A Confluence of Stages in the Life Cycle of Standards

The life cycle of standards can be complicated and is often measured in decades. It can take a lot of time and energy to get an entire industry on the same page while recognizing problems, defining a solution, and then implementing it. Implementation often surfaces new issues, unanticipated challenges, or new opportunities. The process is substantially different from one thar might occur inside another organization, and it takes place at a different pace. However, the potential impact of these efforts on products and services is significant industry wide. Over the longer term and across institutions and organizations, the value of investing in standards can be tremendous.

The past few weeks offer examples of standards at various stages in their life cycle and how they can have transformative impact. These examples include ideas under discussion and projects just starting out, standards that have grown and adapted, and standards that have long a history of impact but continue to adapt as needs have changed.

Last month, during the NISO Plus Global/Online conference, the strategy of gathering people to discuss challenges they face and opportunities they see continued to pay dividends. Here are some of the topics that drew attention as potential projects:

• The continued development of SeamlessAccess and wallet identity-management technology
• Tracking and reporting usage across aggregator platforms to publishers
• Implementation of Guidelines for Indigenous Data Governance in Scholarly Publishing
• Internationally applicable assessment criteria for OA journals
• Building trust in AI through linkages back to sources and tracking usage
• Defining descriptions of what content is searched, retrieved, or presented/linked in AI systems

These were just some of the many ideas discussed during the conference. Whether any of these projects move to the next stage will be determined in the coming months. The NISO leadership committee structure and the community who proposed these ideas will consider them, assess their potential impact, and prioritize their efforts while considering other ongoing work.

Meanwhile, a NISO project that is well underway and advancing through the consensus process recently reached a milestone: the Open Access Business Process Recommended Practice was released for public comment in September. As the adoption of OA publication models increases, making OA publishing more efficient and cost-effective through consistent business practices has grown in importance. With the variety of models expanding and the decision-making criteria around how OA fees are covered, more consistent information exchange is needed to process payments. In addition, tracking and reporting will require standardization to produce useful data about the impacts of OA investments. You can access the draft document, add a comment, and view comments received through October 17, 2025. After the deadline, the Working Group will review and consider all feedback prior to final publication.

Yet another project has similarly been released for public comment. The ongoing evolution of the Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) initiative continues with Phase III, and. the draft of the latest revision is now open for public comment. Since its first release in 2010, the KBART Recommended Practice has provided guidance on the transmission of electronic resource title lists and coverage data from content providers to knowledge base (KB) suppliers. This new version includes support for new media types, such as videos, databases, blogs, and websites. It also adds provisions for a file manifest and generally clarifies uses with examples, making the recommendations more readable and useful for the community. The community is encouraged to access the draft document, leave a comment, and view comments received through November 10, 2025.

At the later stages in the life cycle is another standard, though not one up for revision or amendment. The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is celebrating its 50th year since publication. Next week, I will be speaking at a conference hosted by the International ISSN Centre at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) to celebrate this milestone. The meeting will include an international dialogue on the identification and preservation of cultural and scholarly publications using the ISSN as a lynchpin in the identification necessary to support these processes. The ISSN (ISO 3297) developed out of a 1970 feasibility study on a global serials identification system, which recommended a centralized and decentralized model for serials registration. Later feasibility studies led to the scoping of a unique identifier for serial publications. As the system grew and was implemented, new demands for linking of multiple formats (the ISSN-L), sharing of open access resources (ROAD), the TRANSFER Alerting Service (TAS), and services to support preservation information (the Keepers Registry). Over decades, the value and impact provided by the ISSN system and the ISSN Centre have only grown. It will be an honor to be included in the celebration, representing NISO and the ISO Committee on Identification and Description.

These examples of standards projects at various stages in their life cycle provide opportunities for the community to reflect on—and improve—the work of developing consensus. Community conversations and dialogue enable these efforts to expand through more widespread implementation. Functionality that might not have been captured in a document’s first release can be added in the revision process. Standards can adapt as technologies and use cases can change over time. As much as we think of technologies as rapidly evolving at a breakneck pace, standards too evolve, just on their own schedule.