Standards to Support National Cooperation in Applying Technology to VET Pt. 5

Standards to Support National Cooperation in Applying Technology to VET

6. Draft Recommended Standards

In December 1997, the ANTA Chief Executive Officers endorsed the Standards Policy, and the Identification and Maintenance Process as proposed in this consultation report. The CEOs also agreed on a further round of detailed consultations in 1998 to reach agreement on the individual draft standards developed by this project during 1997.

7. Standards Identification and Maintenance

The rapid development taking place in most of the technologies discussed in this report means that many individual standards will have a relatively short life. Once developed, these standards will in most cases need to be revised every 1 - 3 years .

In addition, new standards will need to be selected as new technologies become important for VET flexible delivery. Examples include multicasting, authentication and security protocols, electronic commerce, copyright tracking, low- and medium-earth-orbit satellite systems, and open standards approaches to groupware. It will be increasingly important to scan the environment to identify emerging technologies relevant to flexible delivery in the VET sector.

The recommended process for identifiying and updating standards uses, as its core activity, the algorithm for determining preferred standards as described in Section 5 above. This core activity needs to be performed within a process that involves the appropriate players in flexible delivery. The proposed process is described below.

Central to the process is a workshop to reach national consensus on future preferred standards.

Participants

The major participants managing steps in the process comprise:

The Australian National Training Authority (ANTA)
The EdNA VET Advisory Group (EVAG), advising and acting on behalf of ANTA.
Technical Consultant. The technical consultant could be either an internal or external entity. In cases where extensive incompatible legacy systems exist, an external consultant would have the advantage of perceived neutrality in the selection of technologies and standards.
Workshop Facilitator.
Participants in the Workshop to work through the core standards selection activity include
Workshop Facilitator
Technical Consultant
Technical experts from States and Territories
Flexible Delivery staff

Process Steps and Action Responsibilities are as follows:

Step	Responsibility
1. Initiation of standards review Identify/develop guiding policies Identify process drivers via survey of providers during program profile Scope online delivery needs Identify existing technology and standards implementation Identify issues and constraints Arrange funding	ANTA
2. Institution of project management Nominate key technologies to be addressed Appoint technical consultant Nominate technical experts and participating staff from States and Territories.	EVAG
3. Workshop Preparation Summarise input data Perform environmental scan Identify relevant new Infrastructure developments (eg. broadband network, LEO satellite systems) Technologies (eg. ADSL, Networked PC) Standards (eg. ATM) Prepare input discussion paper for workshop.	Technical consultant
4. Workshop Review input document Perform value analysis Verify needs and potential benefits Scope cost constraints Identify common needs and required actions Work through Policy Statement 3 process Document justification of Preferred Standards	Workshop participants/ facilitator
5. Endorsement of Preferred Standards Revise Workshop output as necessary Seek endorsement of ANTA CEOs	EVAG

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Last modified on December 21, 1998.