Like paper currency, ISO standards are classified using reference numbers.
The founders of the International Standards Organization (ISO) derived their organization's name from the Greek word isos, meaning "equal." At the core of ISO is the idea of balance between the requirements of business and the broader needs of society. To achieve this balance, ISO, a network of 162 member countries, develops standards that guide how businesses operate. Because so many ISO standards exist, the organization has developed a classification system that allows you to easily understand the differences between the protocols.
Instructions
1. Locate the reference number associated with the ISO standard. This number has a prefix, a serial number and a year of publication; it's used to differentiate the standard from others.
2. Read the prefix, which will be "ISO" if it's strictly an ISO publication. It also can be listed as "ISO/IEC," which means a joint ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission publication; "ISO/ASTM," a joint ISO and American Society of Testing and Materials publication; "ISO/CIE," a joint ISO and International Commission on Illumination publication; "ISO/HL7," a joint ISO and Health Level Seven publication; "ISO/IEEE," a joint ISO and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers publication; or "ISO/OECD," a joint ISO and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development publication.
3. Determine if the prefix includes additional letters to indicate the type of document. You'll see "Amd." if it's an amendment to a document, "Cor." if it's a correction to a technical error, "Guide" if it's only an informative document, "ISP" if it's an international standardized profile, "IWA" if it's an international workshop agreement, "PAS" if it's a publicly available specification, "R" if it's a recommendation, "TR" if it's a technical report, "TS" if it's a technical specification and "TTA" if it's a technology trends assessment.
4. Find the serial number, which comes after the prefix. If the standard is about a specific part, the part number will begin the serial. The number of the standard, an arbitrary number assigned to each standard, follows the part number and the year of the standard's publication.
