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(WAI) logo  Authoring Tools Working Group

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG) Charter

  1. Mission
  2. History
  3. Scope
  4. Duration
  5. Deliverables
  6. Dependencies and relations with other groups
  7. Intended degree of confidentiality
  8. Milestones for work items & deliverables
  9. Meeting mechanisms & schedules
  10. Communication mechanisms
  11. Voting mechanisms
  12. Level of involvement of Team
  13. Participation

Information about how to join the Working Group

1. Mission

To complete the development of accessibility guidelines for authoring tools, and to perform initial assessment of implementation of these guidelines by authoring tool manufacturers. These guidelines should address how authoring tools can:

  1. provide author support for creating accessible Web documents;
  2. ensure an accessible user interface for authors with disabilities.

Assessment of implementation is expected to allow improvement to the supporting documents produced by the group, and if necessary to begin revision of the guidelines themselves.

2. History

The Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group was originally chartered in December, 1997 as a Working Group of the WAI (the briefing package is available). It was rechartered in February 1999. The group has produced a number of working drafts, including a Last Call Working Draft and Proposed Recommendation. The Working Group wishes to renew the charter in order to be able to offer a document as a Recommendation. Furthermore, it has become obvious that there is demand for ongoing work, including monitoring of implementation outcomes and possible improvements to the informative techniques document. It is therefore proposed to charter the Working Group until April 2000.

3. Scope

3.1 Scope of work

The scope of the AUWG's work is to produce guidelines for tools that are used to produce Web content. These include:

  1. Editing tools specifically designed to produce Web content (e.g., WYSIWYG HTML editors, and potentially CSS editors)
  2. Tools that offer the option of saving material in a Web format (e.g., word processors or desktop publishing packages)
  3. Tools that translate documents into Web formats (e.g. from PDF to HTML)
  4. Tools that produce multimedia, especially where it is intended for use on the Web (e.g. video production and editing suites)
  5. Tools for site management or site publication (including on-the-fly conversion and Web site publishing tools)
  6. Tools for management of layout (e.g. CSS formatting tools).

4. Duration of work items

The Working Group is expected to continue until the end of April 2000.

5. Deliverables

5.1 Deliverables to be produced

  1. Minutes of AUWG meetings.
  2. Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, as Proposed Recommendation, and W3C Recommendation.
  3. Techniques for Authoring Tool Accessibility, as a W3C Note.
  4. End of charter report on implementation progress and assessment of need for subsequent work in this area.

5.2 Success criteria

6. Dependencies and relations with other groups

6.1 Communication about dependencies within WAI

6.2 Groups with which AUWG has dependencies

7. Intended degree of Confidentiality

The Working Group home page, deliverables and working drafts, proceedings of meetings, email lists and archives and this charter are all public.

8. Milestones for work items and deliverables

As with other WAI groups, Working Drarfts must first be reviewed by the WAI Interest Group before being posted on the W3C Technical Reports page or sent to the W3C Advisory Committee (AC) for review. The minimum WAI IG review period is one week, after which the Working Group must review and incorporate WAI IG comments.

Proposed milestones:

Note. All milestones are estimated, and conditional on progress of the Working Group and review by W3C.

February 2000
Guidelines become a W3C Recommendation
April 2000
Produce revised techniques document, report on implementation, determine whether there is a need for rechartering the group.

9. Meeting mechanisms & schedules

The Working Group will hold regular face-to-face meetings, which are likely to be quarterly. Where practicable these will be held in conjunction with other WAI face-to-face meetings or with an event where WAI IG members gather. Working Group meetings are announced to W3C Member organizations through the Member Events Calendar and the Member Newswire; to Working Group participants through the w3c-wai-au@w3.org mailing list; to WAI IG participants via the WAI IG mailing list; and to the general public via the WAI home page.

10. Communication mechanisms

10.1 Communication within the group

The primary fora for Working Group discussion are the w3c-wai-au@w3.org mailing list, and regular teleconferences. As an alternative to teleconferences the group may trial the use of an Internet-based chat system, which will provide logging of the session. If the group unanimously feels that this is an improvement it may be adopted in place of some scheduled telephone conferences. The primary record of the group's activity is the Working Group home page.

  1. w3c-wai-au@w3.org mailing list archives
  2. Publication of minutes or log files for all meetings
  3. Working Group home page
  4. Face-to-face and teleconference meetings

10.2 Communication with W3C

  1. The Working Group coordinates with other WAI Working Groups through the WAI Coordination Group;
  2. The Working Group coordinates with W3C through the WAI Domain Leader;
  3. The WAI Domain Leader communicates about W3C and WAI activities through postings to WAI IG;
  4. WAI groups report to the WAI IG at quarterly face-to-face meetings.

10.3 Communication with the public

The Working Group communicates with the public through the Working Group home page and general W3C communication mechanisms.

11. Voting mechanisms and Escalation

12. Involvement of Team

13. Participation

13.1 Who should participate

As the Web Accessibility Initiative is a multi-stakeholder/partnership project, it is critical that different stakeholders in Web accessibility are represented on the Working Group. These include:

13.2 Required commitment

Participants are expected to observe the requirements of the W3C Process for Working Groups. The following is an excerpt from the 8 June 1999 Process Document:

Participation on an ongoing basis implies a serious commitment to the Working Group charter. Participation includes:

For this Working Group, the following commitment is expected:

Information about how to join the Working Group is available on the Web. Existing members in good standing at the time of rechartering will retain that good standing.

13.3 Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

The purpose of the Working Group is to produce public documents available royalty-free to everyone, following W3C standard IPR terms. Therefore, anyone commenting in the Working Group will be considered to offer these ideas as contributions to the Working Group documents. Organizations with IPR in areas related to the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines or Techniques must disclose IPR as described in the W3C Process regarding IPR and W3C's IPR fact sheet. Invited experts are required to disclose IPR claims in the same manner as individuals from W3C Member organizations.


Jutta Treviranus, Charles McCathieNevile,  Judy Brewer

$Date: 2000/11/08 08:11:50 $

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