Feedback Invited on Draft Copy of Briefing Paper on Selection and Use of Open Standards

A draft UKOLN briefing paper on the “Selection and Use of Open Standards” is available for comments before publication. The document is based on previous work led by UKOLN in conjunction with the AHDS in the JISC-funded QA Focus project on the development of quality assurance framework for JISC-funded development projects. Subsequent work with JISC CETIS and JISC OSS Watch and others was described in papers on “A Standards Framework For Digital Library Programmes“, “A Contextual Framework For Standards” and “Openness in Higher Education: Open Source, Open Standards, Open Access” which were presented at the ichim05, WWW 2006 and elPub 2007 conferences respectively. More recently a position paper which described “An Opportunities and Risks Framework For Standards” was presented to a CETIS event on the Future of Interoperability Standards.

The briefing paper omits much of the background and discussions which were included in these papers and instead seeks to provide a more focussed summary of the contextual approaches and opportunities and risks framework which have been developed to support use of development activities especially if new and emerging standards are being considered.

The draft briefing paper is currently available on Scridb and is embedded below.

View this document on Scribd

I am grateful to feedback on an earlier draft of this paper which I have received from colleagues at JISC CETIS.  Comments from the wider community are welcomed.