5.6.2. Draft and Published Standards versus Electronic and Online Dissemination

Traditionally, only published standards were disseminated to the public. Recently, ISO has started to disseminate draft or interim documents (such as standards that have not completed all the traditional standard development stages) in the form of Publicly Available Specifications (ISO/PAS), Technical Specifications (ISO/TS), Technical Reports (ISO/TR) and International Workshop Agreements (ISO/IWA). (See ISO deliverables table at http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/stdsdevelopment/
whowhenhow/proc/deliverables/schema.html?printable=true (www))

In addition to its recommendations in force, ITU's collection of standards (http://www.itu.int/publications/main_publ/itut.html (www)) includes superseded recommendations and pre-published recommendations (that is, those that are available in their original language without amendments or editorial changes).

Until recently, standards were published in paper form only. With the introduction of electronic media, standards are now also published in a variety of electronic forms. They can be ordered online, either as a hardcopy print version or as a downloadable version in Microsoft Word, PDF (Adobe full text or scanned image) or PostScript format. Most CD-ROM versions can be upgraded at a discount price. ITU Recommendations can be consulted online by subscription.

For example, the IEC's International Electrotechnical vocabulary (IEV) is distributed as a set of publications (IEC 60050) and a CD-ROM through the IEC Web Store (https://domino.iec.ch/Webstore/Webstore.nsf/
artnum/029286 (www) (en)). A limited selection of the IEV is also made available to the public through an online database available at http://domino.iec.ch/iev/iev.nsf/Welcome?OpenForm (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.