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Standardizing Inclusion and Change
Technology today represents a staggering amount of work done by innumerable individuals and companies. Technology as both proprietary and open-source intellectual property, from the operating system and software on our computers to the information on the Web, plays a critical role in our daily lives. But, despite the prevalence of technology and our unabashed reliance on it, technology still is often quirky and idiosyncratic.
Enter technical standards.
To paint in broad strokes, technical standards serve as agents of one of two primary goals: either as agents of interoperability or as agents of change. Interoperability allows systems to talk to one another, to share information. Change is about modifying the way the technology acts or is used and improving interactions. SCORM is an example of technical standards focused on interoperability; the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative has developed Web content accessibility guidelines, which are an example of technical standard focused on change.
Whatever their specific purpose, technical standards achieve their purpose by serving as a measure or model. Standards make it possible to evaluate and compare technology. Technical standards can be formal or informal, open and published publicly or developed for use internally by a small group. But in whatever form they take, they are always about defining something so that more, rather than fewer, people and organizations are equipped to work together. Standards allow us to speak a common language--a prerequisite for intelligent discussion.
While standards can’t return us to some pre-Tower of Babel ideal of a single programming language, they do bring the possibility of communicating across “linguistic” barriers. The promise of Web services, SOAP, and XML is just that--the exchange of data among various applications regardless of specific platform.
Both the practical aspects of technical standards (interoperability) and their social side (standards as agents of change) are particularly applicable to nonprofits as the standards align with the sector’s other work that is focused on inclusion and social change and where standards can be powerful tools.
In this issue of The Sophist we look at how technical standards frame so much development work--for better and for worse. “The Good, the Bad, the Ambiguous: A Look at Technical Standards” reminds us that while standards are exceedingly helpful, we must make sure they never become the primary focus of our work. The issue of ambiguity raised in the article underscores the need for leadership and stewardship to prevent good intentions from paving a road to hell. The path from the anarchy of Babel can lead all too easily to authoritarianism, but good stewards of standards know how to keep the spirit of the standard in mind as they act on the letter.
In “A Meditation on Metadata,” guest writer Steven Forth reviews the basics of metadata and discusses SCORM as an example of a large metadata initiative. And be sure to read this issue’s “Monolog,” featuring CompuMentor’s Daniel Ben-Horin, and “In Brief,” which highlights some standards initiatives going on in the nonprofit arena.
The Editors
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