After reviewing presentations and participating in many discussions at conferences and with public health officials, a number of topics were identified that many believe use or are standards. These topics included HL7, syndrome definitions, analytical algorithms definitions and the definition of what is or is not a disease surveillance system. Next, the common understandings of each were compiled and compared with actual definitions and real world experiences from users of the standards. From this, a list of misunderstandings or poorly communicated aspects of each topic was derived.