Aims and Scope of our Journal “Accreditation and Quality Assurance” (ACQUAL)

Abstract

Our Journal is 13 years young. Time for a critical review of its ‘‘Aims and Scope’’? Indeed. The introduction of basic metrological concepts and associated terms in chemistry, better known as the introduction of ‘‘Metrology in Chemistry’’ (MiC), evolves very rapidly. Although theoretically, basic and general terms in metrology were also applicable in chemical measurement, little use was made in chemistry of the International Vocabulary of Metrology VIM edition 2:1993 [1] because it simply did not cover chemical measurement very well. After 13 years of the Journal ‘‘Accreditation and Quality Assurance’’, it is indicated to critically re-evaluate the ‘‘Aims and Scope’’ set out for this Journal in Volume 1, Number 1, January 1996 [2]. What is the link between the concepts ‘accreditation’ and ‘quality assurance’ in the title of the Journal on the one side, and the evolving MiC on the other side? Answering this question requires some deeper understanding of ‘accreditation’ and ‘quality assurance’. Accreditation is done against internationally agreed, mostly ISO ‘‘Standards’’ (written procedures): in essence, the performance of the measurement laboratory is evaluated against what it has written down in its operational procedures to comply with the internationally agreed ‘‘Standards’’. Since the end product must be ‘‘reliable measurement results’’, that implies that the ‘‘Standards’’ themselves contain the basic concepts of MiC (and other things as well). Hence these basic concepts of MiC must be carefully elaborated in the ‘‘Standards’’. Quality assurance is a process conducted by the laboratory to ensure that these ‘‘Standards’’ and (consequently) the basic concepts of these ‘‘Standards’’ are implemented and maintained in the course of time. It seems logical that all of the above concepts should be central in the formulation of the Aims and Scope of a journal with the title ‘‘Accreditation and Quality Assurance’’ and the subtitle ‘‘Quality, Comparability and Reliability in Chemical Measurement’’. Were the Aims and Scope chosen for the Journal and announced in (1996) Accred Qual Assur 1:A2 (inside of front cover), correctly identified as the more important ones? It seems so. But some adjustments are indicated. An important refinement was the introduction in the VIM edition 3:2008 [3] of the concept ‘metrological traceability’ in order to distinguish it from many other kinds of ‘traceability’ such as material traceability, sample traceability, product traceability, document traceability. Whenever traceability of measurement results is meant, the new term ‘‘metrological traceability’’ should be used, also in current parlance. That was therefore also done in this Journal. Probably the concept ‘‘measurement uncertainty’’ has been the most popular topic in the Journal over the past 13 years, thereby reflecting the entry of the ‘‘International guide for the expression of measurement uncertainty’’ [4], GUM, in the chemical measurement community. Also, ‘‘proficiency testing’’ (PT), has been a subject of choice by the authors. Papers describing a validation were rejected in the past when validation was mostly based on Limit of Detection (LOD) and similar figures of merit. Hence a better understanding seems to be needed. In addition, the change in the P. De Bievre (&) Kasterlee, Belgium e-mail: paul.de.bievre@skynet.be