5.2.7. Major Professional Standardizers

Traditional international, regional, national and company standards are being supplemented by standards developed in other forums, generally called consortia, particularly in areas of fast-moving technology. Such documents generally represent an agreement between major market players and not the wide consensus typical of traditional standards. These documents achieve the status of de facto international standards in the marketplace and in some sectors.

LISA (Localization Industry Standards Association) is a professional association that establishes best-practice guidelines for language-technology standards. OSCAR (Open Standards for Container/Content Allowing Re-use), a LISA Special Interest Group (SIG), develops standards for data exchange and content mark up for translation memory (TMX) and termbase exchange (TBX).

Access the LISA Web site (www) (en)

SALT (Standards-based Access service to multilingual Lexicons and Terminologies) is a consortium of academic, government, association, and commercial groups in the United States and Europe that are working together on a format for exchanging the contents of terminology databases and machine translation lexicons.

Access the SALT Web site (www) (en)

Professional organizations have input to de jure standards by requesting liaison representation with international organizations or by sending representatives to national standardizing bodies.

For more information on standards organizations, you can visit the World Standards Services Network (WSSN), a network that provides links to the Web sites of standards organizations around the world. WSSN also provides general information on standards.

Access the WSNN Web site (www) (en)

These links are provided solely for the convenience of Public Works and Government of Canada (PWGSC) Web site users. PWGSC is not responsible for the information found on them. Some of these links are to organizations or other entities that are not subject to the Official Languages Act. Users should be aware that some information from other sources may be available in only one official language.