INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS IN A CHANGING WORLD - THE ROLE OF THE USERS

Standards for information technology (IT) systems are important to users in effectively applying IT and carrying out the business of their organizations. Users need standards to interconnect products developed by different vendors and to move software, data and applications from one system to another. However, the formal standards development process does not always respond to user needs in a timely way. The cost and complexity of the process often inhibits direct user participation over the long period of time needed to develop standards. Users also have difficulty applying the standards when they are developed in a fragmented and non-integrated fashion. New approaches and tools are needed to enable users to achieve their goals for interoperable multi-vendor systems.