Next Steps for the WAI WG's, CG and IG

NEXT STEPS FOR WAI WORKING GROUPS, COORDINATION GROUP, AND INTEREST GROUP.

This is a joint message from Daniel Dardailler, WAI Project Manager, and Judy
Brewer, who will be starting as Director of the International Program Office
for the Web Accessibility Initiative in late September.  (A formal
announcement will follow in several weeks.) 

The message describes how the various WAI groups will function, and contains
an urgent call for participation for the WAI WG on HTML & CSS below.  Please
contact either of us with questions or comments.

First, a warm thanks to Murray Maloney for his hard work and good results at
the August 25 & 26  HTML and CSS meetings, in ensuring that the WAI WG
accessibility items were brought to the table and received a good hearing.

Next, if you have not recently visited the  www.w3.org/WAI/group/  page, we
suggest you do so to view the updated WAI Working Groups based on discussions
at the WAI WG meeting on August 4 & 5.

Note:  If you receive this message twice it is because you are subscribed to
both the Working Group (WG) and the Interest Group (IG) lists.  Please see
section below on IPO/WAI IG regarding changes in the lists.  

WAI WORKING GROUPS:  

We are forming five WAI Working Groups (WG) to address the areas identified
in our August meeting.  Daniel has been contacting individuals to serve as WG
chairs.  We need to populate each WG; then, each WG needs to establish a work
charter and a schedule.  Working Group members need to be able to commit to
one technical conference call per week and to participate in collaborative
preparation of a document.  W3C will maintain a list-serve and web page for
each WG.  

The five new WAI Working Groups are:

- Formats and protocols
- Markup guidelines
- Browser guidelines
- Authoring tool guidelines
- Rating/Certification
  
**There is urgency now with regard to the Formats and Protocols WG, since
HTML 4.0 is moving rapidly to a close.  We need to have final accessibility
recommendations to the HTML & CSS WG's in advance of their meeting in
November, which means that our internal proposals need to be ready for
discussion by mid-October.  The goal of this group is to provide input and
requirements to the HTML/CSS/MML/DOM/HTTP etc Working Groups, and is listed
on the  /WAI/group/  page.  If you would like to participate in the Formats
and Protocols WG, please indicate your interest as soon as possible to Daniel
Dardailler.  

If you are interested in joining another WAI WG, please let Daniel know which
one(s), or respond to the WG chairs' invitations as they are posted.

WAI COORDINATION GROUP: 

A WAI Coordination Group will coordinate work in each of the WAI WG's,
ensuring that deadlines are met and that work is synchronized with other W3C
WG's as needed.  The WAI Coordination Group will be composed of the chairs of
the five new WAI WG's and elected representatives from the WAI Interest
Group.  We will describe the process for electing the at-large members of the
WAI Coordination Group in a separate e-mail.  

IPO/WAI INTEREST GROUP:

The International Program Office (IPO) for the Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI) will maintain an interest group to:
- provide input into and review the technical products of the WAI WG's;
- identify additional technical areas to address;
- advise the IPO regarding non-technical areas related to Web accessibility,
such as education, outreach, policy, etc.;
- provide a mechanism to enable individuals who are not from W3C member
organizations to participate in WAI WG's which would customarily be closed to
non-members;
- serve as a point of entry for potential WAI WG participants, including
increased cross-disability representation;
- provide an on-going summary of IPO/WAI activities to those not
participating in WG's.

Until now the WAI WG has essentially been functioning as an Interest Group.
 We'll be formalizing this by rolling all current WG members into the IG
membership, and re-populating the WAI WG's with only those members who are
actively involved in technical work.  If you're interested in participating
on a specific WAI WG but you're not from a W3C member organization, please
also e-mail Judy at JBrewer@w3.org when you subscribe to a WAI WG list-serve.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

We look forward to working with you as the WG's, CG and IG take shape.

Daniel Dardailler
WAI Project Manager
DanielD@w3.org

and

Judy Brewer
Director, International Program Office for the Web Accessibility Initiative
JBrewer@w3.org

Received on Saturday, 6 September 1997 15:42:53 UTC