Resources: Glossary

Definitions

Commonly Used Acronyms

Other Resources

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Definitions

Accreditation:

Third-party attestation related to a conformity assessment body conveying formal demonstration of its competence to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks. These tasks include sampling and testing, inspection, certification, and registration.

Ad hoc Standard:

See “De facto Standard”.

American National Standard (ANS):

Designation for a standards developing process ensuring that the standard was developed according to the ANSI Essential Requirements. ANS are not developed by ANSI but rather by ANSI accredited Standards Developing Organizations.

ANSI Essential Requirements (ANSI ER or AER):

Requirements for receipt of the ANS designation including due process, openness, balance, and consensus.

ANSI standard:

See “American National Standard”.

Attestation:

Issue of a statement, based on a decision following review, that fulfillment of specified requirements has been demonstrated.

Certification:

Third-party attestation related to products, processes, systems, or persons that conveys assurance that specified requirements have been demonstrated.

Compliance:

See “Conformity Assessment”.

Conformance:

See “Conformity Assessment”.

Conformance Procedure:

See “Conformity Assessment Procedures”.

Conformity Assessment:

Demonstration that specified requirements relating to a product, process, system, person, or body are fulfilled. (This may include any activity concerned with determining directly or indirectly that relevant requirements are fulfilled).

Conformity Assessment Procedures:

Any procedure used, directly or indirectly, to determine that relevant requirements in technical regulations or standards are fulfilled (e.g., testing, inspection, certification, accreditation).

Consensus Standard:

See “Standard”.

De facto standard:

A de facto standard — or ad hoc standard — is based on common practices that are well-established. De facto standards for format, language, or protocol, have wide general acceptance although they are not formally recognized by a standards developer. Common de facto standards include the arrangement of keys on a typewriter or keyboard (QWERTY keyboard) and the MS-DOS computer operating system.

Declaration:

First-party attestation.

First-party Conformity Assessment:

Conformity Assessment that is performed by the person or organization that provides the object of conformity assessment.

Global Standards:

Standards that are broadly accepted and used around the world independent of their source or standards development process.

Inspection:

Examination of a product design, product, process, or installation and determination of its conformity with specific requirements or, on the basis of professional judgment, with general requirements.

international standards (non-capitalized):

A broad category of standards developed in compliance with the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade Committee criteria for the development of international standards (Second Triennial Review of the Operation and Implementation of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, Annex 4).

International Standards (capitalized):

A trademarked term referring to standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

Mandatory Standard:

See “Technical Regulation”.

Market Acceptance:

Includes the private sector standards and conformity assessment measures that retailers and consumers expect products to meet to be placed in a particular market. These measures sometimes differ from and exceed the applicable market access requirements.

Market Access:

Includes governmental technical regulations and the conformity assessment measures that the government requires to demonstrate compliance with these technical regulations.

National Committee (to the IEC):

One public or private sector organization that serves as a particular economy’s member body to the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) which may or may not be a country’s national standards body or part of it.

National Standards Body (NSB):

One public or private sector organization that serves as a particular economy’s member body to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In addition, some NSBs may also serve as a coordinator of domestic standards activities.

Non-treaty Organization (or non-governmental international organization):

An international organization in which countries can be represented by either a government or private sector organization (e.g. ISO, IEC).

“One Country, One Vote” Standards:

International Standards developed in a formal voting process where each country is represented through a “national body” carrying one vote each, regardless of the size of its economy, population, or the number of technical experts that participate from each country.

Private-sector Standard:

See “Standard”.

Second-party Conformity Assessment:

Conformity Assessment that is performed or required by a person or organization that has a user interest in the object (e.g. the procurer, purchaser or user).

Standard:

A recognized unit of comparison by which the correctness of others can be determined. A standard may also be defined as a set of characteristics or qualities that describes features of a product, process, or service. According to the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO / TBT) Agreement, Annex 1, a standard is “a document, established by consensus, that provides rules, guidelines, or characteristics for activities or their results” or “a document that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related process and production methods, with which compliance is not mandatory.”