SDO
Definition
Standards Development Organisation: a body with formal processes for publishing consensus standards. ASTM International, ANSI, and BSI are examples. OSAC submits its technical standards to SDOs for publication so they carry the procedural legitimacy of consensus standards, not just expert opinion.
- Full name
- Standards Development Organisation
- Examples
- ASTM International, ANSI, BSI
- Process
- Formal consensus-based standard publication
- Related body
- OSAC submits its technical standards to SDOs
- Effect of SDO publication
- Confers procedural legitimacy beyond expert opinion alone
Common questions
Why does a forensic method gain credibility from SDO publication instead of just being validated in-house by a lab?+
SDO processes require open comment periods, balanced committee representation, and formal voting before a standard is approved, which builds a documented consensus that a single laboratory's internal validation cannot claim on its own, and that record helps the standard withstand admissibility challenges in court.
What is the relationship between OSAC and an SDO like ASTM?+
OSAC develops and technically vets forensic science standards through its subcommittees, then submits the finished documents to an SDO such as ASTM International for formal balloting and publication, since OSAC itself is not a standards-publishing body.
Do different countries rely on the same SDOs for forensic standards?+
No, national and regional SDOs differ: the United States leans on ASTM and ANSI, the United Kingdom on BSI, and other jurisdictions have their own bodies or adopt ISO standards, so a method validated to one country's SDO standard is not automatically recognized as meeting another's.
Related terms
- ENFSI
- European Network of Forensic Science Institutes: the voluntary network of national forensic institutes across Europe and neighbouring regions, focused on method harmonisation,...
- ILAC
- The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation, the global network of accreditation bodies. ILAC's Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) means a result produced by an...
- INTERPOL
- International Criminal Police Organization: the intergovernmental body, headquartered in Lyon, that facilitates police cooperation across 196 member countries through databases, communications infrastructure,...
- OSAC
- Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science: established by NIST and DOJ in 2014, it develops consensus forensic standards through structured...
- SWG (Scientific Working Group)
- US discipline-specific committees that produced best-practice guidelines for forensic science from the 1990s onward. Most SWGs were absorbed into or superseded by...