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Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG) Charter

This charter is written in accordance with Section 6.2.6 of the 5 February 2004 W3C Process Document.

1. Mission
2. Scope
3. Duration
4. Deliverables
5. Milestones
6. Dependencies
7. Confidentiality
8. Meetings
9. Communication
10. Voting
11. Patent Policy
12. Participation

Information about how to participate in the ERT WG is available.

1. Mission

The mission of the Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG) is to develop techniques and resources to facilitate the evaluation and repair of Web sites with regard to their conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, and to facilitate testing across all three WAI guidelines also including the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines.

This mission is complementary to the work of other Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) groups within the WAI Technical Activity and the WAI International Program Office Activity. The ERT WG is part of the WAI Technical Activity.

The original charter for this group and a second ERT WG charter are available. Related work was done under the Evaluation and Repair Interest Group (ERIG) charter. The ERT WG is renewing its charter in order to resume work on evaluation and repair tools.

2. Scope

The ERT WG's scope of work includes:

1. Completing the Evaluation and Report Language 1.0 (EARL 1.0), a machine-readable language for reporting test results;
2. Developing techniques for developers of automated tools to evaluate conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) to support the transition between evaluation of WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0;
3. Providing input into tools which can aggregate accessibility metadata among different sources;
4. Providing technical input into the WAI Resource Suite Evaluating Web Sites For Accessibility maintained by the Education and Outreach Working Group, including descriptions of conformance evaluation, and an expanded reference list of tools for evaluating conformance with WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0;
5. Helping coordinate development of test files and test suites among the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group.

Consistent with W3C Process requirements on Task Forces, the ERT WG may form task forces composed of ERT WG participants or join other W3C task forces to carry out assignments when under the chartered scope of ERT WG. Any such task force must have a work statement (including objectives, communication, participation, and leadership) that has been announced on the ERT WG mailing list, approved by the ERT WG, and is available from the ERT WG home page. ERT WG task forces should produce requirements documents that outline the scope and expectations for work. Task forces may set up separate teleconferences and hold face-to-face meetings per the W3C process and with the approval of the ERT WG.

3. Duration

The Working Group is scheduled for 24 months, from 1 January 2005 through 31 December 2006, at which point the ERT WG is expected to be rechartered for sufficient time as needed to work on deliverables relating to evaluation and repair tools for Web accessibility.

4. Deliverables

4.1 Planned deliverables

The ERT WG will produce the following deliverables:

1. Issues lists for all deliverables under development
2. Requirements for Evaluation and Report Language (EARL), to be published as a W3C Working Group Note
3. EARL 1.0 Working Drafts, and W3C Working Group Note or W3C Recommendation
4. Input into Evaluation Resource Suite
5. Input into tools for aggregating accessibility metadata among multiple sources
6. Input into development of test files and test suites for WCAG 2.0, UAAG 2.0, and ATAG 2.0
7. Meeting minutes
8. If EARL 1.0 enters the W3C Recommendation track, documentation of open issues, resolutions, responses to comments, and implementation reports and other artifacts of the W3C Process as described in section 7.2 General Requirements for Advancement of the W3C Process document.

4.2 QA Framework

The ERT WG intends to produce deliverables conforming to the Quality Assurance (QA) Framework developed by W3C's QA Activity.

5. Milestones

All publishing milestones are approximate:

• 1Q 2005
  • Reconvene ERT WG
  • EARL issues list
  • EARL 1.0 requirements
  • input into test files and test suites
• 2Q 2005
  • EARL 1.0 Working Draft
  • input into tool aggregators
  • input into test files and test suites
• 3Q 2005
  • EARL 1.0 Last Call or Working Draft
  • input into tool aggregators
  • input into test files and test suites
  • input on Evaluation Resource Suite
• 4Q 2005
  • EARL 1.0 Candidate Recommendation or Working Group Note
  • input into tool aggregators
• 1Q 2006
  • input into tool aggregators
  • implementation tracking for EARL 1.0
  • EARL 1.0 Proposed Recommendation (if on Recommendation Track)
  • EARL 1.0 Recommendation (if on Recommendation Track)
• 2Q 2006
  • implementation tracking for EARL 1.0
  • updated input on Evaluation Resource Suite
• 3Q 2006
  • implementation tracking for EARL 1.0
• 4Q 2006
  • input into tool aggregators
  • updated EARL 1.0 issues list
  • updated EARL 1.0 requirements
  • updated input on Evaluation Resource Suite

6. Dependencies

ERT WG dependencies with WAI Working Groups and other W3C Groups include:

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG) -- coordinate on development of test suites to support evaluation of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0)
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG WG) -- coordinate on development of test files and test suites
• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG WG) -- coordinate on development of test files and test suites
• Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) -- provide input into Evaluation Resource Suite
• WAI Interest Group (WAI IG) -- send deliverables for review
• WAI Coordination Group (WAI CG) -- address questions on dependencies
• Quality Assurance Working Group (QAWG) -- coordinate on ensuring conformance with Quality Assurance (QA) Framework, and on hand-off of EARL after EARL 1.0 is completed
• Semantic Web Activity (SWAD) -- coordinate on EARL 1.0 implementations
• W3C open source software development -- coordinate with HTML Tidy, the HTML Validator, the CSS Validator, and Amaya on implementation of techniques for evaluating and repairing inaccessible Web content

7. Confidentiality

The ERT WG is a public Working Group as defined by Section 4.1 of the W3C Process Document. The Working Group maintains a public mailing list at public-wai-ert@w3.org.

8. Meetings

• Distributed meetings by teleconference and/or Internet Relay Chat (IRC) approximately weekly
• Approximately three face-to-face meetings per year

9. Communication

9.1 Communication within group

• ERT WG mailing list public-wai-ert@w3.org
• ERT WG home page

9.2 Communication within W3C

• WAI Coordination Group
• Protocols and Formats Working Group
• WAI liaison to the (Member-only) Coordination Group
• WAI Domain Lead
• (Member-only) W3C Chairs mailing list
• specific W3C Working Groups as needed

9.3 Communication with public

• WAI Interest Group
• Education and Outreach Working Group

10. Voting

The primary means of decision-making in the ERT WG is consensus. This charter is written in accordance with Section 3.4, Votes of the 5 February 2004 W3C Process Document and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

11. Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis.

12. Participation

12.1 W3C Member and Invited Expert participation

The ERT WG welcomes participation from W3C Member Organizations, and also invites experts from disability organizations, accessibility researchers, assistive technology developers, government organizations, and others interested in promoting accessibility of Web content, subject to the W3C Invited Expert policy.

Participants are expected to observe general participation requirements and to maintain good standing in the group as defined in the W3C Process Document. For the ERT WG, the following commitment is expected:

• Minimum 4 hours per week, including meeting time and reading/responding to mailing list
• Remain current on public-wai-ert@w3.org list and respond in timely manner to postings on mailing list
• Contribute to development of ERT WG deliverables
• Participate in most weekly teleconferences with regrets sent when one has to be missed
• Participate in face-to-face meetings or send regrets to the list
• Remain aware of related work in other WAI Working Groups

12.2 Joining the ERT WG

Information about how to participate in the ERT WG is available.

12.3 W3C Team participation

• 30% Shadi Abou-Zahra, Chair and W3C Team Contact
• 10% Wendy Chisholm

Last updated on $Date: 2005/08/26 15:57:50 $ by $Author: shadi $

Last modified on 8 November, 2004 by Shadi Abou-Zahra shadi@w3.org

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