Dashboard

From W3C Wiki

This wiki is about so-called dashboards where the use of dashboard is similar to a Business Dashboard as defined by wikipedia.org.

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SeeAlso:


What do we mean by Dashboard?

The basic idea of a dashboard is to provide at-a-glance views of some topic, such as the status of a particular group or organization, a consolidated view of distributed data, etc. The amount of detail in a dashboard varies considerably, depending on the purpose of the dashboard.

Examples of Dashboards in the W3C

The following can all be considered examples of dashboards at the W3C:

Problem Statement

Here are some problems that could use some type of dashboard to address (at least partially):

  • It is difficult for W3C Members to get an overview of the current status of existing groups such as their publication status, hot issues, etc.
  • It is difficult for consortium Members and the Public to get a consolidated list of the set of documents that currently being reviewed (for example Last Call Working Drafts).
  • It is difficult for AC Reps of large organizations to handle the combinatorics of matchmaking all the different groups (WG, CB, BG) and topics at W3C with the different groups and topics of their organization.
  • It is difficult for prospective Members to get an overview of the current status specific groups they might want to participate
  • It is difficult for other Standards Setting Organizations to get: a) an overview of the current status of specific groups; b) the status of specific specification(s)
  • Groups provide dashboard type information in various ways and having some consistency could be helpful
  • Milestones in Working Group charters typically become out-of-date soon after a charter is approved by the Director. In such cases, the WG should provide current status of the group's publication status (in some type of dashboard like style).

Types of Dashboards

Within the Consortium, different types of dashboards are needed:

  • Domains and/or Activity level
  • Working Groups
  • Interest Groups
  • Community Groups
  • Consortium wide
  • Documents that are currently open for formal review

Use Cases

  • What is the current publication status of the deliverables of Working Group X?
  • What is the current status of Domain Y (f.ex. which groups are active; when does each group expect to end, etc.)?
  • What is the current status of Community Group Z (f.ex. what documents are active; what is the document roadmap)?
  • What is the impact of a given technology on Working Group roadmaps (or specific specifications)? This would include normative specification dependencies for specifications being developed by other groups.
  • What is the set of documents that are currently under some type of formal review period? This would include Last Call Working Drafts for groups using Process-2005 and wide review Working Drafts for groups using Process-2014.

Considerations

  • Target audience: AC reps, Members, prospective Members, Public, Group members
  • Costs: dashboard maintenance and upkeep costs resources (f.ex. maintaining group-level dashboard data takes Chair time)

Requirements

  • It should be possible to search the groups and activities at least by keywords
  • It should be possible to retrieve a summary of activity for a domain, a working group, a task force, a community group, a business group.
  • The level of information should be structured with the following hierarchy
    • General summary of the activity (business driver, supporters)
    • Roadmap of the activity (major achievement, coming challenges, potential known blockers or imperative deadline)
    • List of deliverables
    • Summary of each deliverable (including purpose, problem solved, companies involved, associated product)
  • For each summary of activity the set of relevant references should be made available (e.g. wiki, mailing list, chair/staff contact/editors name)
  • It should be possible to retrieve technology summary, filtering by its status in the deliverable process (FPWD, WD, Last Call, PR, Rec)

Priorities

  • High: each Working Group must have some type of dashboard that minimally includes the current status of all of the group's active specifications
  • High: create a document/service that includes a link to all WG dashboards, possibly organized by Domains
  • Medium: create a dashboard that includes all documents that are under formal review (see below for more details)
  • Low: Consortium-wide dashboard

Potential Solutions

Document Review Dashboard

In October 2014, members of the W3C Process Community group discussed creating a dashboard type solution to facilitate document review. The feedback includes dashboard like proposals from: