Governance

The Engineering Management Academy publishes EMA AI Standard v1.0 as the standard the EMA AI Extension is examined against. It consists of the EMA AI Competency Model, the EMA AI Body of Knowledge and the EMX-AI Exam Content Outline. This chapter states how it changes, how the public can comment on it, how study material is kept apart from examination development, and on what terms it may be used.

Where this chapter is silent, the governance chapter of EMA Standard v3.0 applies. Where the two differ, this chapter governs the AI Standard and the core chapter governs the core. These are commitments, written down so that the Academy can be held to them.

The core standard changes its competencies at most once a year. AI practice does not wait that long: evidence is overturned, regulation takes effect, and the decisions a manager faces change with the tools. A standard that could not follow would certify judgment about a world that has moved on. So the AI Standard may change more often, and it pays for that freedom with a shorter credential validity and a stricter rule about the questions that test it.

• Major versions change the model's competencies, the outline's weights or indicators, or the structure of the Body of Knowledge. They are released at most once every six months, after a public comment period, with a changelog that explains every change and the reason for it.
• Minor versions carry corrections, added sources and clarified prose. They are released quarterly, and they change no competency, anchor, weight or indicator.
• Errata are factual corrections that cannot wait. They are issued as needed and recorded in the changelog.

Anchors are permanent within a major version. A major version may renumber, and when it does the changelog carries a table from every old anchor to its new one.

When a major version changes an indicator, every examination question written to that indicator is retired or rewritten before the version takes effect. A candidate is never examined on a statement the current standard no longer makes.

Every EMA AI Extension credential records the version of the AI Standard it was examined against, decided by when the sitting started. The extension is valid for two years from issue. Holders renew by passing the examination for the version current at the time.

Before releasing a major version, the Academy publishes the proposed model, outline and units for a comment period of not less than thirty days. Version 1.0 is the exception, stated here so it is not mistaken for a precedent: it has no earlier version to keep in force while it is discussed, so it is released with its comment period running alongside, and every comment on it is answered and considered for the next release under the cadence and the question rule above. Comments are received through the contact page and, where the commenter agrees, acknowledged by name in the release. The Academy publishes a summary of the comments it received and what it changed in response, and gives its reasons wherever it declined a comment.

The rule of the core standard applies unchanged. The people who write the Body of Knowledge do not write examination questions, and the people who write questions do not see question performance while writing the Body of Knowledge. Where one person holds both roles over time, the roles are held in sequence and the sequence is recorded. The Body of Knowledge is closed at a release before question development against it begins.

Competency TJ-5 of EMA Standard v3.0 is the baseline AI judgment every engineering manager needs, and every ladder credential certifies it. The AI Standard goes deeper and never contradicts it. Where a release would, TJ-5 is corrected in a minor version of the core standard in the same quarter, and both changelogs record it.

The EMA AI Body of Knowledge and the EMX-AI Exam Content Outline are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 licence, except for the two parts named in the next paragraph.

The competency list of the EMA AI Competency Model (the six identifiers, titles and one-line descriptions) and the proficiency indicators of the EMX-AI Exam Content Outline (each statement with its identifier and scope tag) are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 instead, on the same terms as the core standard's.

The examination questions are not published and are licensed under neither. Neither licence grants any right to use the names Engineering Management Academy, EMA AI Extension or EMX-AI, or the Academy's marks. A course or product may not be described as EMA-certified, EMA-approved or EMA-aligned.