An accreditation system has been introduced by the Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) in Australia, in order to assure employers that quality of work and industry standards are met by the editors they employ.
The inaugural exam saw 112 editors around the country deemed qualified to use the postnominal AE (accredited editor). Of these, nine are from Western Australia.
The IPEd exam will now be held annually. The exam is based on the Australian Standards for Editing Practice published by the Council of Australian Society of Editors in 2001, the forerunner organisation for IPEd.
IPEd Council chair Virginia Wilton said the first national editing standardisation will assist ‘clients and employers [with] the burden of judging prospective editors by arbitrary means', and will ‘making the hiring process easier.' Wilton added that accreditation will help maintain a high standard of professional editing in Australia.
Applications for the next exam in September will open in May. For more information, see the website .