IEEE Computer Society
Information Assurance

Technical Activities

The IEEE and the Computer Society entertains a distinction between "standards activities" and "technical activities" that acts to insulate groups of technologists with common interests.

So-called "technical activities" (technical committees and task forces) sponsor conferences, symposia, and workshops and publish papers associated with these events.

"Standards activities" produce standards, recommended practices, and guides through a process (balloting) that is a more severe form of peer review than experienced by papers from conferences.

The IEEEIA blurs the distinction between these two activities by involving technologists from each area into the other area, and by broadening the "products" in each area.

Working groups developing standards are expected to participate in workshops, conferences, and may also develop working group notes for publication.  Members of technical committees and task forces are expected to contribute by reviewing developing standards and to development of light weight agreements at workshops. Such agreements may receive further development to become balloted standards.

List of IEEE groups initially involved in IEEEIA:

• IEEE Task Force on Information Assurance
  http://ieee-tfia.org
• IEEE Technical Committee on Security and Privacy
  http://ieee-security.org
• IEEE Technical Committee on Mass Storage
  http://msstc.org
• IEEE Technical Committee on Computer Elements
• IEEE Technical Committee on Operating Systems
  http://tcos.org

IEEE Computer Society Technical Activity Board
List of Technical Committees and Task Forces
http://computer.org/tab/tclist/index.htm