Re: Normative reference to schema.org in EPUB Accessibility?

Hi Dan,

What are your thoughts for having an accessibility task force under schema.org CG in W3C, which maintains these accessibility values?

With regards
Avneesh
From: Dan Brickley 
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2021 15:58
To: Ivan Herman 
Cc: Avneesh Singh ; Matt Garrish ; Philippe le Hégaret ; Ralph Swick ; W3C Chairs of EPUB 3 WG ; W3C Public Archives 
Subject: Re: Normative reference to schema.org in EPUB Accessibility?


Hi folks

On Fri, 10 Sep 2021 at 11:03, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:

  Ralph, Philippe, 

  here is what we are thinking of doing:

  - a separate W3C community group will be set up, whose sole purpose in life will be to be the guardian of the schema.org a11y terms. The CG would take over (and clean up) [1]. Once the setup is done, we will also have to contact schema.org to make the situation clear (and put some sort of redirect from [1] to the new CG's site). 
  - the a11y specification would directly, and normatively, refer to the schema.org vocabulary possibly referring to the Community Group's site, too. We believe that type of stability is important for the community. There is already a PR showing the differences in the spec[2]

  Is this o.k. with you?

This would be analogous to other areas where Schema.org often pulls in suggestions from a dedicated community with its own (public, open to all etc.) discussions. 

Often but not always a W3C CG. For fact-checking schemas (Politifact etc.) we (ie Schema.org) engage with experts via the international fact checking network (ifcn). For education/learning, the LRMI project is now a part of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), etc. In each case from Schema.org’s perspective it is great to have loosely-coupled collaborations like this but we are generally conservative about making additive (rather than usability/integration) edits unless they’re in the context of an application that will actually use/consume the data. See  
https://schema.org/docs/howwework.html and nearby.

So long as the CGs understand that they’re making proposals to an independent project (Schema.org) and don’t have exclusive say over schema designs, these structures can work well. We have found over the years that all topics and domains are rather intermingled and that the idea of definitively delegating areas is fraught with difficulty. For example - medical schemas vs healthcare information vs factchecking vs local business information vs life sciences; we have schemas in all these areas which have touched on the coronavirus situation. 

I should also mention that there are other areas of Schema.org that touch upon Accessibility, beyond the handful of properties discussed here (eg SpeakableSpecification, or anything wrt MediaObject). My advice would be for the CG to have a scope that helps its participants engage on Schemas for Accessibility in general, and that has equal emphasis on collaborations to *consume* the data, since that’s the path to this data being useful

Cheers

Dan


  Thanks

  Ivan


  P.S. A an aside, the new CG would need a github repository under the w3c organization. I hope I have the green light to set up when the time comes.


  [1] https://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/Accessibility
  [2] https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/pull/1808




    On 8 Sep 2021, at 22:05, Ralph Swick <swick@w3.org> wrote:



    On 2021-09-08 09:37 AM, Ivan Herman wrote:

      Ralph, Philippe,
      this type of question comes up regularly, but I did not see any clear cut answer.


    There's no absolute determination in advance; this is intentional.  Each case has its own considerations.


      The EPUB Accessibility spec[1] has a section on package metadata[2] to refer to metadata like access mode or accessibility features. The specification defines these terms in general, meaning that it is not properly defined which terms are to be used in a real metadata instantiation; this is left to the separate WG Note on a11y techniques[3] which reveals the thinly veiled fact that, in practice, 


    "thinly veiled" is a big flag for me.  The spec should be clear and as precise as possible about the Working Group's intentions.  If the WG intends that the conformance expectations for an eventual W3C Recommendation maximize interoperability with specific metadata usage it should state so.  If it believes that the schema.org terms and their definitions are the correct solution, it should state so -- and be prepared to argue its position with the Director, the W3C Members, and the Community.


      these general terms refer to their equivalents in schema.org <http://schema.org>[4]. Indeed, all the terms defined in [2] are, actually, defined in schema.org <http://schema.org>, and those are the only mappings for those terms. Those terms are not out of the blue, actually: they have been developed, originally, in cooperation with the IMS Global[5] and are now maintained on [6].


    "maintained on [6]" does give me pause.  [6] does not state a maintenance policy and refers to an issue tracker that uses the pronoun "I" in many places, including its Resolved Issues section, and was last modified on 5 January 2018.  The parent page (WebSchemas) is explicitly disclaimed as "left primarily for historical record".  Is this in fact the authoritative place for maintaining the current accessibility vocabulary?


      The reason of this somewhat weird setting in [2] is to avoid normatively referring to schema.org <http://schema.org>.


    If the WG believes such a normative reference is what the Web needs, it should not shy away from stating that.


        Actually, the accessibility spec has an earlier version published at the ISO, and in ISO land it was a clear no-no to do so. However, W3C is meant to be more flexible and therefore the question does arise. However, our document on normative references[7] is not 100% clear cut for me.
      Hence this mail: does W3C has an official position as for a normative reference to schema.org <http://schema.org> terms?


    In this, as in many things, if the WG is able to obtain a clear and authoritative statement on the stability of the parts it wants to normatively reference, the organization (or community) who "owns" that stability, and the open process by which the referenced material is maintained, that is important to the Director's consideration.


      Specifically, is it possible to simplify [1] and make a clear reference to schema.org <http://schema.org> instead of the hand-weaving approach we have there currently? In case of a positive answer, can we, possibly, add a reference to schema.org <http://schema.org> in [7] just as we do with the WhatWG?


    It depends on the answers to the questions above (and maybe other questions that could arise) :)

    -Ralph


      Thanks for your help
      Ivan
      [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11/ <https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11/>
      [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11/#sec-disc-package <https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11/#sec-disc-package>
      [3] https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-tech-11/#meta-002 <https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11/#sec-disc-package>
      [4] https://schema.org/accessMode <https://schema.org/accessMode>
      [5] http://www.imsglobal.org/activity/accessibility <http://www.imsglobal.org/activity/accessibility>
      [6] https://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/Accessibility <https://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/Accessibility>
      [7] https://www.w3.org/2013/09/normative-references <https://www.w3.org/2013/09/normative-references>
      ----
      Ivan Herman, W3C
      Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ <http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/>
      mobile: +33 6 52 46 00 43
      ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704 <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704>



  ----
  Ivan Herman, W3C 
  Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
  mobile: +33 6 52 46 00 43
  ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704