W3C

The Spatial Data on the Web Working Group, a collaboration between W3C and the Open Geospatial Consortium, has published 4 documents today. QB4ST adds extensions to the RDF Data Cube for spatio-temporal components. These are designed to make it easier to share and manipulate data such as Earth Observations with linkable slices through time and space. The QB4ST extensions are used in another of today’s publications, Publishing and Using Earth Observation Data with the RDF Data Cube and the Discrete Global Grid System, which shows how SPARQL queries can be served through OGC’s developing Discrete Global Grid System for observations, coupled with a triple store for observational metadata. The approach makes use of the power of Linked Data on the Web without requiring all data points to be encoded as RDF triples.

The latest Working Draft of the Semantic Sensor Network Ontology sets out a modular approach that allows alignment with related vocabularies. The modular architecture supports the judicious use of “just enough” semantics for diverse applications, including satellite imagery, large scale scientific monitoring, industrial and household infrastructure, citizen observers, and the Web of Things. Finally, the Working Group is pleased to publish an update to its Spatial Data on the Web Best Practices document that advises on best practices related to the publication and usage of spatial data on the Web; the use of Web technologies as they may be applied to location.

The Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) has updated three resources. Planning and Managing Web Accessibility helps you integrate accessibility throughout the Web production process. It applies to individual projects and at the organizational level. Developing Organizational Policies on Web Accessibility helps you develop a simple or comprehensive Web accessibility policy for an organization. Web Accessibility First Aid: Approaches for Interim Repairs is intended to help with the situation: "I need to make my website accessible and I don’t even know where to start!" It provides guidance on addressing short-term accessibility fixes. Read more about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) has updated Easy Checks – A First Review of Web Accessibility. This resource helps you start to assess the accessibility of a Web page. With these simple steps, you can get an idea whether or not accessibility is addressed in even the most basic way. These checks cover just a few accessibility issues and are designed to be quick and easy, rather than definitive. This update includes a new check on Moving, Flashing, or Blinking Content and instructions for the Web Developer Toolbar for multiple browsers. Read more about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The Social Web Working Group invites implementation of two Candidate Recommendations:

• Activity Streams 2.0: This specification details a model for representing potential and completed activities using the JSON format. In the most basic sense, an “Activity” is a semantic description of an action. It is the goal of this specification to provide a JSON-based syntax that is sufficient to express metadata about activities in a rich, human-friendly but machine-processable and extensible manner.
• Activity Vocabulary: This specification describes the Activity vocabulary. The Activity Streams 2.0 Vocabulary defines a set of abstract types and properties that describe past, present and future Activities.

Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.0 has been published as a Candidate Recommendation and is now undergoing implementation finalization and testing. DPub-ARIA defines a WAI-ARIA module encompassing an ontology of roles, states and properties specific to the digital publishing industry. This allows an author to convey user interface behaviors and structural information to assistive technologies and to enable semantic navigation, styling and interactive features used by readers. More information about this publication is available in the blog DPUB-ARIA 1.0 is Released as a Candidate Recommendation. The draft implementation report shows the progress of testing. Please send implementation information or comments by 27 January 2017. Read about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The Web Application Security Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of Content Security Policy Level 2. This document defines a policy language used to declare a set of content restrictions for a web resource, and a mechanism for transmitting the policy from a server to a client where the policy is enforced.

The Web Platform Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of WebIDL Level 1. This document defines an interface definition language, Web IDL, that can be used to describe interfaces that are intended to be implemented in web browsers. Web IDL is an IDL variant with a number of features that allow the behavior of common script objects in the web platform to be specified more readily. How interfaces described with Web IDL correspond to constructs within ECMAScript execution environments is also detailed in this document. It is expected that newly published specifications reference this document to ensure conforming implementations of interfaces are interoperable.