• Know basic principles of legal and standard research
  • Know laws that are relevant to technical communication
  • Know public information sources, sources of supply and information portals, standard repositories, information portals for standards
  • Know legal research tools
  • Know basic principles of archive search
  • Know the agencies responsible for developing, updating and maintaining such standards, laws, and regulations and know where to go to find updates on/remain current in terms of standards, laws, and regulations
  • Search for standards and related information
  • Understand interplay between standards, regulations, directives and national law

see also information mining

  • Understand relevance of standards for technical communication and requirements placed on information products as a result of normative requirements
  • Know standard IEC/EN 82079 for preparation of instructions for use
  • Understand the legally non-binding nature of standards
  • Know market relevance of standards (e.g., harmonized EU standards, ISO standards, DIN standards)
  • Know fields of application of standards (for products, e.g., low-voltage directive, pressure equipment directive, medical equipment standard)
  • Know difference between international standards and European standards that regulate the same subject matter (e.g., standards in the ANSI series, IEC/EN 82079)
  • Know principal purposes and principles of standardisation work
  • Know national and international standards bodies
  • Know horizontal and vertical standards (product standards)
  • Know how to identify type of standard by referring to the name of a standard
  • Know safety-related distinction between A, B and C standards according to ISO/IEC guides
  • Know international classification for standards (ICS) as an international classification criterion for standards
  • Know how to cooperate on national and international standardisation
  • Know how to determine risks and dangers associated with the product
  • Understand the legal significance of risk assessment
  • Know risk categories and hazard classes (hazard levels)
  • Know how to plan and perform a risk assessment

see also content development

  • Know basic principles of product safety
  • Know main topics of product safety law
  • Understand characteristics of safe and unsafe products
  • Know safety requirement-related regulations
  • Know requirements placed on information products pursuant to Product Safety Law
  • Know manufacturer’s product observation obligations
  • Know organisation and operating principles of market observation (e.g., at European level)
  • Understand methods of achieving or improving product safety (e.g., design measures, safety devices, safety notes and warning messages)

see also content development

  • Know requirements based on duty to instruct:
  • Know which types of information products must be supplied according to which
  • Particular specifications (e.g., Product Safety Law, EU Machinery Directive)
  • Know possible ways of meeting documentation obligations

see also content development

  • Understand how contractual requirements impact technical communication
  • Know main features of contractual liability
  • Know main features of legal product liability
  • Know requirements regarding content placed on information products as a result of product liability
  • Understand liability in the field of technical communication (e.g., personal and entrepreneurial liability)
  • Know formal requirements placed on information products as a result of product liability
  • Know possible legal consequences arising from defective information products
  • Know how supranational laws (e.g., EU Directives) are transported into national law; significance for product liability
  • Know basic principles of product compliance
  • Know how to declare conformity in information products
  • Understand how tasks and roles must be allocated with regard to ensuring product compliance
  • Know requirements placed on technical communication for product compliance and placing products on the market

see also content development

  • Know normative requirements of international markets
  • Understand documentation requirements (e.g., in requirements specifications and functional specifications)
  • Know how to use checklists from standards
  • Apply and implement standards
  • Know accredited testing institutes
  • Be able to check compliance with standards
  • Know country-specific legal and normative requirements placed on information products

see also content development

see also multilingual workflow

  • Know basic principles of copyright law and legal right of use (license law)
  • Know relevance of copyright law and legal right of use in technical communication
  • Know potential conditions of use
  • Know copyright law for sources and requirements placed on legal use of sources (e.g., images, text, software licenses)
  • Be able to use materials protected by license rights (e.g., software, photographic material)
  • Know legal situation where open source materials are used

see also content development

  • Understand data and IT security in relation to content of information product
  • Understand data and IT security in the creation process
  • Understand data and IT security in relation to delivering the information product

see also information management

  • Know consequences and liability in event of inadequate document management
  • Know requirements for archiving of information products (audit reliability, retention period, storage location

see also information management

  • Understand purpose of factory standards
  • Know subject matter of factory standards
  • Know areas in which factory standards are applied
  • Understand the relation between factory standards and technical communication

see also content development