will continue to follow those plans in 2011, and this new process would start in 2012. We expect little to no changes to myBallot and other systems, but education/training will be important. FAQs and similar material will be prepared to support the program. 7. These changes are expected to reduce Sponsor formal workloads through the elimination of Reaffirmation/Stabilization ballots, and insure that when comments on technical flaws are raised it will be simple to update the standard without having to initiate a separate revision process. Standards Sponsors are invited to review the attached documents. Please note that proposed Policy and Procedure changes are indicated in the Bylaws and OpMans in yellow highlight. Please send any comments to me by 28 February 2011. Thanks. Regards, **************************************************************** David L. Ringle Manager, IEEE-SA Governance IEEE Standards Activities Department 445 Hoes Lane Piscataway, NJ 08854-4141 USA TEL: +1 732 562 3806 FAX: +1 732 875 0524 d.ringle@ieee.org **************************************************************** ---------- This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.
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IEEE Maintenance Flowcharts v10.pdf
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ReaffAdHoc-Draft-SA-OpsMan.pdf
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ReaffAdHoc-Draft-SASB-Bylaws.pdf
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ReaffAdHoc-Draft-SASB-OpMan.pdf
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