Standards Documents: Learning and teaching about standards

Developed by the Purdue University Library with support from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, these modules explain why and how engineers search for and use standards as part of their design process.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently awarded six grants as part of an effort to improve the integration of standardization into the curriculum of business and engineering programs at U.S. colleges and universities. Two of the grants were awarded to projects overseen by Purdue University and SES - The Society for Standards Professionals. The end products of the grants are represented on "this page and in the videos."

The American National Standards Institute provides a searchable directory of Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) that meet basic qualifications. This directory can assist you in selecting an organization to search for committees that may be drafting or updating standards that are relevant to your project.

Learn about the International Classification for Standards documents, used to organize international, regional, and national standards within libraries and search tools.

Learn about the differences between a code and technical standards. "One way of looking at the differences between codes and standards is that a code tells you what you need to do, and a standards tells you how to do it."

Voluntary Codes and Standards: Teaching Resources for Law and Public Policy Courses by University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School's Penn program on Regulation. Modules are designed to be used in existing courses, and were developed with support from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)