Developed by Acting Outreach and Education Caretaker,
Suzanne Topping
The W3C Internationalization
Working Group Workshop held February 1, 2002 identified Outreach and Education
as a target area for inclusion in the group’s re-chartering proposal. This
document acts as a starting point for developing Outreach and Education
initiatives.
I would like to propose the
following activities as potential starting points for outreach activities. This
proposal would of course be revised, expanded, and refined if and when the W3C
chooses to take on Outreach and Education as an initiative for the I18N WG.
I rarely see coverage of W3C
events or activities in the press and would therefore propose making publicity
one of the Outreach focus areas. This
section describes some of the press opportunities I would take advantage of if
given the go-ahead to proceed.
Given the readership of MultiLingual
Computing and Technology, I would like to see a periodic update in the
magazine about W3C I18N WG activities. These articles might appear on a
quarterly or semi-annual basis. This may be something that the magazine is
interested in covering regularly, even if the W3C does not formally approve the
I18N Outreach initiative.
Periodic (perhaps quarterly)
press releases related to W3C I18N WG activities would be sent to periodicals
with a potentially interested readership.
Examples of these magazines are listed below.
Application Development
Trends
Ariba
Baseline
Boardwatch
Business Integrator
Journal
Certification
CFO
CIO
CIO Insight
Communications
Convergence
Communications Solutions
Component Developer
CRN
Document Processing
Technology
eAI Journal
EBN
Entrepreneur
eWeek
Information Week
Intelligent Enterprise
Interactive Week
Internet Week
IT Contractor
Managing Automation
MSDN Magazine
NetEconomy
Network Computing
Network Magazine
Optimize
Red Herring
SD Times
Smart Partner
Software Development
Technology Investor
UPSIDE
VAR Business
Press releases and
announcements regarding group activities could also be sent to a variety of
online publications, email lists, etc. Some online venues could include (this is a representative list which needs to be expanded,
particularly to include venues not specifically focused on software
globalization issues):
Application Development
Trends
EbXML-Dev discussion list
Global Reach Express
I18N_Prog discussion list
I18NdotNet discussion
list
IBM developerWorks
(http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/)
LanguageTech Net News
NELOCSIG discussion list
UN/CEFACT
Additional
venues to be added…
Educational initiatives need
to be explored. Some initial ideas are to offer W3C-sponsered classes/seminars
at industry forums, perhaps describing what the WG is and does, providing and
overview of the character model, or presenting some of the guidelines, which is
another potential W3C I18N WG initiative under evaluation. (Guidelines would
prove to be a crucial part in W3C I18N education initiatives.)
This section to be
expanded and developed.
Connections should be made
with appropriate globalization industry organizations such as the Localization
Industry Standards Association (LISA), the Professional Association of
Localization (PAL), OASIS, (include others) etc.
Also, promotional efforts should be aimed at increased interaction with
standards organizations such as ebXML (include others) etc.
This section to be
expanded and developed.