"Considering the importance of electronic working tools in improving the efficiency and effectiveness, and reducing the cost of standards making, it was agreed to initiate focused information exchange activities after this meeting. Each PSO was for this purpose invited to appoint active members of the Group to work by correspondence. A new email exploder and web site, hosted by ETSI, will provide the focal point for the activities." [GSC-EWG report to GSC7 in Sydney, Nov 2001]
This web site, established and maintained by ETSI, has been created as a working tool and document repository for the Electronics Working Methods group of the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC-EWG) - more in About GSC-EWG.
NB - GSC-EWG is essentially a "closed" group. Its membership is restricted to representatives of the Participating Standardization Organizations (PSOs), the ITU and its sectors, Liaison organizations and Observer bodies (more at Liaison) having an active interest in electronic working methods. The members of the Group are registered in the email exploder used by the group and administered by the GSC-EWG chairman.
However, access to the contents on this site is not at all restricted to the "closed" group but made available to "the world", in the interest of promoting electronic working methods in any standards related body.
The site will contain information on a selected set of subject areas, as documents stored on the site or as links to documents stored on other web sites. These documents either exist as rules or guidance for application within the relevant bodies, or have been prepared and contributed for the purpose of this site, as parts or results of virtual conferences or email exploder discussions within GSC-EWG, or otherwise.
The set of subject areas chosen - viz. Working methods, Communication tools, Data base tools, Meeting support tools, Decision tools and Information dissemination tools - is but a rough grouping of the subjects. The subject areas are therefore not necessarily disjoint - they are in several cases partly overlapping.
The physical meetings of the Group have been characterized by information exchange in the form of papers and presentations, most of them in the form of documents for the meeting, see About GSC-EWG. The discussions on the GSC-EWG email exploder may result in summaries stored on this site, but it is also anticipated that the site will be populated with documents and links to documents that provide broader as well as deeper insight into the capabilities of and experience from use of electronic means in standards making.
The fact that the site is a working tool for GSC-EWG means that the site will be continually maintained and growing in size and subject area coverage, following the advancement of the work of the Group.
Readers other than members of the GSC-EWG are welcome to contribute to the contents of the site by sending their comments, suggestions and contributions to the GSC-EWG editor. The editor, however, reserves the right to decide which material to make available on the site.
NB - This site - designed and maintained with Macromedia Dreamweaver 4.0 and published with Microsoft FrontPage 2002 - is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5+ and Netscape 6.1+. Other browser versions or browsers may not correctly reproduce the site contents.
