Workshop to Focus on Standards Education

Representatives of standards making bodies, corporate officials and educators from around the world will meet Feb. 21-22, 2008, at the “Global Perspectives and Strategies for Education about Standardization” workshop at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md. Participants will discuss ways educate the next generation of business leaders on the importance of standards to commerce, technology commercialization and innovation. NIST will sponsor the meeting with ASTM International, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and its Committee on Education (CoE) and the International Committee for Education about Standardization (ICES).

The first day of the workshop will feature panel discussions of standards training in North America, South America and Asia. It will include reviews of current programs that integrate standards and conformity assessment into university curricula, along with examining the current state of standards professional training, continuing education and user training. On the second day, participants will identify key issues, needs and challenges facing those engaged in standards education, make suggestions for changes and discuss plans for future workshops to address them.

Workshop attendance is free; register at http://ts.nist.gov/Standards/ICES-Workshop.cfm. For more information, contact Erik Puskar, erik.puskar@nist.gov, (301) 975-8619.