Every now and again I hear people use the terms ‘technical specification’ and ‘technical standard’ interchangeably when it comes to IMS Global‘s OneRoster. At first I too used to flip-flop between those terms and then I decided to research it a bit through conversations with the folks at IMS and some good ole’ online searching… here’s what I found.
Turns out there are some similarities between ‘specs’ and ‘standards’… and a few meaningful differences. Below is a quick review of the key differences.
| Standard | Specification |
|---|---|
| Developed by consensus among many parties according to a specified set of rules and procedures | Developed by one entity |
| Published by a neutral party | Published by a neutral or non-neutral party |
| Purpose is to establish a generally accepted design standard | Purpose may be for a particular project which may include customization to a generally accepted design standard |
So there it is. OneRoster, and most anything produced by IMS Global, because of their consensus approach to life, should be thought of as a standard and not a spec.
Thank you to Sandra DeCastro at IMS Global and BICSI for their clear insights on this.
-Berj
Founder and CEO
