The International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (ibstpi®) grew out of the Joint Certification Task Force, which was established in 1977. This task force was composed of more than 30 practitioners and academics with expertise in training, performance and instruction, all of whom were actively involved in the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and/or the National Society for Performance and Instruction ( NSPI, now the International Society for Performance Improvement), the organizations that sponsored the task force.

In 1983 the Board reorganized itself as the ibstpi® Board, in order to avoid conflicts of interest with its parent organizations; the Board became a not-for-profit corporation in 1984. ibstpi® now consists of fifteen professionals, selected to be broadly representative of the constituencies they serve. Currently, members represent universities, government departments, businesses and consultancies directed at the charge of the organization.

In recent years the Board has begun to expand its focus on the international aspect of its name and mission, with directors from Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia as well as members from the United States. The Board meets monthly by conference call and three times a year in various locations, one of which is outside the US. The Board also hosts a biennial research conference.

The original task force developed a set of instructional design competencies (1986), published an index that linked current publications to competencies and created a prototype assessment procedure. Task force members also made presentations at many professional meetings as well as published articles promoting the idea of professional competence as well as professional certification. After that the Board entered into a contract to develop a certification test for instructors based on the ibstpi® competencies. The original contractor was the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, NJ.

In addition to researching, documenting and validating a set of competencies for instructors, the organization developed competencies for instructional designers and training mangers. The recognition that changes in the economy as well as the ongoing development of technology have had an impact on the profession, the Board engaged in a project to review and revise the competencies for instructional designers, and that work has just been published by ERIC. A parallel effort has been underway to revise the competencies for training managers, and the third venture has just begun to update the competencies for instructors. Reflecting the use of technology, the revised instructor competencies will address the online environment as well as the classroom.