STS (Standards Tag Suite)

Status: 

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has announced the publication of the new American National Standard, STS: Standards Tag Suite (Version 1.2), ANSI/NISO Z39.102-2022, in November 2022.

Non-normative NISO STS Supporting Materials remain available at http://www.niso-sts.org/. A Standing Committee managed the revision process (see roster below). 

You may submit a comment about STS to be considered by the Standing Committee. Comments already submitted are viewable by the public.

[The rosters for the Steering Committee and Technical Committee, which were responsible for the drafting and finalization of the standard during 2016-2017, are available.]

Work Description

This work will standardize a specific tag set used for standards publishing, and link it officially to JATS (ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2012 JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite), a widely used specification which defines a set of XML elements and attributes for tagging journal articles and describes several article models. 

Background

There are currently several DTDs used for tagging standard-type information based on JATS and a number of others that have been independently developed. This variety of DTDs used in standards publishing makes interoperability between organizations difficult and increases any integration costs.

At the end of 2011, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) revamped its publishing systems and together with Mulberry Technologies, Inc. developed a derivative of JATS to be used for ISO standards publishing: the ISOSTS (ISO Standard Tag Set). This DTD has been in full production since, with little or no changes. The DTD and documentation are openly available.  A number of ISO’s members [BSI (British Standards Institution), SIS (Swedish Standards Institute), NEN (Netherlands Standardization Institute), SA (Standards Australia)] and some distributors have adopted the ISOSTS.

Several standards development organizations (SDOs) and distributors in the United States are looking to upgrade their publishing systems. Some are already familiar with JATS and have looked at ISOSTS. However, there is reluctance to adopt ISOSTS as it is not currently an official standard. Concern also exists that if JATS is updated, its updates may not filter into ISOSTS. 

It would be beneficial to all stakeholders to move ISOSTS toward standardization and create an official relationship with JATS. The two standards will then remain coupled and the ISOSTS solution will be adopted more readily. This move will result in greater interoperability of standards, which in turn will aid our end users, and improve the future of standards publishing.