Focus on the net

Citation

(2000), "Focus on the net", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 4 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2000.26704cag.001

Focus on the net

A site which claims to translate the ISO 9000 series into plain English is promising a great deal indeed – but that is just what the Praxiom Research Group of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada is attempting to do.

A slightly unwieldy main page (http://connect.ab.ca/~praxiom/index.htm) scrolls down to reveal links to explanations of each of the pre-2000 (a major drawback at the moment) ISO standards. The introduction that runs down the page alongside the links is a good start. It's definitely plain English. It discusses the motivation behind quality management, how to embark on a programme and how the various ISO standards can help. Praxiom has even created a comprehensive quality system development plan and three internal quality audit programmes.

Praxiom takes the opportunity to direct the reader towards the full, print versions of these documents (which are for sale). But there is plenty on the Web site – particularly the "translations" of the ISO standards – that is usable. These documents represent a detailed and faithful representation of the standards in an easy to follow, bullet style.

Internal-auditor.com claims to be the only site of its kind, designed for quality system internal auditors. There are some resources available (including a glossary, bookstore, ISO 9000:2000 summary and good selection of links) but the main online resources are subscription only.

Filling out the guestbook form from The National Computing Centre (http://www.ncc.co.uk/standards/standardsguest.cfm) gives access to free downloadable copies of an Internal Quality Audit Handbook and a Procedures Writing Handbook. Finally, when you are ready to submit to an external audit, http://www.quality.co.uk/certbody.htm provides contact details for ISO 9000 Registrars organized country by country.

Quality in education is often spelt with a small q, referring more to educational standards than quality management as we know it. The site provided by the UK Quality Assurance Agency is a well stocked public-access site with news, links and, amongst other things, guidelines on review and audit, guidelines for distance education, the "higher quality" online bulletin, codes of practice and benchmarking. There are many reports on individual institutions to get past (the QAA is responsible for inspecting UK higher education institutions) but the site is well organized.