The Magazine's role in standards [Standards]

It seems appropriate to think about the relationship between the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) IEEE Industry Applications Magazine and IAS standards. More generally, how are all of our IAS publications (conferences, transactions, and magazine) related to our standards? To answer this question, we need to consider the purpose of each of our publications and how each is used in the development and maintenance of standards. Having significant written documents already available in conference records, transactions, and the magazine makes the process of developing a draft standard relatively straightforward. People in the working group are normally well aware of this existing body of work and generally agree with it. This initial agreement certainly helps to speed the process of standards development, and, in most cases, the magazine plays the most important role. In most cases, our standards specify what to do, not how or why to do it. Our publications, most notably the magazine, historically contain the background "why" and the application "how" that are usually not present in an approved standard. The peer-reviewed process for our magazine (and other publications), along with the balloting process for our standards, insures that the final product, as a complete package, truly is an important and usable collection.