EuroAccessibility [TF2] mailing list is now available

Hi folks

for people who would like to participate in the EuroAccessibility Task 
Force 2 (evaluation tools) the mailing list is now available.

To subscribe, send the following message to 
eac-tf2-request@aib.uni-linz.ac.at with the first line of the message as

subscribe My Name <me@my.address>
end
(if you send it from the address you want subscribed, you can just send 
the message

subscribe
end
)

All subscribers have to be approved by the list owner (me) as a measure 
to block spam.

Please note that the initial draft of the tools list (the first 
deliverable) is due by 31 July (today). I propose to produce a second 
draft of this list by 31 August, which will include new information 
provided by participants in the subgroup - this will be an additional 
deliverable.

All information on this list will be considered public domain, and will 
be made available to the WAI ER group. As soon as possible I will 
provide details of where information is published.

This list is open to European individuals or organisations. The 
following information describes the work, timelines, and participation 
requirements:
====
Assessment of Evaluation Tools

Members

As of 2003-07-28 the following (currently all EuroAccessibility 
Consortium members) are participants in this group.

Ability.net (Robin Cristopherson)
FIT (Carlos Velasco)
FT R&D (Denis Chêne)
IBM (Jean-Louis Carves)
JKU (Klaus Miesenberger)
RINCE (Barry McMullin)
SIDAR (Charles McCathieNevile) - chair

Scope

Task Force 2's interest lies strictly in the evaluation procedures 
outlined by Task Force 3 - to begin with, these are assumed to be 
evaluations according to the requirements of WCAG 1.0
List evaluation tools used by EuroAccessibility Members, subgroup 
participants or in wide general usage
Produce a methodology for analysing the results produced by such tools.
Propose a workplan for carrying out such an analysis in line with the 
overall needs of the EuroAccessibility Consortium.

Deliverables, Deadlines

31 July: A list of relevant tools - those used widely, and in 
particular by EuroAccessibility Consortium members or subgroup 
participants.
31 August: A draft methodology for analysis of these tools.
30 September: Proposed workplan for conducting evaluations sufficient 
to meet the needs of the EuroAccessibility Consortium for methods to 
incorporate tools into the evaluation methodology proposed by Task 
Force 3.
30 November: A proposal to extend the group, so that it can carry out 
the proposed work package.

Envisaged Work Topics

A credible accreditation scheme will require testers to apply an 
evaluation procedure which gives consistent results regardless of the 
tools used (or of the test team, experience, language or European 
Country). No one tool is known to test all compliance issues, and 
different teams will prefer to use different tools. Enabling this will 
encourage competition to develop tools which initially have different 
strengths, leading to an overall gain in the utility of tools.

The following are just some of the questions (by no means exhaustive) 
that will need to be answered in pursuit of this task:

What evaluation tools are currently used by the Consortium Members?

For what checkpoints, or parts of checkpoiints, does a given tool 
produce reliable results?

What does the operator of a tool need to check, beyond the tool 
results, to produce reliable evaluation results?

Is there significant variance in the evaluation results produced by 
different tools?

For accrediation what level of variance in evaluation results might be 
considered acceptable?

Coordination

All technical information must be made available to the W3C's 
Evaluation and Repair Tools and Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 
working groups. Task force participants should participate in at least 
one of those working groups.

Where there is a question about what constitutes conformance to a 
checkpoint, the final authority is considered to be the W3C's WCAG (or 
other relevant) working group. Coordination with that group should take 
place through Task Force 2.

Proposed working procedure / Participation requirements

Initially a simple working arrangement is suggested, as each member of 
the Task Force is also a member of the EuroAccessibility Consortium. (A 
revision to these initial rules can be made by the Chair at any time 
depending upon changes to the situation):

Participation is open to representatives of EuroAccessibility members 
and to European organisations and individuals. Representatives of any 
european body, or european individuals with relevant experience may 
request permission from the chair to participate by sending a 
subscription request to the task force mailing list. This will normally 
be granted, and if not the chair must expain why in an email to that 
list, copied to the person who requested permission to participate. 
Participation confers all the rights and obligations of a Participant 
within the subgroup, as outlined below.

Participants should expect to contriubute at least one half-day per 
week to this task force.

Participants should read Documents produced by EuroAccessibility Task 
Force 3, and comment on their impact on the work of this task force.

The group will use the email list eac-tf2@aib.uni-linz.ac.at as the 
primary communications mechanism.

The work of this group is automatically placed in the Public Domain. 
Participants are responsible for ensuring that any information they do 
not wish to be placed in the public domain is not brought by them to 
the group, and that any information they do bring to the group is not 
encumbered by licensing, copyright, or other restrictions.

The Chair will send an email to the EuroAccessibility Consortium and 
the task force in the first 7 days of each month outlining the progress 
of the group and its plans for the next month, including the current 
list of Participants.

The group may meet by IRC, if a date/time and agenda is provided 7 days 
in advance, and final details provided 48 hours in advance. 
Participants are expected to confirm attendance or send regrets at 
least 48 hours before the meeting. Participants who fail to do this 
twice in succession, or for any 4 of seven meetings, will no longer be 
considered participants.

The first Draft document for each deadline deliverable will be 
published (for Task Force readership) 14 days before each deadline.

The closing date for material submissions / suggestions is 7 days 
before each deadline. All participants should provide comments, or note 
that they are satisfied with the document as is. Participants who fail 
to do this for twice in succession will no longer be considered as 
participants.

The Final Draft for each deadline deliverable will be published (for 
Task Force readership) 5 days before each deadline.

The closing date for editorial comments will be 2 working days before 
the deadline.

This subgroup is governed by the working rules of the EuroAccessibility 
Consortium. In case of a conflict, those rules will override any 
decision or procedure of the subgroup.


Last edited 2003-07-31 by Charles McCathieNevile. This is version 4 of 
this document.
--
Charles McCathieNevile Fundación Sidar
charles@sidar.org http://www.sidar.org

Received on Thursday, 31 July 2003 10:43:18 UTC