Key to TDWG Standards Status

Current Standard

Standards that TDWG recommends for use.

Current (2005) Standard

Standards that TDWG recommends for use, and that were ratified at the TDWG Annual Meeting 2005 in St. Petersburgh. These standards do not as yet comply with the specification that is in draft form, nor have they been submitted to the new standards development process adopted in St Louis in 2006.

Draft Standard

Standard under review submitted to the TDWG Standards Track after 2006.

Prior Standard

Standards that were ratified prior to 2005 and that are not currently being promoted for ratification under the post 2006 ratification process. These standards currently lack a 'champion' to bring them into line with the draft specification and submit them to the new standards development process adopted in St Louis in 2006.

Retired Standard

Standards that have been ratified by TDWG in the past but that are no longer recommended.

Key to Standard Categories

Technical Specification (TS)

Any description of a protocol, service, procedure, convention, or format, as described in RFC 2026.

Applicability Statement (AS)

Specifies how, and under what circumstances, one or more TS (from TDWG or other standardization bodies) may be applied to support a particular feature or capability. An AS identifies the relevant TSs and the specific way in which they are to be combined, and may also specify particular values or ranges of TS parameters or subfunctions of a TS protocol that must be implemented. An AS also specifies the circumstances in which the use of a particular TS is required, recommended, or elective. For more information, see RFC 2026.

Best Current Practice (BCP)

A description of standardized practices and the results of community deliberations. A BCP document is a vehicle by which the biodiversity information community can define and ratify the community's best current thinking on a statement of principle or on what is believed to be the best way to perform some operations or TDWG process function. For more information, see RFC 2026.

Data Standard (DS)

Specifies valid values in controlled vocabularies.