W3C

Education and Outreach Working Group Teleconference

29 Jul 2016

Agenda

See also: IRC log

Attendees

Present
David, Brent, EricE, Susan, Caleb, MaryJo, Laura, Andrew, Howard, dboudreau, Mary, Jo, Sharron, shadi
Regrets
Shawn
Chair
Brent
Scribe
EricE, Sharron

Contents


<scribe> Scribe: EricE

<scribe> ScribeNick: yatil

<sloandr> Hi Howard, Andrew, everyone :)

<dboudreau> yay, Dave :)

Brent: Introducing David Sloan and the AccessLearn Community Group.
... We aim for an open discussion to coordinate between the EOWG and ALCG.

Eric: [Introducing Community Groups, W3C groups that anyone can open and are used to incubate future W3C work.]

https://www.w3.org/community/about/

<Andrew> s/ sorry, having trouble logging into WebEx//

<Andrew> some very interesting CGs by their titles - https://www.w3.org/community/groups/

<Brent> Accessible Online Learning (AccessLearn) Community Group site: https://www.w3.org/community/accesslearn/

sloandr: I’ve been involved in W3C and accessibility for a number of years, but haven’t been involved in WGs since the RDWG closed. We set up the AccessLearn CG when we noticed that there is a need for accessibility in learning, especially in Universities.
... Background in online learning and education space. People looking at specific guidance, and how to apply accessibility best practices to the creation of accessible online leaning resources.
... Also for MOOCs. Also the legal side of things needs to be looked at, what is the situation if people in one country deliver a course to a person in other countries.

<shadi> https://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2013/e-learning/Overview.html

<shadi> [16 December 2013]

<Brent> AccessLearn workstreams: https://www.w3.org/community/accesslearn/wiki/Work_Streams

sloandr: Huge scope for AccessLearn CG… We’re looking into what EO has and want give feedback on how to improve resources to be more effective for online learning.
... We ran a survey to see what the backgrounds are, there is a summary on the wiki.

<sloandr> https://www.w3.org/community/accesslearn/wiki/Initial_AccessLearn_Survey

sloandr: This helped us to see what the gaps are. We decided on two Work Streams. (1) Inventory existing WAI resources for online learning (2) Look more widely on information gaps based on what people are doing and what people are creating.
... This is especially important as the online learning has a lot of stakeholders from learners to deciders. All of those might need different information to fill the gaps.
... This is the current activity, and joining EOWG was the next logical step to coordinate between groups.
... I will give back any advice back to the AccessLearn CG and when we have the deliverables ready, we want to formalize this in EOWG.
... We don’t want to overlap or repeat work that was done in this group, any feedback or questions welcome.

Brent: When and how often do you meet? Who is in the group and where are they coming from?

sloandr: As we have no commitment in a CG there are a lot of passive participants, but there was a good uptake from the initial survey. We had 25 people filling in the work stream proposal, and about 50% of people working in each of the work streams.
... CG mainly dominated of people working in higher ed, but also some consultancy people and non profits. Also some members of the publishing industries. Very important different perspectives.
... Meetings are not regular, more communicating by email with occasional teleconferences. We restrict communication inside the work streams and then update the main groups. Also there is the possibility to use the CG website.
... Relatively small but a lot of people watching closely. We want to be as open and transparent as possible with every decision that I made.

Brent: Opening it up to the rest of the group… Any questions or comments?

Susan: The page documenting the gap analysis is interesting, I think this is a good perspective.

<Andrew> +1 - gap analysis will be useful

Brent: Part of the work that we chose to tackle is to redesign the WAI site, so we also looking through the content and update it. Making it ready for the redesign. So this will be beneficial for us to look at.
... It will be interesting to also look from the online learning POV.

sloandr: There is a lot of information on the website – and most of the content might already exist, it is a matter of making it easier to find and direct people to resources that are relevant for them.
... I guess part of the work will be “ok, we have the information there, but how will people find the information relevant form them”.
... Another thing would be how to chose an accessible system to use for online learning.

Brent: I think this will be good feedback for the WAI Site TF as well.

Shadi: ... This sounds very exciting. We might be several steps away, but it might be good to look at the tutorials and the getting started tips.
... The tutorials should address different audiences and levels in the future.
... Held a workshop about the adoption of WCAG 2.0 – And there is the knowledge that there are accessible (content/CMS/LMS) tools and WCAG but how does one bring both issues together? This might help with the gap analysis.

Howard, caffeine-less: This looks really interesting and looks relevant to what we are doing in CU. What is the best way to keep track of what you are doing. I was surprised that so many people found WCAG helpful in online learning, I had other experiences. What makes up your group? Course designers?

sloandr: Obviously the participants are skewed towards people already involved in accessibility.
... I can have another look into the data that we have to provide a better profile of people we have in the group.
... Best way to keep up is to join the group and get on the email list – also a Google Doc that we’re working on.
... Totally fine to join to just keep an eye on the work.

Howard: We are finishing up a MOOC about accessible online learning. That seems to be a good fit and I will share with the group.

<Howard> That's an important distinction - thanks.

sloandr: For the scope we’re not focussing on how to teach accessibility, but of how to make teaching accessible. There might be overlaps in the end, but we need to keep the focus narrow for now.
... The email traffic is very light, only occasional email updates.

Brent: Have you had any coordination with @@@ which is the international org for K-12 online learning.
... Just a tiny portion of their requirements is that the course needs to be accessible, and their guidelines could be improved.

sloandr: I don’t think so. We’re quite W3C focused and didn’t reach out. Important to reach out to those groups eventually.

Brent: I worked with that group and I think that it would be good to work with them, they are also pointing at W3C resources already. It would be good to coordinate with them and I will see if I can make a connection between both groups.

sloandr: If they have things that are not addressed for K-12, we are happy to hear about them, as we are currently quite focused on HigherEd.

Brent: Thanks for this overview and for you taking the time to keep us set up. Sharron and I will work out on how we communicate in a way that we can work well together.

sloandr: I will commit to keep EOWG up to date, but might not attend every meeting.

Brent: Thanks again David.

<sloandr> Thank you all, looking forward to continuing to work with EO!

<inserted> [David leaves]

Twitter Outreach & Feedback

<Brent> Twitter Outreach and Feedback: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-eo/2016JulSep/0012.html

Sharron: I followed the Twitter chat, hosted by Valerie Jarett from the White House and Judy and Shawn were asked to talk about web accessibility.
... It was yesterday afternoon, Hashtag #ADA26

<Andrew> see https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ada26&src=typd

Sharron: Tried to ask some leading questions so we had the possibility to plug some of our resources.
... Perspectives were mentioned.
... But there were a lot of questions about the Section 508 refresh.

Shadi: Shawn just wanted to let us know that people are really appreciating our work for web accessibility.
... People were really excited about our resources and I think that this will even improve when the website is updated and resources are easier to find.

Howard: what is the https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Promotion_and_Outreach_Misc#HTML_course_comments part of Shawn's link about?

Shadi: I think Shawn re-used that page, but this page is just capturing different resources. The course is something different.

dboudreau: More of a comment about #ada26 – have we promoted it in any way? I just stumbled over that when it was going. Looks like we weren’t very well prepared and last minute to me.

Shadi: This was not really an EO activity, but more a WAI staff activity. Shawn wanted to share the positive feedback and reactions.
... It was last minute for us as well.
... We will certainly give that feedback, and try to improve time lines in the future.

Resource Manager Updates

Brent: If you have a resource, make sure to enter them into the RM tool. Check with me or Eric if you have questions.
... If you have active resources, mark them as active in the RM tool. (This used to be a priority but was renamed.)
... Set to active what you are working actively on.
... Also there is a RM process that people asked for: https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Resource_Development_Life_Cycle/Stage_6._Maintenance#Tips:
... RMs asked how to start, and how to progress. I went in to the Resource Development Life Cycle and went to the Maintenance stage.
... When you’re in that stage you have three options: Leave as is, Resource needs to be retired or needs to be updated.
... I have added steps for moving a resource back into earlier stages.
... Happy for people to refine this.
... Not going through this word by word. (1) Draft Proposal (2) Communicate Intention (3) Work out Details & Gain Approval

[Brent goes through the steps.]

<shadi> [/me whispers to Denis that Shawn had circulated information to the WAI IG list, where we typically send such information/announcements https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2016JulSep/0098.html]

Brent: If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me and/or Sharron.
... I have reached out to all the people to set a schedule of for the RM updates. It will be relatively flexible, but this should keep the ball rolling.
... Any questions?

Eric: Thanks for doing this, this should be really useful!

Brent: Eric and I are also thinking about getting the RM updates information into the RM tool.
... But no concrete ideas yet, so feel free to send information directly to me in the meantime.

RMU Template for Accessibility Evaluation Reports (Howard)

<inserted> https://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/template.html

Howard: Eric did set up the Github repository, I looked into the requirements document. Talking to shadi to see what we need to do apart from changing the links from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0

<shadi> Howard++

Brent: This is also related to the WCAG EM Report tool template and Howard is looking into aligning those two approaches.

RMU Easy Checks - A First Review of Web Accessibility (Caleb)

https://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/preliminary

Caleb: The draft is published, there are 8 open issues. I have updated the copy for the blinking issues. I am working on the other issues. I want to knock out the issues asap. The short term goal is that we include the issues and get this published. The goal is by october.
... Mid-term is update goals for the redesign and address the issues that are marked for later versions.
... Long-term goal: Evaluate from user interface perspective. I have found the easy checks are not easy to parse. I think it would be good to chunk this into multiple pages. Also a screencast would be really nice in the long run.
... Currently there is no way to give feedback but the issues on github.

Brent: Maybe it would be good to add these topics in the status update, probably put it into the Resource Development Life Cycle wiki so people can grab the template so people can take it without hunting for an email.

RMU Policies Relating to Web Accessibility (Mary Jo)

https://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/

Brent: Mary Jo specially joined to work on this resource.

maryjom: I reported that I was trying to get on board, and I’m still in the process to collect the issues. Haven’t really had time to focus, but I will have more time to work on it more after August 8th.
... I’m also interested in the status update email template.

Brent: I’m happy to support you here, so feel free to send to me what you have – this is a very interesting resource.

RMU Tips for Getting Started with Web Accessibility (Denis)

https://w3c.github.io/wai-quick-start/

<Sharron> +1 to adding managing and evaluating

dboudreau: Quite a bit of work this week, mostly information gathering. Talked to shadi. I haven’t yet decided on what to tackle first. Evaluating – Managing – Advocating outstanding. I think we need to have evaluating and managing, and I might need to convince you that we need to do those.
... I am not too convinced on advocating, we might not have a lot of resources for advocating. But it would be good to add it at some point for people who are not involved in web dev but it would be good to have it eventually.
... I did look into designing pretty close for a talk, and I found some additional tips. Also I looked into the format so we can follow a consistent template.
... Also getting more acquainted to Github.
... I only realized that I can add my own comments as Github issues.
... Once I have a clearer view I‘m happy to pull you guys in.

Sharron: I hear that you are hesitant with advocacy as we don’t have solid advice to point to?

<Andrew> https://www.w3.org/WAI/users/inaccessible.html is for advocacy

dboudreau: I think its about prioritization.

Sharron: It might be valuable to continue thinking about it. But I agree with prioritization in principle…

<Caleb> Update made to Resource Dev Life Cycle/Stage 6 Maintenance wiki page - added Status Template

Sharron: There are people in agencies that try to advocate but would need more information to be more effective.
... But this is a great start.

dboudreau: I always wanted to debunk accessibility myths, and that could be a good start to start for an advocating resource. To give people ammunition to counter pushback arguments.
... this could ultimately lead to a more full-fleshed resource.

Brent: Thanks, this is a really good discussion.

shadi: I think this is a good start, we also need to be clear what we think of as advocates. Potentially all of our resources are advocacy resources.
... in principle.
... So it might be a good idea to point advocates to an overview of resources might really help. Also it might actually point out a gap in our resources, so that might mean it is more important instead of less.

Brent: FYI RMs: You can also have a question in the weekly survey and ask the group for help and or input.

RMU Web Accessibility Tutorials (Eric)

https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials

<Sharron> scribe: Sharron

Eric: Not a lot happened recently.

RMU Accessible UI Components List (Eric)

<yatil> https://www.w3.org/blog/wai-components-gallery/

Eric: About the Accessible Components Lists, I had another look at the plan we made, it is high on my list of things to do and I will have more to say in two weeks.

Brent: I appreciate everyone working with me to get the RM reports on a regular schedule. Also feel free to give updates at any other time that you ahve something to report.
... For next week I want everyone to be aware of the schedule - Shadi on Planning and Managing and the connected resources; I will do an update on the Overview page; Andrew on the Presentation and training resources; Sharron and Shawn on the Intro docs; Susan for Mobile
... questions or comments?

Weekly survey and wftw

Brent: It looks like we will have just a short survey for minute review etc. As everyone works on their resources, we will likely have more survey questions and things for comment and approval.

Caleb: I appreciated seeing the community feedback to the Twitter chat.

Brent: Yes, it was good to see. Any other comments?

<yatil> Thanks all for your outstanding work!!

Brent: if not, weare adjourned.

<yatil> trackbot, end meeting

Summary of Action Items

Summary of Resolutions

[End of minutes]

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