ICES continues educational work on standardization with international workshop

Attendees at the International Cooperation
for Education about Standardization
workshop in Japan

ICES (the International Cooperation for Education about Standardization) organized an international workshop at the end of March in Japan. Sponsored by METI, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the event, which took place on 23 and 24 March 2009 in Tokyo, was attended by between 50 and 80 people from government ministries, policy making bodies and educational institutions.

The workshop, opened by Masami Tanaka of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and Vice President of JISC, the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee, concentrated principally on the planning aspects of standardization education.

Tanaka's keynote speech underlining the importance of standards education and some of the initiatives undertaken to date, was followed by a presentation given by John Hill, who is the re-elected ICES Vice-Chair. He gave an overview of ICES, its mission and its activities particularly those aiming to professionalize education about standardization. He underlined:

• The tightening of links between up-to-date standardization research and delivery
• The development of guidelines, innovative approaches and educational materials
• Facilitating peer review of educational materials
• Organizing workshops to share and learn from other participants with the same common goal: education about standardization

The first session centred on the educational and HR (Human Resource) development aspects of standardization. Three speakers from North America, Europe and Asia, namely Erik Puskar of NIST (The National Institute of Standards & Technology); Tineke Egyedi, President of EURAS (the European Academy for Standardization) and Toshiaki Kurokawa, ICES Chair, of CSK Holdings Corporation, talked of the various educational standards activities that are taking place in the world.

They were followed by four speakers from International Organizations, ISO (International Organization for Standardization), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) who concentrated on various educational perspectives that relate to their own particular sectors. In this respect, Jack Sheldon, IEC Standardization Strategy Manager, gave a presentation on the educational developments made in the electrotechnical standardization field.

The second session centred on the more promotional aspects. Hill and Donggeun Choi, KSA (Korean Standards Association), opened the session. They were followed by Yukiko Kamijo, Associate Professor, Kanazawa Institute of Technology; Shiro Kurihara, Professor, Hitotsubashi University; Stephen Kwan, Professor and Chair, San Jose State University; James Olshefsky, Director, External Relations, ASTM International and Wenhui Zhao, China National Institute of Standardization who all expressed views on "How to Sell Education about Standardization".

International cooperation
The second day saw further presentations on the theme of "How to Introduce International Cooperation for Education about Standardization into National Education Programs". The session began with Daniele Gerundino, Strategic Adviser to the ISO Secretary General, ISO, who led a panel discussion. He was followed by speakers Simao Campos, ITU-T Study Group 16, ITU, Donggeun Choi, Hiroaki Ikeda, Chiba University, Japan, and Jack Sheldon, who all spoke on cooperating internationally in setting up national educational programmes.

Subsequently, at the ICES membership meeting, Tineke Egyedi, who is senior researcher standardization at the Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), was elected Chair of ICES. She succeeds Toshiaki Kurokawa, the first ICES Chair. Hill of Pennsylvania State University, USA was re-elected Vice-Chair. Mingshun Song from Jiliang University, Republic of China, was newly elected as ICES Vice-Chair.

Next workshop to be hosted by WSC in Geneva
It is Egyedi who will chair the programme committee for the ICES 2010 workshop, which will be hosted in July 2010 by the WSC (World Standards Cooperation), comprising the three prominent international standards bodies: IEC, ISO and ITU, as part of the Academia week in Geneva.

Commenting on the workshop, Egyedi said she was looking forward to some constructive outcome. "We've spent a long time now talking about plans. Now we need to put those into place. Compared to Asia, Europe and the USA have been slow in moving forward."

"We're behind Asia who already teaches and trains about standardization at all levels, from primary school to university. For example, at summer camps held for children, nine and ten-year olds have to build a railway track and then make something run on two tracks of different widths. That's how they experience the need for standardization and learn what happens when there is a lack of standards."

"Both China and South Korea give courses at university level nation-wide. China has an entire faculty for standards education. Japan is also going ahead in a most energetic way. "

"In Europe", she continued, "systematic activity is just beginning. We're starting to see policy. For instance, a recent European Council resolution recognizes that standards education is important. A few people in industry are playing their part. Indeed, they're often the initiators because they say that they're tired of having to educate their employees. Spain has published a book for children. In Turkey they've got a quality programme for children and at BSI (British Standards Institution) they're developing the notion of 'green' and what that means. At university level a web-based course and an accompanying book (Standardisation in Companies and Markets) have been developed under the AsiaLink project led by Wilfried Hesser, Professor at Helmut-Schmidt-University, University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Germany. It's not enough though. I mean there's no point in having a European education policy in place if you don't do something with it. The paper itself serves little purpose. Standards education should be acknowledged as part of the pan-European social and economic structure."

After the 2009 workshop, Egyedi organized a management game for 18 people. "It's very useful to help you get a feel for standards, especially if you don't know much about the subject and you're called on to develop company policy. You can test out your theories and your strategies in a safe environment and decide on whether you can go for your own project or whether you have to look for consensus. People should be given more opportunity to take part in this type of role playing game. It's fun and after a few hours you understand why things didn't work out the way you imagined."

In next year's workshop in Geneva she's already decided there will be more focus on educational content. "By organizing a review of existing content we can see what's already out there. The workshop will act as a preliminary phase. Peers will have the opportunity to professionalize the educational content and set their objectives for each age group and level in the schooling system."