Overview of this presentation

• Data on CGs
• The "CG2WG" task force
• Transitions
• Analysis
• Conclusions
• Q&A

CG objectives

Are CGs accomplishing what we want?

Objectives:

• Encourage more people to bring new idea to W3C.
• Improve our reputation among our stakeholders.
• Help W3C create high quality, relevant standards.
• Strengthen our role as stewards.
• Enable W3C to do more work.
• Enhance the value of Membership, the importance of staff.

CG performance

Did we encourage more people to bring new ideas to W3C?

We think so, as early June 2013 data confirms:

• 177 Member organizations
• 1061 non-Member organizations
• 2882 total individual participants
• 125 Community Groups, 3 Business Groups

Facts:

• Nearly 500 new participants in the past 4 months.
• There are 1500 participants in W3C Working Groups.

CG participation history

A history of Community and Business Groups participation:

CG Achievements

Did we help W3C create high quality, relevant standards?

• 16 Groups with reports
  • 18 Final
  • 25 Draft
• 3 CG Reports taken up by Working Groups:
  • JSON for Linking Data CG → RDF WG: JSON-LD Syntax 1.0, JSON-LD API 1.0
  • Responsive Images CG → HTML WG: the picture element
• 2 CGs proposed transition as new WG:
  • Core Mobile CG → Web and Mobile IG (under AC review)
  • Speech API CG → Web Speech WG (under AC review)

The "CG2WG" task force

Febuary 2013: Task Forces launched.

Scope:

• Which CGs to transition to Working Group?
• Also, possibly
  • do an inventory,
  • establish broad classification,
  • consider taxonomies,
  • advocate for tools (assess activity level, metrics, etc.).

Recent outreach data

35 CG Chairs took our questionnaire.

• Status?
  • 9 ongoing and nearing completion
  • 20 ongoing and far from completion
  • 4 inactive
• Spec work or discussion fora?
  • 18 to produce specification(s)
  • 14 are discussion fora
• Transition?
  • 9 have a specification to transition.
  • 13 do not expect to transition.

Transitions to date

Definition of Transitions:

• CG work moving to the Rec track
• CG draft charter to become a W3C work group

2 CGs transitioned:

• JSON for Linking Data
• Responsive Images

Transitions within 6 months

5 CGs intend to transition within 6 months:

• Core Mobile → Web and Mobile Interest Group [under AC review]
• Customer Experience → digitalData Working Group [in discussion with W3C Team]
• Web Media Text Tracks [in discussion with W3C Team]
• Cloud Computing
• Argumentation

Transitions in the middle to long term

10 CGs intend to transition but don't have a schedule for doing so:

• Web Payments
• ODRL
• Open Annotation
• CSS Selector as Fragment Identifiers
• Locations and Addresses
• Speech API (Web Speech Working Group) [under AC review]
• EXPath
• Client and Server JavaScript APIs (to existing W3C WG)
• MicroXML (to existing W3C WG)
• Ontology-Lexica (to existing W3C WG)

Barriers to transition

• Too early, and/or insufficient implementations: 12
• non-W3C Members push-back to join a Working Group: 3
• Working Groups == too much bureaucracy: 3

Analysis: Group challenges

• Slow ramp-up, steep learning curve
• Lack of traction, or loss of momentum
• Single-person effort
• How to migrate?

Analysis: Internal aspects

• W3C Group Participants perform better in CGs.
• Team in the critical path of transition to the Rec Track.
• Lack of tools to assess CGs activity.
• 29 CGs have no chair.
• Todo: close dormant groups.

Conclusions

CGs are achieving their goals:

• More people bring new ideas to W3C.
• W3C is doing more work.
• W3C Domains benefit from more eyes on trends.
• Recruitment opportunities of active non-Members.
• Enhanced value of Membership and importance of staff.
• The biggest barrier to transition is natural.

However, there are costs as well.

• Time commitment.
• Scalability challenge.

Multiple next steps

• Conduct more systematic outreach (e.g. transition survey).
• Invest on expanding coordination tools:
  • Enpower W3C Domains to monitor CGs on ad-hoc basis.
  • Streamline bridgeing to W3C Working Groups.
  • Automate some of the process to transition.

Q&A

• Comments?
• Suggestions?

E-mail: Coralie Mercier <coralie@w3.org>

Thank you!