Metadata Used by the Test Samples Development Task Force (TSD TF)

Editor(s): Christophe Strobbe (DocArch, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), …

Abstract

This document describes the metadata used by the Test Samples Development Task Force (TSD TF). The TSD TF creates content samples for WCAG 2.0 Techniques. Each content sample has an associated metadata file in an XML format that is a subset of Test Case Description Language 2.0 (TCDL) 2.0. This document describes which elements and attributes of TCDL 2.0 are used by the task force and the way in which they are used.

Status of this Document

This is a draft for discussion by the TSD TF only.

Note: use of Test Case Description Language (TCDL) by the Test Samples Development Task Force (TSD TF) does not imply any kind of endorsement by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) or any of its working groups.

Table of Contents

Introduction

This document describes the usage of certain features of Test Case Description Language 2.0 (TCDL 2.0) by the Test Samples Development Task Force. The Task Force does not use all the features from that language but only a core set that it considers relevant to its requirements.

Terms and Definitions

technology
Markup language, programming language, style sheet, data format, or API. (Source: WCAG2.0.)
test case
An individual test that corresponds to a test purpose, which in turn maps back to the assertion(s), and finally the spec. (Source: W3C QA Voc.)
In this context: test sample or set of tet samples that correspond to a test purpose, which maps to one or more statements in one or more specifications (technical specifications on the one hand, usability or accessibility speicfications on the other).
test sample
An example or set of examples (in specific content formats) that demonstrates correct or incorrect implementation of a statement in a technical specifcation and/or a set of usability or accessibility guidelines.
test suite
A set of documents and tools providing tool developers with an objective methodology to verify the level of conformance of an implementation for a given standard. (Source: W3C QA Voc.)

@@todo table or definition list with all TCDL elements/terms used by the Task Force, similar to EARL 1.0 Terms.

The Global Structure of a Metadata File

A metadata file consists of the following sections or elements:

See also The Global Structure of a TCDL File.

Formal Metadata: The formalMetadata Element Type

Specification: see Formal Metadata: The formalMetadata Element Type.

The formalMetadata element type also has a number of required and optional child element types. The TSD TF uses the following element types, which occur in the following order:

Note: other child element types of formalMetadata, namely dc:contributor and source (and its descendants), are not used by the TSD TF .

The title Element Type

Specification: see The title Element Type.

The dc:creator Element Type

Specification: see The dc:creator Element Type.

The TSD TF uses a constant value, so the dc:creator element always looks as follows:
<dc:creator xsi:type="btw:dcHtmlInline">Developed by <html:a href="http://www.w3.org/"><html:acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</html:acronym></html:a>/<html:a href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/"><html:acronym title="Web Accessibility Initiative">WAI</html:acronym></html:a>'s<html:a href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/">Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group</html:a> (ERT WG). We invite comments and discussion. Please address your feedback to <html:a href="mailto:public-wai-ert-tests@w3.org">public-wai-ert-tests@w3.org</html:a>, a mailing list with a <html:a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wai-ert-tests/">public archive</html:a>.</dc:creator>.

The dc:language Element Type

Specification: see The dc:language Element Type.

The dc:rights Element Type

Specification: see The dc:rights Element Type.

The TSD TF uses a constant value, so the dc:rights element always looks as follows:
<dc:rights xsi:type="btw:dcHtmlInline"><html:a rel="Copyright" href="/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright">Copyright</html:a> &#169; 1994-2006 <html:a href="/"><html:acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</html:acronym></html:a><html:sup>&#174;</html:sup> (<html:a href="http://www.csail.mit.edu/"><html:acronym title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</html:acronym></html:a>, <html:a href="http://www.ercim.org/"><html:acronym title="European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics">ERCIM</html:acronym></html:a>, <html:a href="http://www.keio.ac.jp/">Keio</html:a>), All Rights Reserved. <html:acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</html:acronym> <html:a href="/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Legal_Disclaimer">liability</html:a>, <html:a href="/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#W3C_Trademarks">trademark</html:a>, <html:a rel="Copyright" href="/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents">document use</html:a> and <html:a rel="Copyright" href="/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software">software licensing</html:a> rules apply. Your interactions with this site are in accordance with our <html:a href="/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Public">public</html:a> and <html:a href="/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Members">Member</html:a> privacy statements.</dc:rights>.

The dc:date Element Type

Specification: see The dc:date Element Type.

The status Element Type

Specification: see The status Element Type.

The status element type identifies the state of the test case during the development process of the test suite, by means of one of an enumerated list of values.

The TSD TF use the values used in the Conformance Test Process For WCAG 2.0, namely:

The version Element Type

Specification: see The version Element Type.

The version element type contains an identifier that allows one to distinguish between different revisions of a test case.

The TSD TF uses CVS numbering for test cases by inserting “$Revision$” in the first version of a test case uploaded to CVS, so the versioning system automatically generates the version number. Consequently, the version element always looks as follows: <version>$Revision: 1.3 $/version> (where 1.3 stands for the CVS revision number).

Technologies: The technologies Element Type

Specification: see Technologies: The technologies Element Type.

The technicalSpec Element Type

Specification: see The technicalSpec Element Type.

Note: at the time of writing [@@date], it is not entirely clear whether WCAG baselines will only contain complete technologies or also mention specific features. The issue was discussed in March, with some arguments in favour of very granular baseline information. WCAG conformance claims don't need to specify what technologies were used outside the baseline, but it seems desirable that test case metadata are more precise in this area.

The specName Element Type

Specification: see The specName Element Type.

The testElements Element Type

Specification: see The testElements Element Type.

This element type allows developers to check how well a test suite covers certain features, especially accessibility features, of a technology. This could help the TSD TF to get help and/or test cases from other working groups (who often have test suites of their own). The TSD TF may decide later that storing this information requires too many resources and drop this element type.

Test Case: The testCase Element Type

Specification: see Test Case: The testCase Element Type.

The testCase element type describes what is necessary for the evaluation of the test case. The testCase element type can contain six other element types:

Note: other child element types of testCase, namely requiredTests (and its descendants), are not used by the TSD TF .

The dc:description Element Type

Specification: see Test Case: The dc:description Element Type.

The purpose Element Type

Specification: see The purpose Element Type.

The expertGuidance Element Type

Specification: see The expertGuidance Element Type. Note that expertGuidance should not “interpret” the technique or failure referenced by the test case.

The preconditions Element Type

Specification: see The preconditions Element Type.

This element type is provided for extensibility; it can contain any elements in any namespace other than the target namespace (##other).

Note: the TSD TF may drop this element later if it does not turn out to be useful (comment on TCDL draft F).

The files Element Type

Specification: see The files Element Type.

The file Element Type

Specification: see The file Element Type.

The file element type can only contain one element type:

Note: the TSD TF is interested in replacing the current httpRequest with HTTP Vocabulary in RDF.

The httpRequest Element Type.

Specification: see The httpRequest Element Type.

Rules: The Element Types rules and rule

Specification: see Rules: The Element Types rules and rule.

The rule Element Type

Specification: see The rule Element Type.

The rule element type contains the following element types, which occur in the following order:

Note: other child element types of rule, namely functionalOutcome (and its descendants), are not used by the TSD TF .

The locations Element Type

Specification: see The locations Element Type.

The techniques Element Type

Specification: see The techniques Element Type. Each each test sample developed by the task force must be linked to a WCAG 2.0 technique or failure (resolution 17 October 2006).

The technique Element Type

Specification: see The technique Element Type.

The techComment Element Type

Specification: see The techComment Element Type.

Namespace Mappings: The Element Types namespaceMappings and namespace

Specification: see Namespace Mappings: The Element Types namespaceMappings and namespace.

Naming Conventions and Directory Structure

Naming Conventions

The TSD TF uses the following naming convention for the ID of test cases: sca.b.c_lz_nnn, where the sections separated by underscores have the following meaning:

sca.b.c
the number of the success criterion,
lz
the level of the success criterion,
nnn
the number of the test case (numbering starts from 001 for each success criterion).

This convention applies to the TCDL file names, the test file names and the IDs used in the TCDL files (id attribute on root element).

The ID for the first XHTML test case for success criterion 1.1.1 (level 1) would look like this: sc1.1.1_l1_001. This means that sc1.1.1_l1_001 is the value of the id attribute of the testCaseDescription element, that the TCDL file would be named sc1.1.1_l1_001.xml and the XHTML file sc1.1.1_l1_001.html.

Finally, if more than one test file is necessary for the same test case, it is possible add an additional _001, _002, etcetera to the test file names (before the file name extension).

Directory Structure

Test suites are organized by main technology: XHTML, SVG, etcetera. The names of the directories match those of the technologies (XHTML, SVG, etcetera).

Test files are stored in the directory “testfiles”; test case descriptions are stored in the directory “metadata”. Resources used by the testfiles are in separate directories. The directory structure for each of the test suites looks as follows:

Templates

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Appendix A: References

W3C QA Voc
Quality Assurance glossary. W3C Quality Assurance Activity.
WCAG 2.0
Ben Caldwell, Wendy Chisholm, John Slatin, and Gregg Vanderheiden, eds. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. W3C Last Call Working Draft 27 April 2006.

Appendix B: Acknowledgements

@@todo

URL: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tests/usingTCDL.