Endorsed by NesCom on 20 September 1995

Revised 7 June 2006

 

The following serve as the rules for the numbering of all IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) projects, to be applied as PARs arrive in the IEEE-SA. The objectives of this Numbering Policy are to group families of standards projects and to identify clearly which documents are temporary (i.e., amendments or corrigenda that will be folded into a revision) and which are permanent.

1. Projects are numbered by whole numbers in sequential order as their PARs arrive in the IEEE-SA, e.g., P1905, P1906, P1907, etc. The IEEE NesCom Administrator has the only authority to assign designation numbers, which will be reviewed by NesCom.
2. Projects for amendments will have the numeric designation of the standard they amend plus a lowercase letter, e.g., P1905a and P1905b.
3. Projects for corrigenda will have the numeric designation of the standard they correct followed by an indication of the corrigenda status, e.g., P1905-20xx/Cor 1. Projects for corrigenda that correct an independently available amendment shall reflect the number of that amendment, e.g., P1905a-20xx/Cor 1.
4. The letters "l" or "o" shall not be used in project numbers.
5. When a project requires a double letter to identify it because the 26 letters of the alphabet have already been used, the following lettering sequence shall be utilized: aa, ab, ac, ad, etc., as in P802.3aa and P802.3ab.

When a standard grows in complexity, it may be necessary to accommodate the variety of families of related projects. If so,

6. The top level or base project for a standard shall be numbered with a whole number, e.g., P1905. (a) Related or subordinate projects that will exist as free-standing publications will have a unique decimal-numbered extension, e.g., P1905.1 and P1905.2.
7. If there is no base standard (the documents in the family of standards are equally related), the numbering of projects in that family will start with the decimal-numbered extension, e.g., P1905.1 and P1905.2, with no initial whole number assigned.
8. Projects for conformance may have unique numbers unrelated to the standard for which conformance is being defined; they may have a parallel number to the standard for which conformance is being defined, e.g., P1656 could be the conformance project to IEEE Std 656-20xx; or they may maintain the numeric designation of the standard for which a conformance project is being defined, e.g., the first conformance project to IEEE Std 1905.2-20xx would be P1905.2/Conformance01. The latter method is particularly recommended for multipart conformance projects to a single standard. In special instances, a predetermined designation may be needed, e.g., during international coordination, and shall be submitted to NesCom for approval.
9. Exceptions to these conventions are strongly discouraged by NesCom.

Currently, the only exceptions to this policy are:

1. Certain families of projects for which an extensive project numbering system is already in place and whose numbers already have significant product recognition worldwide.
2. Families of existing projects, such as those originating in accredited standards committees, with long histories of double decimal numbering, e.g., C57.13.1, C57.13.2, etc. The base number is the committee "name" or the area of technology, as well as the broadly known numerical identification of that family of standards.
3. Projects that are run by committees where the numbering of the projects is not determined solely by the IEEE, e.g., Pascal 770X3.
4. Different project numbering taxonomies may also be considered by NesCom at the recommendation of staff under special circumstances.