During the November 23, 2002 GEO Task Force conference call, it was decided that a summary of Education and Outreach goals be developed as a starting point for further discussion and evaluation. This document provides that summary.
(NOTE: It was suggested that I refer to the WAI short and long term goal list, however, I could not find such a list on the various WAI pages.)
Efforts for education and outreach may cross over and merge at various points. However, for the purpose of this document, I will use the two terms as described below.
Refers to efforts focused on delivering W3C I18N WG knowledge to interested audiences. Education efforts could include development of delivery mechanisms for specific audiences, involvement with institutes of higher education to promote inclusion of W3C I18N work products in curriculum, educational presentations in seminars or industry conferences, etc.
Question: Should this be for Guidelines specifically, or for W3C I18N more broadly? I assume the latter.
Refers to efforts focused on raising awareness about W3C I18N initiatives and tools. Outreach efforts could include PR in the form of magazine and newsletter articles, introductory level seminars at software industry conferences, press releases related to accomplishments and milestones, participation in industry advisory boards, etc.
Question: Should this be for Guidelines specifically, or for W3C I18N more broadly? I assume the latter.
It would be desirable to get universities and other academic institutions to begin incorporating W3C I18N materials and information into their computing and information systems programs.
Actions required for increasing W3c I18N awareness within university programs are described below.
In addition to academic efforts, the group discussed a few ideas for helping people understand W3C I18N WG initiatives.
The WAI WG created a wallet-sized card containing information related to accessibility features. Creating a similar card for the I18N WG was raised as a possibility. Discussion took place about whether the approach on a card like this would be "what to think about" versus "what to do". Given the limited amount of space in this format, the approach selected would be critical to the card's usefulness.
(NOTE: It is Suzanne Topping's opinion that this format would allow only the level of information which could be relatively easily remembered, and therefore may not be a terribly useful tool for either education or outreach/PR. A better format might be a brochure which could contain a more useful and reusable level of detail.)
During the November call, there was a great deal of discussion about the type of content to be included in the guidelines, given the variety of information needs of the various audiences. Progress in development of content has been significant since that meeting, however this section describes some of the content issues discussed.
Given the crossover of subject matter between internationalization generally and W3C I18N specifically, it may be difficult in some cases to determine the degree of specificity to include. It was concluded that the GEO guidelines would -not- include general i18N content, but would refer readers to other resources where appropriate.
Given the degree of change over the past years for Unicode and internationalization support within various browser versions, discussion took place about what level of information should be included in GEO guidelines. It was concluded that providing browser support information would be nice to have, and could be added to over time. However, it was not seen as a high-priority short-term goal.
Discussion took place about whether a table of benefits for following W3C I18N guidelines would be useful. It was concluded that such a table would be useful, and could roughly follow the pattern established by Tex Texin's Benefits of the Unicode Standard table.
Suzanne Topping proposes the following approach for a benefits table:
Issue |
Benefit of Generic Internationalization Approach |
Specific Benefit of Using W3C Approach |
Price Paid if not Followed |
It was suggested that a gallery of successful and unsuccessful sites be included to illustrate and support the benefits table entries. It was concluded that it might be hard to find webmasters willing to have their sites included as negative examples, so we might have to create our own.
The concept of developing information which could be incorporated in business or project plans was discussed, as an attempt to make easier the task of convincing management to fund web internationalization efforts.
It was suggested that the guidelines include a section on legal requirements, and it was concluded that if such a section was developed it should clearly state that the section is not intended to be a comprehensive listing of legal concerns.
During the November meeting, Outreach was discussed to a lesser degree than Education. Suzanne Topping's Proposed Outreach Activities document was reviewed.
Suzanne Topping is willing to co-ordinate Outreach activities if desired, and can make use of BizWonk staff to accomplish some of the Outreach goals.
Activities to be considered include:
Submitted by S. Topping, BizWonk Inc., April 8, 2003