AB/Being on the AB
The Advisory Board (AB) advises the W3C on matters of consortium strategy and scope, governance, management, process, diversity and inclusion, legal, finance, and international collaboration. It is also responsible for the W3C Process document that describes the organisational structure of the W3C and the processes, responsibilities and functions that enable W3C to accomplish its mission.
Regular activities
Participation on the AB typically takes between 4 and 6 hours a week for native English speakers; for non-native English speakers and people with accessibility needs the time may be more. This is an addition to the 60 minute conference calls held twice a month. This time is typically used for:
- Researching information
- Preparing documents
- Reading documents
- Responding to email discussions
- Commenting on Github issues
- Reviewing changes to the W3C Process
- Working on priority tasks
The Member-visible AB issues repository shows a lot of the types of topics the AB discusses. See also the AB Priorities page.
The members of the AB also sit on the W3C Council, which resolves formal objections.
Meetings
The AB meets in real-time for 3 days, 4 or 5 times a year. The AB meets for 2 days after the Spring AC meeting, and the rest are hosted by AB members in different locations around the world. AB members are expected to attend these meetings, either remotely or preferably in person.
The AB is responsible for the W3C Process and AB members are encouraged to participate in the Process Community Group (CG), which meets for 60 minutes every other week. If members cannot attend the Process CG meetings it is expected that they will keep up to date on progress with the W3C Process document by following discussions on the W3Process Github repository.
Knowledge and experience
As noted above, the AB discusses many different topics. No-one is expected to be an expert in all of them, but AB participants should be able to contribute usefully to discussions on one or more subjects and be prepared to learn about the subjects they are less familiar with. Unlike participating in a working group, where members choose which aspects of the work they engage with, AB members are elected to serve the interests of the consortium as a whole.
Priority tasks
Each year the AB identifies a number of priority tasks. These are activities that the AB thinks are particularly important to the W3C at the time.
Each priority task is led by one or more members of the AB, with support from other members. AB members are expected to lead at least one priority task each year and to make sure they have the time and ability to do so.