Development process of CiA documents
Usually, it starts with a request, a so-called New Work Item Proposal (NWIP). Then, CiA administration calls for experts. When there are more than three CiA members supporting the request, a NWI is accepted and will be assigned to one of the existing CiA technical groups or a new one will be established by means of an inaugural meeting.
When the initiators of the NWI have not provided a Work Draft Proposal (WDP), the responsible CiA technical group develops a first Work Draft (WD). WDs are commented and reviewed in an iterative process until a Final Work Draft (FWD) has been agreed. This FWD moves to a Draft Specification Proposal (DSP). This DSP is released as an official CiA internal document. It is intended that interested parties implement it for evaluation purposes and to prove its practicality. Normally, after one year, the DSP will be reviewed, changed, and enhanced depending on the made experiences. The next level is the submission to the related interest group for approval. After approval, the document is released as Draft Specification (DS). It is reviewed systematically at least after five years.
On request of CiA technical groups or the CiA Board of Directors, the Technical Committee can release a document as a Public Available Specification (PAS). Additionally, interest groups (IG) or special interest groups (SIG) may release Technical Reports comprising application notes, implementation guidelines, and recommendations as well as digital annexes. TRs are also downloadable free of charge by registered CiA website visitors.
To contribute is easy!
All CiA members may participate in any technical group developing documents. You go the face-to-face meetings or join the Zoom conferences. All upcoming meetings are listed on CiA’s homepage. For more information you may contact CiA office (secretary(at)can-cia.org).
You are also invited to send comments on already released documents, in order to improve them. The comment form can be downloaded here.
Propose new work items
If you see a need to specify something jointly, contact CiA office (secretary(at)can-cia.org) to initiate a new work item proposal (NWIP). This will be distributed to all members. When there are in minimum three interested parties we can start to work on this new work item. Sometimes CiA office organizes a workshop before so that everyone can get a better understanding on the proposed new work item’s background.