Standards, of course, should be boring-if they work they just produce
predictable, boringly consistent results, but this paper anises from a
sense of frustration after several years of attempting to teach graph
ics standards in interesting ways in undergraduate programmes. The pap
er surveys the way in which standards are taught at universities in th
e UK and the practical systems used to teach graphics courses. If the
authors' experiences were mirrored elsewhere the expectation would be
that the results of the survey would show that graphics is generally t
aught using nonstandard systems and that standards occupy a smaller ro
le, being taught from a theoretical point of view. An objective of the
research is thus to discover whether this view is in fact correct and
, if so, investigate the reasons for it.