Examples wanted for The QA Handbook

An appeal for contributions esp. from Chairs and Staff Contacts

This appeal is going first and especially to the Chairs and Staff Contacts, because they are the target audience of The QA Handbook. Quoting from the Abstract,

The QA Handbook (QAH) is a non-normative handbook about the process and operational aspects of certain quality practices of W3C's Working Groups, with particular focus on testability and test topics. It is intended for Working Group chairs and team contacts. It aims to help them to avoid known pitfalls and benefit from experiences gathered from the W3C Working Groups themselves [...]

The QA Handbook has been published once -- FPWD -- and is being prepared for a second publication. The FPWD covered most of the topics envisioned, but very few examples (actually, almost all of the "Story" boxes are examples). A key goal for 2nd publication is lots more examples.

Examples of both positive and negative experience are wanted --

• positive experience/results from early attention to the particular issues around test materials, related WG processes, etc
• negative experiences arising from not sorting out the various aspects of such issues (early enough).

If you send an example, please say whether it is okay for The QA Handbook to identify the Working Group in the example, or whether you would prefer that the example be about an anonymous Working Group.

For your convenience, we have skeletonized the four modules of The QA Handbook, paraphrased and provided links to the Good Practices. Follow the links and read more, if you think you might have an interesting contribution.

For section 2, "Early planning and commitment"

This section is currently pretty light on both existing and anticipated examples. Examples of both positive and negative experience are wanted. As currently arranged, the examples are proposed to be in a single place at the end for this section.

For convenience, here is a list of the topics in this section. Each is linked to the appropriate place in the QAH. We would like examples for each of these.

• Principle: about the value of planning and commiting as early as possible to test and other quality-related deliverables.
• Good Practice: about making the (test materials) build-acquire decision right at the start of the WG.
• Good Practice: identifying what test materials, and other quality-related activities, will help accelerate Rec-track development.
• Good Practice: about synchronizing test (and other quality-related) activities with spec development.
• Good Practice: test-related criteria as requirements for Rec-track advancement
• Good Practice: staffing -- ensuring adequate resources to progress test and quality activities as desired.

For section 3, "Day-to-day QA operations"

Here is a list of the topics in this section. Each is linked to the appropriate place in the QAH. Examples are proposed to be interleaved.

For some of these, QAWG already be planning at least some examples (follow the "here" links). More are always welcome...

• Principle: collect and expose all information for WG's test- and other quality-related work processes.
  • Examples wanted here (although this is more of an umbrella for next 4 detailed GPs).
• Good Practice: make a QA Process Document and put the information there.
  • Examples wanted here.
• Good Practice: identify a WG point-of-contact for test- and other quality-related topics.
  • Examples wanted here.
• Good Practice: specify an archived email list to use for these subjects.
  • Examples wanted here.
• Good Practice: build and maintain a web site for test materials and any other quality-related topics.
  • Examples wanted here.

For Section 4, Licensing & branding

Here is a list of the topics in this section. Each is linked to the appropriate place in the QAH. Examples are proposed to be interleaved.

• Principle: Get up-front agreement about license and any other legal issues for planned test materials.
  • (This is mostly an umbrella for following detailed GPs -- examples needed there.)
• Good Practice: about submission licenses for test materials
  • Examples: need something here.
• Good Practice: about publication licenses for test materials.
  • Need examples here.
• Good Practice: about whether or not to have logos or conformance icons associated with the Working Group's test materials.
  • Anticipated examples here: WAI, W3C content validators (XHTML, CSS, ...), etc (More are always welcome)

For Section 5, "Acquiring test materials"

Here is a list of the topics in this section. Each is linked to the appropriate place in the QAH. Examples are proposed to be interleaved.

• Principle: save a ton of work by acquiring a test suite, but be ready for the same issues as build-your-own scenarios.
• Good Practice: about initial quality assessment of candidate test materials.
  Anticipated examples here (more are always welcome):
  • stuff from the SVG test suite manual; stuff from the CSS test authoring guidelines
• Good Practice: about ensuring there are enough people to support the transferred test materials.
  • Need examples
• Good Practice: about sorting out licensing/legal issues with the external party that produced the test materials.
  • Need examples