Welcome to this next module on Fundamentals of Standardization. So after having done and dealt with the history, we are now going to look into the basic requirements and conditions under which standardization comes to life. First of course, we have now gone away from the history. We are now going to try and explain in this lecture in what way standardization works and what the basic requirements are. First, a very important thing you need to understand, standardization is almost all about technology, technology that can be used in society. So, it plays a huge role in the sense of when you have an artifact that needs to be used by others, then you need to know how big it is or smaller it is, where the plugs will be, where it can be fitted, and things like that. When we talk about houses for instance, then for safety reasons, a lot of rules de facto, the Euro rules, real rules in law, I used to say, "Okay, we have technology, we cannot refer to technology itself, so let's reach those elements from which depth what comes out of technology and needs to be put in law. Let's use standards. Let's make reference to standards so that we know what we really can expect from what this artifact, this piece of equipment, whatever, is going to look like." So, standards and the coming into being of standards, they have a number of prerequisites. One of that is for instance, that everybody wants to participate is allowed to participate. So, there is no real blockage towards a certain type of membership or things like that. But you are allowed to vote, you're allowed to take part. But on the other hand, you also have to carry your own costs. So, when you want to, when there is a meeting for instance in Nice in France, where standardization in telecommunications takes place a lot of times, then if you want to participate and you are eligible to participate, you need to pay your own expenses, your own hotel, your own travel expenses. So, you are allowed to participate, but you carry your own cost. On the other hand, what needs to be seen as a very important basic requirement is the fact that, who owns? Is their owner for the standard? Or, does the state impose standards? Or, is it in the industry that standards are being done? So, in what way can we classify standards and standardization? Well, let's see what this lecture brings on this subject. On the one hand, you can have a government really imposing certain rules, certain elements. For instance, think of passports and how passports are being used all over crossing borders and things like that. That's a government. Nobody is allowed to negotiate on that. Governments make that a mandatory requirement. On the other hand, the industry can make its own, think of Internet for instance. Under whatever conditions, you can try and make your own rules. So, there's no governmental influence. If we then go back a bit in history, let's say the 1980s of last century, then there was still the Soviet Union on one hand and the first elements of Internet came into being. Well, in the Soviet Union, standards were imposed. They were mandatory rules. On the other hand, the Internet came into being and everybody that wanted to participate could take part in making standards for the Internet. So whereas on the one hand, there was no choice, on the other hand, you had all the choices you wanted. The Europe, it was a bit in-between. We had standards that were very obligatory so to speak. So then in 1985, the Commission decided that we needed new standards that no longer let's say de facto, or de jure, or voluntary standards came to be know that we wanted a separate approach to what standards in doing trade within European Union. To have an example for instance of a de facto standard, think of the keyboard, QWERTY keyboard. That's a de facto standard. ASCII, the American Standard Code of Information Interchange as a basis for computers as we saw in the history module, the ASCII is a voluntary standard in the sense of a de facto standard, a de facto standard in the sense of the basis for the computer industry. In telecommunications, it's also known as ITA five. So the International Telegraph Alphabet number five. And in that, you need to abide to it. So in that sense, it's de jure standard. ASCII itself is a de facto standard. One of the nicest examples of a voluntary standard for instance is, imagine a bicycle chain and the rollers in the chain, the distance between the two rollers is half an inch. That's never put into paper nowhere. That's just an example of a voluntary standard which was not officially standardized. Another example of a voluntary standard is for instance the format in which files are being filed in computer systems in an apple like environment, Unix environment it's Oasis as a standard to save files in Windows, it's open windows XML. So, also there as a voluntary standards which are not obligatory for other people to use. How do we select standards? We select standards for instance because when it's voluntary of market power in the sense that you can make your own listening to, so to speak, be very obedient towards. I like the standard, so I'm going to use it. That's one hand. On the other hand, it might be very much imposed on you by governmental rules and then the coming of a standard in the one area is because it's everybody's taking part, or only Apple's taking part, or only Windows, or Microsoft's taking part. On the other hand, when it comes to obligatory standards, governmental standards, then it usually is so that they are the result of a negotiation process between all bunch of partners that might be affected by standard. So, let's see how this then works, this selecting standards. You could also look at it how they are being made. For instance, when it's under hierarchy. On the one hand, the hierarchy the government was doing it, or within a company. The CEO or the board can say, "No, we are going to use this standard and that's it." Or you can do it under cooperation in the sense that you say, "Okay, whatever we are agreeing on for instance a de facto standard in a standardization process, so that's what you do, or you let it go for the market." Within Europe and within the next module, we will deal with formal standardization a bit more. So, we are going to focus for the rest of also this lecture on formal standardization in the sense when I speak about standardization. Then, standardization has a whole bunch of prerequisites. One of it is for instance that it needs to be decided by consensus. It needs to be open. There's no propriety. It needs to be international, things like that. So, standardization has a whole number of basic requirements to qualify as standardization. When we look at the parties that could be involved when making standards when coming to meetings where standards, then I will I will show you. Here will be a whole bunch of parts like users or governmental institutions or other international organizations. All of these could be parties in a standardization process. Who owns a standard? Well, when it's a governmental one or within a company, for instance think of the car industry. In the car industry is quite common to have within the company a whole bunch of standardized stuff. Imagine that dashboards would be different in one golf car from another or on a different way. So, it's nicer to have in-company standardization. And those standards or the intellectual property, rights they are owned by the company. On the other hand, there might also be, like for instance, the mobile telephone, that's typically as a group of standards, a whole bunch of standards that have been made by involved parties, a whole bunch industry, but also operators and things like that and gets those standards they are considered to be club property. Then, we have to do real public, the governmental type of standardization that came where there is more public property in the sense that it's of all of us. We are allowed to have access all of this without being a member of the firm or without being a member of the club. When we look at this slide, you can see that there is, again, let's say it's a summary of the things I've said so far. And what is very important is that the consortium approach on the right side and the teamwork approach that leads to public property. The other properties are more or less within, let's say a firm or strategic alliances or independent firms that do this type of standardization. So, we will focus more on the right side of the sheet. When we look at how standards relate to each other, you can then see is that there's typically in-house company standards. On the other hand, we have national standards. Then there is a whole bunch of international standards like ISO or the ITU within the telecommunications environment. When we try to determine where the EU standards are, they are both a bit national and a bit international, so to speak. So, the EU standards can be positioned in this way. Very important is standards and trade, because technical capabilities, technical properties could be used to say, "You are not allowed this apparatus to be brought into the country. You are not allowed to fit this stuff which you want to bring into the country because you are not allowed to put it in the machines, and why are you not allowed? because we want to protect our own industry." So, when you have trade rules that allow for the incorporation of standards, then you know what to expect when you put machinery, or apparatuses, or parts, or subparts onto the market. So, for the WTO, so the World Trade Organization, there's a whole bunch of special rules how to deal with standardization in international trade. This was the first lecture in the module on the effects on how standardization works and what the fundamentals are of standardization. Thank you very much for watching, and the next lecture will be on how EU policy and views are concerning standardization.
