RE: Home Page for EARL

Hi Shadi,
 
It has been a while since we last addressed the listserv so I must
apologise for not allowing my team to get involved - they have been up
to their eyes in project work. I do intend to hire more staff so we can
support this and other working groups within the W3C. We're heavily
involved in the Mobile Web Initiative so this is taking most of our time
as a founding sponsor.
 
Segala intends to use RDF to demonstrate test cases, results and
conformance statements for Web accessibility. We later hope to use RDF
for 'MobileOK' conformance also.  O2 is one of our major clients where
we provide an independent certification programme. That is, every
digital/creative agency and web application/content provider worldwide
must seek certification from Segala for accessibility compliance with
the WCAG 1.0 'A', 'AA' and two checkpoints in 'AAA' before they are
permitted to go live. 
 
We provide a trustmark upon the successful completion of an accessible
website build - see one of these trustmarks below for reference. The
message here is that O2 see the Segala trustmark as the definitive for
accessibility assurance and as such, will only assume a website to be
accessible when certified by us and carrying our logo. 
 
O2.co.uk is the biggest mobile Portal in the UK and 'O2' is the most
widely searched brand in the mobile industry in the UK. The Portal
(o2.co.uk) is being redesigned from the ground up with accessibility
built into the process right from the start. This certification
programme is a great case study for the use of RDF on a massive scale as
it will involve a major operator and dozens of suppliers such as Kodak,
IBM, Logica and the UK's leading design agencies such as Rufus Leonard
and Corporate Edge. O2 have already agreed to place the necessary code
on their Web pages. 
 
The accessibility certification division of our business sits on more
than 10 years test management experience.  Our conformance
specifications and defect reports are as detailed as they get and
already include what is needed to support the requirements of EARL.
Therefore using RDF to represent this information in a machine readable
format should be seamless.
 
The only single item I can see that we don't use, is confidence levels.
According to our process, a test case either passes or fails, anything
in between is not a final 'result'.  Every project has a team made up of
test analysts, developers and where feasible disabled users, so there is
never an individual interpretation of compliance resulting in
uncertainty. If one person is unsure about their results, they will
always confer with the team and end up with a pass or fail. As far as
we're concerned, we don't have a test result until we are sure if
something has passed or failed. For example, if an automated tool
produces an uncertainty and human interaction is required to verify the
integrity of the result, the result is not actually published until the
human interaction confirms a pass or fail. Another example; if new
technology is being used for the first time and we're unsure about
compliance, further research will be carried out until we reach a
conclusion. 
 
Going back to your request, I can also add that New Media Age (NMA) is 1
of 2 new media publications in the UK. They contacted me last week to
see if Segala was working on anything that they could report on. They
are keen to cover our story regarding our partnership with ICRA and the
use of RDF. The story will be covered in next week's edition. Is this
what you were looking for? BTW, our partnership with ICRA is very new
and based on the use of RDF.
 
I hope this is what you were looking for and I do apologise if I have
unnecessarily bored you to death. I didn't intend to mention my company
so often in this email but I found it necessary to explain how we intend
to use RDF in the very near future. I am unaware of any other
organisation offering an independent 'certification' service, especially
in the UK where we could be used as an expert witness if required to
argue a case in defence of an organisation, under the Disability
Discrimination Act (DDA). This is why our documentation is so detailed.
 
I intend to promote the use of EARL within the Mobile Web Initiative.  I
have already referred to it in my first draft of the conformance
specification. This has yet to be uploaded to the W3C site as I'm still
waiting on access. Therefore I'm unable to reference it.
 
Kind regards,
Paul
 

 
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-wai-ert-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-wai-ert-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Shadi Abou-Zahra
> Sent: 16 August 2005 15:45
> To: public-wai-ert@w3.org
> Subject: Home Page for EARL
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Ref: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/earl.html>
> 
> The previous ERT group had been collecting resources and information
on EARL.
> If you know of an related articles, implementations, or resources,
please let me
> know.
> 
> Regards,
>   Shadi
> 
> 
> --
> Shadi Abou-Zahra,     Web Accessibility Specialist for Europe
> Chair and Team Contact for the Evaluation and Repair Tools WG
> World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),           http://www.w3.org/
> Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI),    http://www.w3.org/WAI/
> WAI-TIES Project,                 http://www.w3.org/WAI/TIES/
> Evaluation and Repair Tools WG,     http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/
> 2004, Route des Lucioles -- 06560, Sophia-Antipolis -- France
> Voice: +33(0)4 92 38 50 64           Fax: +33(0)4 92 38 78 22