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DKD

Transfer of the copyright ownership and usage rights to DAkkS-DKD Guidelines and DAkkS-DKD Guides back to PTB

16.07.2018

According to the revised policy of the Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle GmbH (DAkkS) regarding its rules and regulations for accreditation, all rules which merely describe the so-called "state of the art" (level 4 and 5) will no longer be provided and published as their own rules.

In the course of this process, DAkkS and PTB, the National Metrology Institute of Germany (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt) have concluded an agreement on the basis of which all copyrights and usage rights to DAkkS-DKD guidelines and DAkkS-DKD guides will be transferred back to the Deutscher Kalibrierdienst (DKD). DKD will in future revise and update the content of these documents, publish them and make them available on its website.

Background: On 3 May 2011, a committee for the development of metrological principles for cali-bration was established at PTB, in which PTB and accredited calibration laboratories work closely together. This body is known as “Deutscher Kalibrierdienst (DKD)” (German Calibration Service) and is headed by PTB. DKD is not an accreditation body. The principal objectives of DKD are the promo-tion of calibration for the purpose of dissemination of uniformity and the development of calibra-tion guidelines and guides that represent the state of the art and can serve as a basis for accredita-tion procedures.

From 1 September 2018, DKD will again publish the above-mentioned documents, with a modified layout but unchanged in terms of content, as DKD guidelines and DKD guides. DKD will indicate in an appropriate manner that these documents are identical in content to the previous DAkkS-DKD guidelines or DAkkS-DKD guides.

In the event that DKD, with the assistance of its technical committees, revises the content of the above-mentioned documents after 1 September 2018 and subsequently publishes them in an amended version, it will withdraw the hitherto valid version after a transition period of two years. Until then, the outdated versions will be published on the DKD website and identified as such.

In this case, DAkkS will also withdraw the affected versions of the DAkkS-DKD guidelines and DAkkS-DKD guides after a transition period of two years, but no later than 1 January 2021.

It should be noted that the so-called DAkkS-DKD papers and DAkkS-DKD information sheets are not affected by the transfer back to DKD. They continue to be subject to responsibility for revision and publication by DAkkS.

Consequences for accredited calibration laboratories in whose appendices to their accreditation certificates the above-mentioned DAkkS-DKD guidelines are listed:

Because the DAkkS-DKD guidelines are published with a modified layout but are unchanged in terms of content, no specific applications to DAkkS are required for matters relating exclusively to the conversion to the future form of publication of the calibration guidelines.

Conversion of the layout of the valid accreditation certificates is carried out on the occasion of up-dates of the appendices to the certificate required in the context of re-accreditations and of exten-sions or changes to the scope of accreditation. Since all accreditation certificates must be reissued by DAkkS in the course of the conversion period for all accreditations of calibration laboratories to the new revision DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025: 2018 by November 2020, it is ensured that, from 1 January 2021, publication of the “old DAkkS-DKD rules and regulations” is no longer necessary.