evaluation tool

Here is a draft of the description I sent to the CG group.  My 
apologies for the stylized text.

Jutta


Task Description

The Authoring Tool working group would like to contract an individual 
or a group to develop a comprehensive, objective evaluation process 
for authoring tools, based on the Authoring Tool Accessibility 
Guidelines. This document should delineate a repeatable evaluation 
process which is sufficiently specific that independent evaluations 
of the same authoring tool by two different evaluators will yield 
equivalent results.

The evaluation process to be developed should:
… Be relatively simple to administer
… Delineate objective measures that correlate to the ATAG.
… Allow ranking of tools according to the degree of compliance with 
the individual guidelines
… Accommodate evaluation of a full range of Web authoring tools
… Include the structure for generating a consistent evaluation report
… Provide modular components to include in an evaluation report that 
are both informative to the tool developer and can be included in a 
survey of tools for consumers

The evaluation instrument will be a form with instructions for 
administration and reusable text modules to be included in the 
evaluation report where appropriate. Although this form can be 
printed, on-line or in e-text, the form must be provided in an 
accessible format.

Why Contract?

The development of this testing instrument does not lend itself well 
to collaborative development by volunteers. A large amount of 
concerted effort is required. Much of this effort is not of the kind 
that inspires volunteers. The development also requires expertise 
that differs from the expertise held by the typical WAI working group 
member.

The working group will create detailed functional specifications for 
the deliverable and will review progress towards the deliverable and 
will review the product once it is developed