WAI Education & Outreach Meeting, October 1, 1998
Last updated: October 1, 1998
Scribe: Chuck Letourneau, Judy Brewer
Posted by: Judy Brewer,
WAI EOWG Chair
Last updated: October 1, 1998
Present:
DD Daniel Dardailler (left early)
MK Marja-Riitta Koivunen
BK Ben deLong
CL Chuck Letourneau
JB Judy Brewer
GF Geoff Freed
WL William Loughboro
MN Masafumi Nakane
1. Agenda Review & Updates:
JB Reviewed agenda
which was sent earlier and requested additional items for agenda.
WL need more policy discussion
JB will do next week. An update: advising joint course at MIT &
Harvard Law on internet policy, wrote up detailed document regarding the
US legal issues and she will bring it back into the EO.
BK – any other interesting updates should be mentioned.
JB – lets have an “interesting tidbit” update.
BK – two events at Web 98 – a NAW/WOW accessibility meeting that was
attended by 10-15 enthusiastic people. Judy spoke and Joe Lazarro gave
a demo of how blind users surf the Web and Bruce Alexander who runs an
e-commerce site (and is blind).
Also held a meeting of the Web Standards group, Harvey Bingham gave
a great presentation.. News Bytes wrote an article on the event. BK just
named to steering committee of Web Standards
BK - just appointed to steering committee of Web Standards Project
JB - has Web Standards decided to formally include access or is it
informal?
Bk - just informal now but lots of work.
CL – mentioned some new access policy work underway in the Canadian
Government.
JB – attended Conference of World Regions, Global Regional Leadership
Forum, their Science & Technology Task Force is recommending adoption
of Web accessibility and universal design principles for regional economic
development. Several other possibilities might come out of this.
BK – if we can go public with anything, he has a good group of press
contacts that are very interested in the access area.
JB - was appointed to US Education & Information Technology Access
Advisory Committee, Chuck Letourneau alternate. EITAAC will be developing
Web accessibility standards among other things.
WL – the Access Board is taking a tour of William’s facilities today
and being lectured about access and web by representatives from the blindness
community.
JB: WAI EOWG home page updated <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO>.
Missing minutes now available on WAI EO page, except for Aug 27th, for
which the minutes are gone due to a crash. Have a partial reconstruction.
If anyone has any form of notes from that meeting, please send them. Note
that the minutes now all have indices up front so we can more easily find
the topics covered in each meeting. If you attended the Sept 17 meeting,
please check for any significant omissions and let me know; I was taking
minutes under interesting circumstances. Also updated members list, please
re-check your information.
+JB - add "update" section to each agenda
+JB - CL tell BK when policy changes are confirmed
+JB - still needs to reconstruct Aug 27 minutes
+All - check member page again please
2. Review of one-pager flyer:
JB - Note that this is not the flashy promotional flyer we discussed earlier
(still coming), but rather a basic single-sheet "pointers" list that has
been evolving for a few months. Feedback welcome. Document appended
(straight text) and attached (word 7).
JB - How useful is this?
BK - found it useful at the Web 98 conference as a hand out and at
booths. Mentioned....? a number of organizations that were interested.
CL - looks dandy to me.
JB - any other comments? None
JB - How can we disseminate?
JB - should we put it up as a single HTML page that is printable?
?? - Yes, fine
JB to MN – would it be easy to do in Japanese?
MN - Okay
JB to MR – what about in Finnish? MR
MR Fine
JB – WAI/TIDE – EBU will handle translation into three or four European
languages, but she needs to confirm which ones.
JB to BK – will follow-up with basic information on UMass Amherst's
translation unit, as Gift-in-Kind
JB - Dutch, Swedish, Hindi also offered previously. (Chuck, what about
French, or Daniel?)
+MN - send update to JB on translation status
+MR - do Finnish?
+JB - clarify languages with EBU
+JB - add translation policy pointer to WAI IG or WAI EO home page
3. Upcoming events
submissions deadlines:
JB - This was going to be an update but neither Kitch nor Jim was available
for the call. Kitch becomes available on Oct 12. Please keep sending Kitch
material about upcoming events, lots needs to be filled in. JB is arranging
for Kitch to have access to W3C site to manage the event list.
MN - sent notice about INET 99. Deadline is Oct 15. Suggested
poster session participation. Thinks it is sometime in June 1999
in San Jose California.
JB - can you see if you can get us a plenary session, possibly followed
by a panel or workshop; reaches much more people than a poster session.
JB happy to help prepare a presentation.
JB – Jutta Treviranus is involved in WWW8 in Toronto and Judy has sent
a list of EOWG wishes to her, but she hasn’t replied yet
+BK send more conference pointers to Kitch
+MN try to get us a plenary and/or panel opportunity at INET
+JB recheck with Jutta on WWW8
4. Web Accessibility
Consultant List
4. Question of accessible design consultants:
Getting more & more requests to recommend consultants. Thoughts
on developing a registry? How much work? How to control it? Wait until
after we've developed training materials, and we can vouch for people having
gone through trainings?
CL – from a strictly mercenary viewpoint, I would like to be on such
a list. I know of at least two other Canadian professionals in this
field.
GF - He thinks it would be a pretty good idea. He knows
some too… Himself, Mike Paciello, etc.
WL – difficult to manage, could be potentially dangerous for WAI.
Shouldn’t try to certify or regulate. Need good set of disclaimers.
Links to example sites created by the candidates.
JB: really needed; we argue for accessibility, then say you're on your
own?
JB – discussion with BK regarding their webmaster linking site (www.webmaster-network.org).
What about the HTML Writer’s Guild’s access training course?
GF: Does Mike Paciello do design consulting?
JB: what kind of criteria, e.g. these individuals have been doing accessible
Web consulting already, involved in WAI, knowledgeable of latest, &
do some consulting... W3C does not endorse, etc, you're responsible for
checking people out on your own.
BK: we have a Web Master placement network http://www.webmaster-network.org/....
and are going to be building a certification program
JB: can we get accessibility incorporated into it?
MR: our listing should have links to samples of people's work
+JB - draft a page with lots of disclaimers, invite a limited number
of people to be listed on it.
5. Bulletin draft for review
JB: Sent draft right before start of meeting.
MR – add some mention of Universal Design.
GF – good idea
JB – will mention it in both section one and two
CL – remove “available and upcoming” form title of section 3.
WL – should brag about the accessible stuff more.
JB – is doing a weekly update for the IG list which is short and sweet.
WL – why not have a Coordination Group digest of the work from each
of the WG’s.
JB – we could highlight a different WG each bulletin, and mention the
others briefly
JB - want to plan ahead for issues for next bulletin too
6. RNIB videos
JB: Wanted description, comments but wait till next call when RNIB back
on
7. Upcoming meetings
– check home page.
JB: updated home page. Lists October 8, 22, 29. Want to confirm people's
availability, and will remind members to attend or send regrets.
GF- can’t be there for 22, 29
MN Masafume might have a hard time when time changes.
JB – what about meetings Friday at 8:30 AM?
Consensus - ok
JB – what about meetings Monday at 8:30 AM Eastern Time?
Consensus – less good
WL - want something that's good for Australia too