International Organization for Standardization

Formation	1947-02-23
Type	NGO
Purpose/focus	International standardization
Headquarters	Geneva, Switzerland
Membership	163 members
Official languages	English, French, and Russian
Website	www.iso.org

The International Organization for Standardization widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promotes worldwide proprietary, industrial, and commercial standards. It has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

The three official languages of the ISO are English, French, and Russian. The organization's logos in two of its official languages, English and French, include the word ISO, and it is usually referred to by this short-form name. The organization states that ISO is not an acronym or initialism for the organization's full name in any official language. Recognizing that its initials would be different in different languages, the organization adopted ISO, based on the Greek word isos (meaning equal), as the universal short form of its name. However, one of the founding delegates, Willy Kuert, recollected the original naming question with the comment: "I recently read that the name ISO was chosen because 'iso' is a Greek term meaning 'equal'. There was no mention of that in London!" The logo and the name ISO are both registered trademarks, and their use is restricted.

The organization today known as ISO began in 1926 as the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA), whose focus was mainly mechanical engineering. It was disbanded in 1942 during World War II but was reorganized under its current name, ISO, in 1946, when delegates from 25 countries met at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London; the new organization officially began operations in February 1947.

ISO is a voluntary organization whose members are recognized authorities on standards, each one representing one country. The bulk of the work of ISO is done by the 2,700 technical committees, subcommittees, and working groups. Each committee and subcommittee is headed by a Secretariat from one of the member organizations.

ISO is funded by a combination of:

• Organizations that manage the specific projects or loan experts to participate in the technical work.
• Subscriptions from member bodies ("the national body most representative of standardization in its country"). These subscriptions are in proportion to each country's gross national product and trade figures.
• Sale of standards.

ISO's main products are international standards. ISO also publishes technical reports, technical specifications, publicly available specifications, technical corrigenda, and guides.

International standards are designated with the format ISO[/IEC] [/ASTM] [IS] nnnnn[-p]:[yyyy] Title, where nnnnn is the number of the standard, p is an optional part number, yyyy is the year published, and Title describes the subject. IEC for International Electrotechnical Commission is included if the standard results from the work of ISO/IEC JTC1 (the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee). ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) is used for standards developed in cooperation with ASTM International. The date and IS are not used for an incomplete or unpublished standard and may under some circumstances be left off the title of a published work.

Technical reports are issued when a technical committee or subcommittee has collected data of a different kind from that normally published as an International Standard such as references and explanations. The naming conventions for these are the same as for standards, except TR prepended instead of IS in the report's name. Examples:

• ISO/IEC TR 17799:2000 Code of Practice for Information Security Management
• ISO/TR 19033:2000 Technical product documentation — Metadata for construction documentation

Technical specifications can be produced when "the subject in question is still under development or where for any other reason there is the future but not immediate possibility of an agreement to publish an International Standard". Publicly Available Specifications may be "an intermediate specification, published prior to the development of a full International Standard, or, in IEC may be a 'dual logo' publication published in collaboration with an external organization". Both are named by convention similar to Technical Reports, for example:

• ISO/TS 16952-1:2006 Technical product documentation — Reference designation system — Part 1: General application rules
• ISO/PAS 11154:2006 Road vehicles — Roof load carriers

ISO sometimes issues technical corrigenda. Corrigenda (plural of corrigendum) are amendments to existing standards because of minor technical flaws, usability improvements, or limited applicability extensions. Generally, these are issued with the expectation that the affected standard will be updated or withdrawn at its next scheduled review.

ISO Guides are meta-standards covering "matters related to international standardization". They are named in the format "ISO[/IEC] Guide N:yyyy: Title", for example:

· ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004 Standardization and related activities — General vocabulary ISO/IEC Guide 65:1996 General requirements for bodies operating product certification.

 

Контрольные вопросы:

1. What is ISO?

2. Who is funding ISO?

3. What do you know about Technical specifications?

Литература:

1 Основная литература:

1.1 Basic English (second year): учебник для 2 курса по баз. осн.ин.яз. / С.М. Булатова; Ж.А.Тутбаева / - 2012.

1.2 Романов, С.Д. Большой современный англо-русский русско-английский словарь-справочник:80 000 слов и выражений современного английского и русского языка.

 

2 Дополнительная литература:

2.1 Учебное пособие по дисциплине «Профессионально-ориентированный иностранный язык» для студентов специальности «Стандартизация, серитификация и метрология», Семей, 2015. 109 с.

2.2 Агабекян И.П. «Английский язык для технических вузов», Ростов-на-Дону,2001.

2.3 Образцов П.И., Иванова О.Ю. Профессионально-ориентированное обучение иностранному языку на неязыковых факультетах вузов. Орел: ОГУ, 2005. 114 с.

2.4 Источники интернет.

2.5 Научно – техническая информация на английском языке.

Практическое занятие №9 (3 часа)