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International Web Site
For a global overview of activities, IAI maintains an international web site at the following address:
Chapter Web Sites
Most Chapters of the IAI maintain web sites of their own that give information relevant to the operation of that Chapter and in a language (or languages) that can be most easily understood by their membership. Chapter web site addresses can be obtained from the Technical Co-ordinator or Business Manger of the Chapter concerned. Access can also be obtained to local sites via the international web site.
International FTP Site
IAI members have access to an international FTP site that contains complete information about the latest release of the IFCs. Additionally, Chapters, projects and domain committees are encouraged to place documents under development onto the FTP site.
Files in any format can be placed onto the FTP site and some of these files can be very large. When placing files that cannot be viewed on-line or that are very large, members are encouraged to accompany the file with a small summary file written in standard text (ASCII) format that can be viewed or quickly downloaded so that other members can easily determine if they need it. Placing a summary file is a courtesy to other members since downloading a file of several megabytes capacity and then finding that it is not the current version or is not needed can be both time consuming and frustrating.
ASCII files can be written using any text editor such as the Windows Notepad.
Access to the FTP site is protected by password. The password is supplied to members on joining by the Technical Coordinator or Business Manager of their Chapter. In order to prevent unauthorized access, the password is changed at approximately six-month intervals.
Committee Email Lists
The IAI and its various committees (international, project and domain) normally communicate via email. It is unusual for members to use paper-based communication. To support widespread communication, many committees make use of email list servers (also known as ‘exploders’) which allow an email to be sent to a single address and then automatically distributed to all other email addresses on the list.
The exception to this rule is the distribution of passwords to the international FTP site that is NEVER distributed electronically.
Official Language
The official language of the IAI is English. The default spelling is the American form, namely organization rather than organisation, color instead of colour. The authority for spelling is the Spelling Checker distributed with Microsoft Word 97 with language set for English (United States). Documents for international distribution should be in the official language.