ACM Technical Standards Committee: A new advocacy power

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Computer Standards & Interfaces 16 (1994) 139-142

ACM Technical Standards Committee: A new advocacy power ACM Technical Standards Committee: Anthony Gargaro a, Roy Rada b,*, James Moore c, George S Carson d, Joseph De Blasi e, David Emery f, Chris Haynes g, John Klensin h, Irving Montanez ~, Eugene Spafford J " Computer Sciences Corporation, 200 Century Parkway, Mount Laurel, NJ 08054, USA ~' Department of Computer Science, Uniuersity of Li~'erpool, Lit,erpool L69 3BX, UK " IBM Federal Systems Company, 800 North Frederick Auenue, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, USA a GSCAssociates, Inc., 13254JeffersonAt.'enue, Hawthorne, CA 90250, USA e ACM, 1515 Broadway, New York, N Y 10036, USA 1 MITRE Corporation, MS A378A, 202 Burlington Road, Bedford, MA 01730, USA x Computer Science Department, Indiana Universi~,, Lindley Hall Bloomington, IN 47405, USA /' P.O. Box 197, Cambridge, MA 02140-0002, USA ' Brookhat,en National Laboratory, Bldg. 911A, Upton, N Y 11973, USA J Department of Computer Sciences, 1398 Computer Science Building, Purdue Unit,ersity, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1398, USA

Abstract

The ACM Technical Standards Committee (TSC) was created in 1992 to support the opportunities for ACM members to influence the progress of standards. The TSC coordinates closely with the Special Interest Groups of the ACM and uses electronic mail to communicate on matters of mutual interest. The TSC is particularly interested in supporting good standards and providing constructive feedback for proposed standards. For instance, the TSC expects to comment when a proposed standard does not adequately meet the standards development process requirements for openness and adequate technical review.

Key words." ACM Technical Standards Committee; Special interest groups; Dissemination; Openness

1. Introduction

The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) is not a standards developing organization but is attempting to provide advocacy in the domain of standards for its membership. Whether one takes the view that the standards world is chaotic or orderly, broad agreement might be reached on the concerns that appropriate tech-

* Corresponding author. Email: rada(a)csc.liv.ac.uk

nologies are standardized and that standards are approved only after review by the appropriate audiences. The vision of the ACM Technical Standards Committee (TSC) is to foster effective A C M member involvement at all stages of the standards life cycle. The A C M is among the world's largest societies for information technology students, educators, scientists and practitioners with a membership of about 100,000 world wide. The charter of the TSC provides a succinct view of its administration and purpose. The TSC is facilitating the

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influence of ACM members on the course of standards as is illustrated by the recent case of a proposed standard on software reuse.

2. Charter

One of the key organizational features of ACM is the support it provides for Special Interest Groups (SIGs). These SIGs are governed by the ACM SIG Board. The TSC was established by the SIG Board in July 1992. The TSC serves the ACM membership through its SIGs so as to provide more information about standards and to help the membership appreciate the impact of standards. The mission of the TSC is to coordinate all official ACM participation in standards-related activities. This includes • designation of ACM memberships and liaisons in standards-related organizations, and • development of policy and procedures for ACM participation in standards-related activities. The TSC encourages and coordinates individual SIG standards-related activities and promotes the dissemination and understanding of standards-related information. Each SIG has been asked to appoint a lead person for standards in that SIG. The members of the TSC communicate with the SIGs by electronic mail. Announcements of new standards activities are currently circulated and discussed using this medium. The TSC Chair is appointed by the SIG Board. Other TSC members are appointed by the TSC Chair subject to the approval of the SIG Board. Members may be removed by action of the SIG Board. The TSC comprises at least eight appointed voting members. This includes a chair, a secretary and other regular members. The chair may invite the membership of non-voting liaison members from other ACM organizations. The appointed TSC members are ACM members who are experienced in the activities of Standards Organizations (e.g. ANSI, X3, ISO, IEEE). The TSC membership is representative of the community and the technical practice. Each TSC member is appointed to a two-year term. The TSC meets at least once per year at the call of the chair. Between meetings, the chair is au-

thorized to form decisions of the committee via correspondence. The TSC is not a Standards Developing Organization (SDO) which means that the TSC does not develop standards. The ACM considers that standards should remain in the province of those specialist organizations that cater towards standards-intensive activities. ACM's goal is to help ACM members influence the activities of the SDOs and to generally educate the ACM membership about the role of standards.

3. First year's activities

In its first year of activity the TSC has already helped ACM members exert their influence on the standards process. Input has been provided to several particular draft standards. The TSC has started to improve ACM interactions with the IEEE Standards Department by negotiating an agreement whereby the ACM will receive notification of all Project Authorization Requests that are submitted to the IEEE New Standards Committee. The TSC has cooperated with the ACM Special Interest Group on Ada's Standards Committee (SIGAda) in developing an ACM position to the ANSI canvass on the revised Ada standard. The TSC on behalf of the ACM voted approval (with commentary) of the revised Ada programming language standard. This vote was consistent with the position recommended by the SIGAda Standards Committee. Technical commentary on the revised standard will be submitted separately by the SIGAda Standards Committee. One particularly interesting example will be provided of how TSC successfully interacted with a SDO to achieve the voluntary withdrawal of an inappropriate proposed standard. The SDO in this episode is a professional society which is empowered to submit to ANSI standards which relate specifically to that industry. In this case, the proposed standard was intended to assess the reusability of software developed for applications specific to that profession. TSC learned of the proposal by seeing an announcement in the August 1993 issue of ANSI

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Standards Action. The announcement was the routine notification that the professional society was planning to forward the draft standard to ANSI for promulgation as an ANSI standard. The notice provided a 60 day period for comments prior to submission. The notice caught the attention of the TSC because some members believed that assessing the reusability of software is not a problem specific to the profession in question, but, in fact, is a problem which is general to the entire software industry. Therefore, these members believed that standards intended to address software reuse practices should be coordinated with other standards organizations dealing with information technology. None of the members of the TSC knew of any such attempts to coordinate. Members of TSC and other people within ACM then began to study the proposed standard and to discuss in depth the proper reaction. In the end the TSC prepared a substantive criticism of both the technical content of the standard and the procedures used to prepare the standard. The cover letter noted that according to the ANSI Procedures for the Development and Coordination of American National Standards, Section 1.2, "Openness" is one of the minimum acceptable requirements of due process. "Openness" is explained in section 1.2.1 as follows: Timely and adequate notice of the initiation and development of a new standard ... shall be provided to all known directly and materially affected interests. Notice should include a clear and meaningful description of the purpose of the proposed activity. The letter noted that the proposed standard purported to be specifically applicable to the particular profession, but that examination of the proposal showed, that it was not, in fact, specific and could equally well have been applied to a much larger community. Therefore, the proposed standard risked subdividing the actual community of interest rather than properly developing consensus within the entire community of directly and materially affected interests. With reference to the ANSI procedure cited previously, the lack of actual specificity to the profession in question meant that the purpose of the proposal had been

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incorrectly described and, therefore, did not meet the requirement for openness. Furthermore, the relatively small community of participation had the effect of denying the proposal writers the best possible review of their proposed standard. (An attachment contained examples of technical comment which might have been available to the proposal writers, if the community of interest had been properly defined.) The danger of incorrectly defining the community of interest is that adoption of a flawed standard might preclude ANSI's subsequent adoption of more carefully prepared and coordinated standards which properly address the broad community of interest. The ACM TSC recommended that the draft standard be withdrawn from consideration. Furthermore, it recommended that the professional society seek coordination with other standards organizations of appropriate scope to develop a proposal which did, in fact, represent the consensus of all parties who are directly and materially interested. Such organizations might include I E E E Software Engineering Standards Committee, X3, and others. ACM TSC also recommended that the professional society establish membership or liaison relationships with A N S I / ISSB to improve general coordination and tracking through the ANSI system. The ACM TSC volunteered to participate constructively within a meaningfifl coordination process to ensure that interested parties who are ACM members are appropriately informed of the opportunity for participation. (The ACM contains several special interest groups such as SIGSOFT, the Special Interest Group on Software Engineering, which are particularly well qualified to provide comment and which would be particularly rich sources of materially interested parties.) To their credit, the professional society elected to voluntarily withdraw the proposal from consideration as an ANSI standard. The professional society is planning to revise the document and further ACM commentary will be solicited and welcomed. The episode illustrates several important characteristics of the role of the TSC: - The standards development process is processdriven and legalistic. One can participate

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meaningfully only if one is willing to embrace the process and to provide the correct kind of input at the precisely appropriate point in the process. - The ACM is capable of providing important technical commentary on information technology standards. - A body such as the TSC can play a crucial and successful role in mustering the ACM's technical capability at appropriate points during the standards development process. -The reaction of the industry association demonstrates that the application of the ACM's technical capability is respected and appreciated by other members of the standards community. - Finally, TSC's voluntary contribution to the process and the professional society's voluntary cooperation indicate that TSC's new role in the standards community is consistent with that community's fine tradition of voluntary participation.

ACM and is hosting a panel on standards at the ACM Annual Conference. Regular email communication is maintained with the SIGs about upcoming standards of interest to ACM, and input is provided to ANSI and JTC1 TAG. The vision of the ACM TSC is to inform the ACM membership about standards and to solicit feedback which TSC can help direct down the best channel. In its first year the TSC has already had success in its objectives to: -educate members about standards and the standards making process; - funnel member input into requirements for new standards development; - d e v e l o p procedures whereby effective and broad public review of information technology standards can occur; and - develop procedures to increase the availability of specialized information technology knowledge from ACM members to standards committees so that the quality of standards might be improved. The TSC will continue to help connect the ACM membership into the standards process.

4. S u m m a r y

The TSC reaction to and impact on the industry association's software reuse standard is an example of how the TSC can effectively operate, as is the TSC response to the revised Ada programming language standard. In other ways the TSC has also influenced other standards in its first year. On the educational and information dissemination front, the TSC has also been active. The TSC placed an editorial in the ACM's flagship journal called the Communications of the

Roy Rada is an M. D., Ph. D. with substantial research experience. He worked with document retrieval systems from 1984 till 1988 at the American National Library of Medicine and is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool. He is active in projects of the Committee of European Normalization Technical Committee on Medical Informatics.