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.
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.
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.
- Good
Practice: identify a WG point-of-contact for test- and other
quality-related topics.
- Good
Practice: specify an archived email list to use for these subjects.
- Good
Practice: build and maintain a web site for test materials and any
other quality-related topics.
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.
- 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)
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.
- Good
Practice: about sorting out licensing/legal issues with the external
party that produced the test materials.