<accrediting-organization> Accrediting Organization

Records the fact that the SDO producing this standard has been accredited, and by which accrediting agency. The content of this element is typically a phrase, which may or may not be displayed as part of the standards document, such as: “Accredited by the American National Standards Institute”.

Usage/Remarks

The attribute @accredit-acronym should be placed on <accrediting-organization> to name the accrediting organization, for example, United States SDOs can name “ANSI”. This attribute provides a machine-searchable normalized version of the organization since the text of the element is free form. For Best Practice, since the attribute name includes the word “acronym”, the values (such as “ANSI”) should be given in ALL CAPS.
Accrediting and Authorization
The idea of accrediting a standards body is typically an American standards issue. American SDOs can be formally “accredited” by ANSI to publish standards. To be so accredited, an SDO must follow ANSI rules, and there are regular audits to ensure compliance. Not all organizations that publish standards in America are accredited, and not all documents published by an accredited organization are authorized to be “An American National Standard”. Thus American SDOs need a structure in the XML metadata to record both that they are accredited (<accrediting-organization>) and that this particular standard has been authorized (<authorization>).
Attributes

Base Attributes

Models and Context
May be contained in
Description
Text, numbers, or special characters, zero or more
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  accrediting-organization
                        (#PCDATA 
                         %accrediting-organization-elements;)*       >
Expanded Content Model

(#PCDATA)*

Tagged Sample

Acronym and Full Name

...
<std-meta>
 ...
 <comm-ref>...</comm-ref>
 <accrediting-organization accredit-acronym="ANSI">Under the 
  authority of the American National Standards Institute</accrediting-organization>
 <authorization authorize-acronym="ANS">An American National 
  Standard</authorization>
 <secretariat>...</secretariat>
</std-meta>
...