W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium

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Groups

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Groups: Working | Interest | Coordination | Incubator

Working Groups

  • Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines

    The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG) was originally chartered in December, 1997 as a Working Group of the WAI Technical Activity. It was rechartered in February 1999, January 2000, and June 2001, and is being rechartered again in September 2004. The group has produced a number of working drafts leading to the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, a W3C Recommendation; three versions of Techniques for Authoring Tool Accessibility, a W3C Note; and Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, a W3C Working Draft. It is being rechartered to perform the following tasks:

  • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

    The CSS WG develops and maintains the CSS language and related technologies. CSS allows both authors and readers to specify the display or other rendering of documents, such as those in HTML or SVG. CSS has several levels, from simple (level 1) to complex (level 3) and several “profiles,” which describe how CSS applies on different media (TV, handheld, etc.). Level 1 is a Recommendation, level 2 is in maintenance, level 3 is currently being developed.

  • Compound Document Formats

    The mission of the W3C Compound Document Formats Working Group is to develop specifications which combine selected existing document formats from the W3C and elsewhere, and which specify the runtime behaviour of such combined documents.

  • Education and Outreach

    The mission of the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) is to develop strategies, and awareness and training resources, to educate a variety of audiences regarding the need for Web accessibility and approaches to implementing Web accessibility.

  • Efficient XML Interchange

    The main objective of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Working Group is to develop a format that allows efficient interchange of the XML Information Set, based on the conclusions of the XML Binary Characterization Working Group.

  • Evaluation and Repair Tools

    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.

  • Forms

    The mission of the Forms Working Group, part of the XForms Activity, is to develop specifications to cover forms on the Web, producing a system that scales from low-end devices through to the enterprise level.

  • GRDDL

    The mission of this Working Group is to complement the concrete RDF/XML syntax with a mechanism to relate other XML syntaxes (especially XHTML dialects or "microformats") to the RDF abstract syntax via transformations identified by URIs.

  • Geolocation

    The mission of the Geolocation Working Group, part of the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity, is to define a secure and privacy-sensitive interface for using client-side location information in location-aware Web applications.

  • HTML

    The mission of the HTML Working Group, part of the HTML Activity, is to continue the evolution of HTML (including classic HTML and XML syntaxes).

  • Internationalization Core

    The mission of the Internationalization Core Working Group, part of the Internationalization Activity, is to enable universal access to the World Wide Web by proposing and coordinating the adoption by the W3C of techniques, conventions, technologies, and designs that enable and enhance the use of W3C technology and the Web worldwide, with and between the various different languages, scripts, regions, and cultures.

  • Internationalization Tag Set (ITS)

    The mission of the Internationalization Tag Set Working Group (ITS WG) is to develop a set of elements and attributes that can be used with new DTDs/Schemas to support the internationalization and localization of documents, and to provide techniques for developers of DTDs/Schemas dealing with approaches that best support internationalization of their documents.

  • Math

    The mission of the Math Working Group is to facilitate and promote the use of the Web for mathematical and scientific communication. The main purpose of the Working Group is to improve and extend the functionality of the MathML 2.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation (W3C Recommendation, 21 October 2003) in light of several years of experience of large-scale deployment by many individuals and organizations.

  • Media Annotations

    The mission of the Media Annotations Working Group, part of the Video in the Web Activity, is to provide an ontology designed to facilitate cross-community data integration of information related to media objects in the Web, such as video, audio and images.

  • Media Fragments

    The mission of the Media Fragments Working Group, part of the Video in the Web Activity, is to address temporal and spatial media fragments in the Web using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI).

  • Mobile Web Best Practices

    The mission of the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group (BPWG), part of the Mobile Web Initiative Activity, is to develop a set of technical best practices and associated materials in support of development of web sites that provide an appropriate user experience on mobile devices.

  • Mobile Web Initiative Device Description

    The mission of the MWI Device Description Working Group (DDWG) is to enable the development of globally accessible, sustainable data and services that provide device description information applicable to content adaptation.

  • Mobile Web Initiative Test Suites

    The mission of the MWI Test Suites Working Group is to help create a strong foundation for the mobile Web through the development of a set of test suites. The test suites should be more extensive than those typically produced by W3C Working Groups as exit criterion from Candidate Recommendation, and could be suitable for checking conformance of user agents to specifications in the mobile Web space.

  • Multimodal Interaction

    The mission of the Multimodal Interaction Working Group, part of the Multimodal Interaction Activity, is to develop open standards that enable the following vision: Target Audience of the Multimodal Interaction Working Group should include a range of organizations in different industry sectors like: The Working Group's initial focus was on use cases and requirements. This led to the publication of the W3C Multimodal Interaction Framework, and in turn to work on extensible multi-modal annotations (EMMA), and InkML, an XML language for ink traces. The Working Group has also worked on integration of composite multimodal input; dynamic adaptation to the user, device and environmental conditions; modality component interfaces; and a study of current approaches to interaction management. Natural Language Semantics Markup Language for the Speech Interface Framework is obsolete and has been replaced by work on EMMA.

  • OWL

    The OWL Web Ontology Language is playing an important role in an increasing number and range of applications, and is the focus of research into tools, reasoning techniques, formal foundations and language extensions. The widespread use of OWL has revealed requirements for language extensions that are needed in applications. At the same time, research and development into reasoning techniques and practical algorithms has made it possible to provide tool support for language features that would not have been feasible at the time OWL was published. The mission of the OWL Working Group, part of the Semantic Web Activity, is to produce a W3C Recommendation that refines and extends OWL. The proposed extensions are a small set that: The OWL1.1 member submission, the list of postponed issues of the WebOnt Working Group, and the results and experiences of the OWLED Workshop series (Galway, 2005; Athens, 2006; Innsbruck, 2007) will form the basis of these extensions, but the Working Group will also consider other submissions. Note that this charter uses the term “OWL 1.1” for easy reference. However, it is up to the Working Group to decide whether the final name of the extension will bear the name “OWL 1.1” or not, and whether the new features will be in the same namespace as the current OWL terms or not. The extensions, referred to as OWL 1.1, fall into the following categories: The starting point for the Working Group is the OWL 1.1 member submission. There will also be an issues list, initially populated from the OWL 1.1 issues list, and the Working Group will also consider the list of postponed issues of the WebOnt Working Group. Backwards compatibility with OWL is of great importance. For each new feature, if there is doubt or a perceived problem with respect to this issue, the guideline should be to not include the feature in the set of extensions. All new features should have a clear syntax, and a clear semantics both in terms of OWL DL and OWL Full. The existing compatibility between OWL DL and OWL Full should be preserved, and should be extended to new features wherever possible. A detailed list of deliverables is provided in Section 2 below. The overall goal will be to ensure the easy adoption of OWL 1.1 features by OWL users and other members of the Semantic Web community. The working group will deliver an Extended Web Ontology Language (OWL 1.1) specification as a W3C Recommendation. The specification will include (at least) the following components.

  • Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER)

    The mission of the Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group is to develop a mechanism through which structured metadata ("Description Resources") can be authenticated and applied to groups of Web resources. This mechanism will allow retrieval of the description resources without retrieval of the resources they describe.

  • Protocols and Formats

    The mission of the Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG) (Member Confidential PFWG) is to increase the support for accessibility in Web specifications. This mission flows from the W3C mission of promoting universal access and interoperability across the Web.

  • RDF Data Access

    The RDF data model is a directed, labeled graph with edges labeled with URIs and nodes that are either unidentified, literals, or URIs (please see the RDF Primer for further explanation). The principal task of the RDF Data Access Working Group is to gather requirements and to define an HTTP and/or SOAP-based protocol for selecting instances of subgraphs from an RDF graph. The group's attention is drawn to the RDF Net API submission. This will involve a language for the query and the use of RDF in some serialization for the returned results. The query langauge may have aspects of a path language similar to XPath (used for XML in XSLT and XQuery) and various RDF experimental path syntaxes.

  • Rule Interchange Format

    The Working Group is to specify a format for rules, so they can be used across diverse systems. This format (or language) will function as an interlingua into which established and new rule languages can be mapped, allowing rules written for one application to be published, shared, and re-used in other applications and other rule engines.

  • SOAP-JMS Binding

    The mission of the SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group, part of the Web Services Activity, is to produce a W3C Recommendation for how SOAP should bind to a transport that supports the Java™ Message Service (JMS) api by refining the “SOAP over Java™ Message Service 1.0” Member Submission. In the case of SOAP 1.2 this binding must use the SOAP Protocol Binding Framework defined by the XML Protocol Working Group.

  • SVG

    The mission of the SVG Working Group, part of the Graphics Activity, is to continue the evolution of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies.

  • SYMM

    The mission of the SYMM Working Group [SYMM WG] is to continue W3C's work on synchronized multimedia that started with SMIL 1.0, SMIL 2.0. Its main contribution is extending the functionality contained in the current SMIL 2.0 Recommendation. In the event of a conflict between this document and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

  • Semantic Web Deployment

  • Service Modeling Language

    The mission of the Service Modeling Language (SML) Working Group, part of the XML Activity, is to produce W3C Recommendations for Service Modeling Language by refining the “Service Modeling Language” (SML) Member Submission, addressing implementation experience and feedback for the specifications. SML defines extensions to the W3C XML Schema language by adding support for inter-document references and user-defined constraints. This combination of features is very useful in building complex multi-document models that capture structure, constraints, and relationships. In the management domain, these models are typically used to automate configuration, deployment, monitoring, capacity planning, change verification, desired configuration management, root-cause analysis for faults, etc. The facilities defined by this Working Group are expected to be of general use with arbitrary XML vocabularies, but the first major use of SML will be to model the structure, relationships, and constraints for complex information technology services and systems. Several common and domain-specific models have been built using the Member Submission version of SML, and many more are under development. Further, several products and services based on SML are expected to ship in near future. In addition, SML is relevant to other standardization efforts that need SML expression of models. To meet these immediate needs, Service Modeling Language should be standardized in a timely fashion. Therefore, this Working Group shall be schedule-driven and the W3C Recommendation for SML shall remain compatible to the extent possible with the existing SML models. This charter features an aggressive schedule and a tightly constrained scope designed to ensure that the SML Working Group will meet its schedule. This charter is intended to carry SML consensus and interoperability forward, as outlined in Tips for Getting to Recommendation Faster.

  • Timed Text

    The mission of the Timed Text Working Group, part of the Video in the Web Activity, is to produce a W3C Recommendation for media online captioning by refining the W3C specification Timed Text (TT) Authoring Format 1.0 — Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP) based in implementation experience and interoperability feedback.

  • Ubiquitous Web Applications

    The Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group seeks to simplify the creation of distributed Web applications involving a wide diversity of devices, including desktop computers, office equipment, home media appliances, mobile devices (phones), physical sensors and effectors (including RFID and barcodes). This will be achieved by building upon existing work on device independent authoring and delivery contexts by the former DIWG, together with new work on remote eventing, device coordination and intent-based events.

  • User Agent Accessibility Guidelines

    The mission of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG) is to produce guidelines for the development of accessible user agents: software that retrieves and renders Web content, including text, graphics, sounds, video, images, etc. In particular, the UAWG seeks to support the implementation of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 , and to collect requirements for a subsequent version of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines.

  • Voice Browser

    The mission of the Voice Browser Working Group, part of the Voice Browser Activity, is to enable users to speak and listen to Web applications by creating standard languages for developing Web-based speech applications. The Voice Browser Working Group concentrates on languages for capturing and producing speech and managing the dialog between user and computer, while a related Group, the Multimodal Interaction Working Group, concentrates on additional input modes including keyboard and mouse, ink and pen, etc.

  • Web Applications

    The mission of the Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group, part of the Rich Web Client Activity, is to provide specifications that enable improved client-side application development on the Web, including specifications both for application programming interfaces (APIs) for client-side development and for markup vocabularies for describing and controlling client-side application behavior.

  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

    The mission of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG) is to develop guidelines to make Web content accessible for people with disabilities. In particular, the WCAG WG will publish the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation.

  • Web Security Context

    The mission of the Web Security Context Working Group is to specify a baseline set of security context information that should be accessible to Web users, and practices for the secure and usable presentation of this information, to enable users to come to a better understanding of the context that they are operating in when making trust decisions on the Web.

  • Web Services Choreography

    Two technical Submissions, WSCL, and WSCI, have recently been published by the W3C as Technical Notes. There are other industry efforts in the area of choreography languages, such as BPML (defined by BPMI.org), BPSS (defined by ebXML), IBM's WSFL, Microsoft's XLANG, and IBM/Microsoft/BEA's BPEL4WS and their companion specifications WS-Coordination and WS-Transaction, etc. These developments make clear that there is a great deal of interest within the industry in addressing this problem area.

  • Web Services Policy

    The mission of the Web Services Policy Working Group, part of the Web Services Activity, is to produce W3C Recommendations for Web Services Policy by refining the “WS-Policy” Member Submission, addressing implementation experience and interoperability feedback from the specifications, maximizing compatibility with existing policy assertions (as defined in the Scope section), and considering composition with other components in the Web services architecture.

  • WebCGM

    Several requirements were identified in the WebCGM 2.0 timeframe that, for reasons finishing WebCGM expeditiously, were postponed from the WebCGM 2.0 specification. These requirements have been developed and further refined since the publication of WebCGM 2.0, and collected in the WebCGM 2.1 Requirements document.

  • XHTML2

    The mission of the XHTML2 Working Group, part of the HTML Activity, is to fulfill the promise of XML for applying XHTML to a wide variety of platforms with proper attention paid to internationalization, accessibility, device-independence, usability and document structuring. This mission includes providing an essential piece for supporting rich Web content that combines XHTML with other W3C work on areas such as math, scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, and forms, in cooperation with other Working Groups.

  • XML Core

    The mission of the XML Core Working Group, part of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity, is to maintain and develop as needed core XML specifications.

  • XML Processing Model

    The Working Group will take as input the position papers (Members-only) of the W3C Workshop on the XML Processing Model as well as the two related W3C Member Submissions (XML Pipeline Definition Language Version 1.0 and XML Pipeline Language (XPL) Version 1.0), and any other work in the area that the Working Group considers to be relevant.

  • XML Protocol

    The mission of the XML Protocol Working Group, part of the Web Services Activity, is to maintain and develop as needed the SOAP Version 1.2 specifications and their extensions.

  • XML Query

    The mission of the XML Query Working Group, part of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity, is to provide flexible query facilities to extract data from XML and virtual documents, such as contents of databases or other persistent storage that are viewed as XML via a mapping mechanism, on the Web.

  • XML Schema Patterns for Databinding

    The mission of this Working Group is to define a set of XML Schema patterns that will be efficiently implementable by the broad community who use XML databindings. Patterns which may prove useful to model include abstractions of structures common across a wide variety of programming environments, such as hash tables, vectors, and collections. There are several ways of representing such abstracted data structures and Web Services toolkits are currently using ad hoc technologies to infer the most suitable language mapping when processing XML Schemas. Agreeing on a set of XML Schema patterns for which databinding optimizations can be made will facilitate the ability of Web services and other toolkits to expose a more comprehensible data model to the developer.

  • XML Schema

    The mission of the XML Schema Working Group, part of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity, is to maintain and revise the XML Schema specifications, addressing primitive data typing, structural constraints, and conformance.

  • XML Security

    The mission of the XML Security Working Group, part of the Security Activity, is to take the next step in developing the XML security specifications.

  • XSL

    The mission of the XSL Working Group, part of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity, is to define a practical style and transformation language capable of supporting the transformation and presentation of, and interaction with, structured information (e.g., XML documents) for use on servers and clients. The language is designed to build transformations in support of browsing, printing, interactive editing, and transcoding of one XML vocabulary into another XML vocabulary. To enhance accessibility, XSL is able to present information both visually and non-visually. XSL is not intended to replace CSS, but will provide functionality beyond that defined by CSS, for example, element re-ordering.

Interest Groups

  • Internationalization (I18n)

    The mission of the Internationalization (I18n) Interest Group, part of the Internationalization Activity, is to help the Working Groups within the Internationalization Activity and provides a forum to discuss issues related to the internationalization of the Web.

  • Internationalization Tag Set (ITS)

    The Internationalization Tag Set Interest Group, part of the Internationalization Activity, is a forum to foster a community of users of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS), by promoting its adoption, and gathering information on its further development. The mission of the Internationalization Tag Set Interest Group, part of the Internationalization Activity, is to foster a community of users of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 1.0, by promoting its adoption within and outside of W3C, and gathering information on its further development.

  • Mobile Web For Social Development (MW4D)

    The mission of the Mobile Web For Social Development (MW4D) Interest Group, part of the Mobile Web Initiative Activity, is to explore the potential of Web technologies on Mobile phones as a solution to bridge the Digital Divide and provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based services to rural communities and underprivileged populations of Developing Countries.

  • Patents and Standards

    The Patent and Standards Interest Group (PSIG) is a forum for W3C Members and Invited Experts to discuss policy issues regarding the implementation of the W3C Patent Policy as well as new Patent-related questions that arise which require action or attention from the W3C Membership. The PSIG has no authority to create new policy. However, input from the PSIG on the operation of the policy and areas that might require further policy development by a W3C Working Group is welcome.

  • Policy Languages

    The Policy Languages Interest Group, part of the Privacy Activity, is a forum for W3C Members and non-Members to discuss interoperability questions that arise when different policy languages are used in integrated use cases, along with related requirements and needs.

  • Research and Development

    The mission of the Research and Development Interest Group (RDIG) is:

  • SVG

    The mission of the SVG Interest Group, part of the Graphics Activity, is to foster the widespead discussion of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, to gather requirements, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies.

  • Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences

    The mission of the Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group, part of the Semantic Web Activity, is to develop, advocate for, and support the use of Semantic Web technologies for health care and life science, with focus on biological science and translational medicine. These domains stand to gain tremendous benefit by adoption of Semantic Web technologies, as they depend on the interoperability of information from many domains and processes for efficient decision support.

  • Semantic Web

    The Semantic Web Interest Group is a forum for W3C Members and non-Members to discuss innovative Semantic Web applications. The group will focus primarily on applications of the W3C Semantic Web technologies (RDF, OWL, SPARQL, etc), on potential future work items related to technologies, and the relationship of that work to other activities of W3C and to the broader social and legal context in which the Web is situated.

  • WAI

    The mission of the Web Accessibility Initiative Interest Group (WAI IG) is to provide a forum for review of deliverables under development by other WAI groups; for exploration of barriers to and potential solutions for accessibility of the Web; and for exchanging information about activities related to Web accessibility around the world.

  • XML Plenary

    The mission of the XML Plenary Interest Group, part of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity, is to provide a forum for communication among the members of the Working Groups of the XML Activity, between the XML Activity and other parts of W3C, and between all of these and the wider XML community.

  • XML Schema

    The mission of the XML Schema Interest Group, part of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity, is provide to forum for the discussion of issues relating to the development of a language for defining and documenting XML-based markup languages.

  • eGovernment

    The mission of the eGovernment Interest Group, part of the eGovernment Activity, is to explore how to improve access to government through better use of the Web and achieve better government transparency using open Web standards at any government level (local, state, national and multi-national).

Coordination Groups

  • Hypertext

    The mission of the Hypertext Coordination Group, part of the HTML Activity, is to coordinate the work of W3C Working Groups dealing with user-facing technologies, primarily from the Interaction and Ubiquitous Web Domains.

  • Semantic Web

  • WAI

    The mission of the WAI Coordination Group (WAI CG) is to coordinate among all WAI groups, and between WAI groups and other W3C groups as needed.

  • Web Services

  • XML

    The mission of the XML Coordination Group, part of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity, is to provide a forum for coordination between the Working Groups of the XML Activity, and between the XML Activity and other parts of W3C, and between the XML Activity and other organizations.

Incubator Groups

  • Common Web Language Evaluation and Installation

    The mission of the Common Web Language Evaluation and Installation Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to substantiate the CWL (Common Web Language) in actual web environment using the pilot model of the CWL platform. The CWL is a graphic language of semantic network with hyper node and is used to describe contents and meta-data of web pages in three different type of form such as UNL, CDL and RDF. The CWL platform allows people to input CWL using natural languages and display information written in CWL in natural languages. Using this CWL platform, the CWL will be evaluated from multilingualism, semantic computing and semantic web points of view. Based on these evaluation and feedback, the CWL and its platform will be bearable in actual use in the web.

  • Emergency Information Interoperability Framework

    The mission of the Emergency Information Interoperability Framework Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to review and analyse the current state-of-the-art in vocabularies used in emergency management functions and to investigate the path forward via an emergency management systems information interoperability framework. These activities will lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive approach to ontology management and semantic information interoperability leading to a proposal for future longer-term W3C Working Group activity.

  • Emotion Markup Language

    The mission of the Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to propose a specification draft for an Emotion Markup Language, to document it in a way accessible to non-experts, and to illustrate its use in conjunction with a number of existing markups.

  • Product Modelling

    The mission of the Product Modelling Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is as follows: The SWOP and S-TEN projects, with the POSC Caesar Association, believe that it is possible to define a small core of basic classes and properties for product modelling. This "product core" could be the basis of the ontologies defined by the two projects, and for many other application ontologies. This core could help the development of Web ontologies derived from existing international standards, such as IFC, STEP and ISO 15926. Therefore it is proposed to set up a W3C "Product Modelling" incubator group which will develop this core.

  • RDB2RDF

    The mission of the RDB2RDF Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, has two initiatives.

  • Rich Web Application Backplane

    The mission of the Rich Web Application Backplane Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to explore and refine the architecture of a "Rich Web Application Backplane" -- a set of common building blocks for web applications.

  • SWS Testbed

    The mission of the SWS Testbed Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to develop a standard methodology for evaluating semantic web services based upon a standard set of problems and develop a public repository of such problems.