Net Traveller: Standards

Showing posts with label Standards. Show all posts

Thursday, December 06, 2012

Accessibility requirements for ICT in Europe

The European Commission (EC) has issued a draft of "Accessibility requirements for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe".

The EC daft calls up the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which recently became an international standard(ISO/IEC 40500 2012). This is unlikely to be controversial. More contentious are the requirements for Real Time Text (RTT, telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) or in Australia teletypewriter, TTY), where there are differences in national standards.

There is an overview in "Digital Agenda: Commission proposes rules to make government websites accessible for all" (EC, IP/12/1305, 03/12/2012) and a list of the draft documents in "European Accessibility Requirements for Public Procurement of Products and Services in the ICT Domain" (European Commission Standardization Mandate M 376, Phase 2).

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Presentations from ITU Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change

ITU is running the Seventh ITU Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change, 29-31 May 2012 in Montreal, Canada.The event is being streamed live online for free (unfortunately it is not being recorded for later playback). The programme and presentation notes are also available.

Here are the notes from some of the presentations so far:

Opening remarks, Malcolm Johnson, Director Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU
Using ICT for Adaption Rather than Mitigation to Climate Change, Bill St-Arnaud, St-Arnaud & Walker Associates
Can ICT Beat CO2?, Daniel Gagne, Bell Canada
The Western Climate Initiative's cap-and-trade program, Robert Nöel de Tilly, Ministry for Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks of the Government of Québec and Western Climate Initiative
Greenpeace’s Cool IT Leaderboard, Renee Blanchard, Greenpeace
Environmental Sustainability for the ICT Sector, John Smiciklas, MRDJ Assessment
ITU Methodologies for the Environmental Impact Assessment of ICT, Ahmed Zeddam, ITU-T Study Group 5 Chairman
Presentation of ITU-T Recommendation L.1410 on ICT Goods, Networks and Services; Brief Overview of ITU-T Methodologies on ICT projects and ICT in Cities, Jean Manuel Canet, France Telecom/Orange
ITU-T Recommendation L.1420: Is it that difficult to comply with it?, Gilbert Buty, Alcatel Lucent
Greening ICT Infrastructures, Greg Hidley, CALIT2/UCSD

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Green ICT Standards in Development

The ITU-T Study Group 5 is developing standards and guidelines on sustainable ICT. Unfortunately the draft ITU-T documents which are freely available are very large and poorly formatted. As an example, "Best practices for green data centers" (L.1300) is an 8 Mbyte file, which is much larger than it need be. Other documents are exorbitantly expensive, such as 49 Swiss Francs for Methodology for environmental impact assessment of information and communication technologies goods, networks and services" (L.1410). The ITU-T should follow the practices of the World Wide Web Consortium by releasing efficiently formatted standards documents which are available for free online.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Draft Australian e-Waste Standard

The draft Australia/New Zealand standard "Collection, Storage, Transport and Treatment of Used Electrical and Electronic Equipment" (AS/NZS 5377) is available for public comment until 15 May 2012. The document covers computers and telecommunications equipment, as well as other electrical equipment. The contentious issue of estimating the rate of recycling is covered in appendix C of the document. Release of the draft is timely as my ICT Sustainability students at the Australian National University are studying e-Waste this week.

Scope

This Standard sets out principles and minimum requirements for the safe and environmentally sound collection, storage, transport and treatment of used electrical and electronic equipment in order to maximize reuse and material recovery, reduce or eliminate the amount of waste from this equipment going to final disposal operations such as landfill, safeguard worker health, and minimize harm to the environment. This Standard covers electrical and electronic equipment, as outlined in Appendix A, designed for a supply voltage not exceeding 1000 volts for alternating current and 1500 volts for direct current. ...

CONTENTS

SECTION 1 SCOPE, OBJECTIVE APPLICATION AND GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
1.1 SCOPE 5
1.2 OBJECTIVE 5
1.3 APPLICATION 5
1.4 DEFINITIONS 5
1.5 GENERAL REQUIREMENTS 7
1.6 ORGANIZATIONAL REQUIREMENTS 8
1.7 RECEIVING, HANDLING AND STORAGE 9
1.8 RECORDS MANAGEMENT 10
1.9 DATA SECURITY 10
1.10 DISPOSAL TO LANDFILL 10

SECTION 2 REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLECTION AND STORAGE FACILITIES
2.1 GENERAL 11
2.2 LICENSING 11
2.3 ACCESS 11
2.4 SIGNAGE AND INFORMATION 11
2.5 STORAGE AND HANDLING 11
2.6 BROKEN OR DUMPED MATERIAL 12
2.7 STOCKPILING 13

SECTION 3 REUSE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
3.1 GENERAL 14
3.2 PREPARING FOR REUSE 14
3.3 HARVESTING OF REUSABLE EQUIPMENT 14
3.4 HARVESTING REUSABLE ASSEMBLIES, COMPONENTS AND PARTS 15
3.5 LEGAL COMPLIANCE AND EXPORT OF USED EQUIPMENT, ASSEMBLIES, COMPONENTS AND PARTS FOR REUSE 15
3.6 RESIDUAL WASTE FROM REUSE ACTIVITIES 15

SECTION 4 REQUIREMENTS FOR TRANSPORTATION
4.1 GENERAL 16
4.2 OBJECTIVES OF TRANSPORTING USED ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT 16
4.3 GENERAL TRANSPORTATION REQUIREMENTS 16
4.4 DOMESTIC TRANSPORTATION 16
4.5 EXPORT REQUIREMENTS 16
4.6 IMPORT REQUIREMENTS 17

SECTION 5 REQUIREMENTS FOR THE TREATMENT
5.1 GENERAL 18
5.2 PROCESSING AND HANDLING 18
5.3 TRACEABILITY 23
5.4 DOWNSTREAM PROCESSORS AND SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT 23
5.5 RECYCLING AND RECOVERY RECORD MANAGEMENT 23

APPENDICES
A ITEMS DESIGNATED AS ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT 24
B MINIMUM ACCEPTABLE PROCESSING, END USE AND METHOD OF DISPOSAL FOR USED ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT 29
C DETERMINATION OF RECYCLING AND RECOVERY RATES 35 ...

From: Collection, Storage, Transport and Treatment of Used Electrical and Electronic Equipment, AS/NZS 5377, draft Australia/New Zealand standard

Thursday, November 24, 2011

New Australian University Standards for 2012 Not Ready

It will be interesting to see what effect the new national the new Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) will have, along with an emphasis on universities reporting publicly against external standards. Starting in 2012 a Higher Education Standards Framework will be used to evaluate the performance of universities (and other higher education providers). The framework has not yet been completed (although it it is to come into force in a few weeks time).

The Higher Education Standards Panel , with five senior academics from Australian universities, was announced 9 November 2011.
Provider Standards have not yet been released.
Qualification Standards have been released in draft form in September 2011.
Teaching and Learning Standards are less advanced than other parts of the framework, with a discussion paper, Developing a framework for teaching and learning standards in Australian higher education and the role of TEQSA released 17 June 2011.
Research Standards are described bt TEQSA as "at the initial stage of development". However, commonly accepted codes of practice for research, such as "Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research" should allow this work to progress rapidly.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Signs and Symbols In the Mind's Eye

Italian rail crossing sign showing steam locomotive.

The "Feedback" column in the 14 May 2011 edition of "New Scientist" asks why the warning signs at railway crossings in the UK features a drawing of a steam train, which have not operated on the tracks in decades. Australia and many other countries use a similar diagram of a steam for their railway level crossing warning sign, whereas Germany uses a drawing of a modern electric locomotive.

Research has shown that the curved steam train shape is much more recognisable than the box like modern train shape. People would be familiar with the shape of a steam train from children's books and films, even if they had never seen a real one. Therefore the steam train sign is safer:

Title: A COMPARISON OF ALTERNATIVE SYMBOLIC WARNING SIGNS FOR RAILWAY LEVEL CROSSINGS

Abstract:

Most level crossings have light traffic and good accident records and the only protection that can be justified in cost benefit terms is a system of warning signs. The Australian standard specifies a warning sign using the "cross bucks" symbol which might not be correctly interpreted and might also be confused with the crossroads warning sign. Wigglesworth, in a review of level crossing protection for the Ministry of Transport, Victoria, recommended the adoption of a train symbol. The UN protocol symbol is a steam train but steam trains are no longer used on scheduled railway services. However, a diesel train symbol does not have distinctive features easily adaptable to symbolic representation and such a symbol might not have an adequate legibility distance. This paper compares the two Australian standard railway warning signs, a steam train symbol and two diesel train symbols. The criteria for evaluation are interpretability and legibility distance. Consideration is also given to what are the community stereotypes for a railway warning sign. It is concluded that the steam train symbol remains a community stereotype despite the rarity of steam trains; is likely to be correctly interpreted and has a long legibility
distance. (Author/TRRL)...

Authors: Cole, B L Jacobs, R J

Publication Date: 1981-12

Serial: Australian Road Research Volume: 11 Issue Number: 4
Publisher: Australian Road Research Board
ISSN: 0005-0164

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Public Information Symbols in Japan

The book "Symbol Signs" (AIGA, 1993) documents the development of the standard symbols for use in airports by the American Institute of Graphic Arts for the U.S. Department of Transportation. A similar process was undertaken in Japan by the "The Study Committee of Public Information Symbols" from April 1999. As with the US effort this was a joint private government partnership with the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport and the Nippon Foundation. The Study recommended 125 Public Information Symbols in 2001.

The symbols are in eight categories:

Public Facilities
Transport Facilities
Commercial Facilities
Tourism,Culture,Sport Facilities
Safety
Prohibition
Warning
Mandatory

There are three grades (A, B and C), with "Grade A" having the most commonly used symbols. There is also a fourth category of "Existing", which is presumably of symbols in common use which the committee did not particularly like, but felt obliged to include.

The Symbols follow the style of the US AIGA DOT symbols and mostly use the AIGA recommendations, but have more detail. As an example, as well as an "Information" sign (small case "i"), there is a "question and answer" sign ("?").

The sample syvbmols are prtovided as 70 x 70 pixel PNG files. The sybmols are mostly monochrome in black on a white background. The safety signs are in green or red, prohibition signs in red and black on a white background and warning signs in black on a yellow background. PDF, EPS and GIF archioes are proveded of each set of symbols at higher resolutioons. However, the symbols are not provided as individual files at higher resolutions, making the m much harder to use.