QA WG Test Task Force Charter

Draft, June 12, 2003

Editor: Lofton Henderson, Dimitris Dimitriadis

Mission Statement

The mission of the QA WG Test Task Force (TTF) is to ensure that guidelines in the QA test guidelines documents are put into practice by W3C Working Groups.

Scope and Deliverables

Scope

The TTF scope is to:

• Ensure the use of practices required by the QAWG Guideline documents.
• Provide technical expertise to assist and support W3C Working Groups in providing Test Materials for their specifications.
• Find tools that implement the QAWG Guideline techniques and where there are none, prototype or participate in the development of a tool.

In addition, the TTF produces in association with others or on its own, Test Frameworks to ensure that test materials produced in the W3C Working Groups can be used, where applicable, by others.

Deliverables

At a high level, the TTF deliverables are:

• Provide information on existing Test Technologies and techniques used and developed by Working Groups in the W3C and other interested parties (information can be documents, tutorials, web sites and so forth)
• Provide on-demand expertise to Working Groups seeking to produce such materials
• Assure uniformity in Test Frameworks and Techniques produced, as explained in other QA WG documents (ensure that tools conforming to QA WG Test Guidelines documents are used and, where applicable, reused by as many WG as possible).
• Develop tools and tool kits of general usefulness to help WGs develop test materials, resources allowing.

Specific projects that are candidates for development include:

1. Test suite management framework (ref. VBWG)
2. Templates for WG for such common test activities as:
   • Test materials contribution & review process
   • Challenge process
3. Test assertion specification markup
   • Requirements
   • Prototype
   • Deployment
4. Binary serialized infoset comparator
5. A Note: Test authoring principles
6. A Note: Test documentation (?) principles
7. Research & Note: TS & TM description (?) and quality assessment
8. Reporting tools
   • EARL/MUTAT
   • or others
9. TCDL -- generic Test Case Description Language (metadata for TM, TS, TCs)

Duration

The TTF will be formed and operate initially within the QAWG, with both existing staffing and additional staff to be solicited. It is anticipated that the mission of the TTF will require at least two years. At the time of QAWG rechartering (August 2003), a number of options will be considered. One possibility is that the mission of a re-chartered QAWG is redefined to give emphasis and priority to the TTF mission and deliverables. Another possibility is that the TTF is spun off as a separate Working Group.

Success Criteria

Ensure that guidelines in the QA Testing guidelines Document get followed by other Working Groups in the W3C.

Milestones

[@ed: tbd]

Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

[@ed: tbd]

Dependencies/Relationship with other W3C Activities

It is fair to assume that the interrelationships with the QA WG are to be very strong. However, relationships with other Working Groups can be envisioned, especially those more technical/architectural in orientation.

Coordination with External Groups

As proposed, the TTF should communicate directly with other W3C Working Groups, not through a regular Interest Group setup.

Communication Mechanisms

Email

The TTF should have an archived mailing list [@ed: not sure if it should be public, though, as some discussions that will take place will be about member-confidential material, such as not yet released specifications]

Web

The TTF should have a Web Page

Phone Meetings

If invited to participate in Working Group activities, a separate agenda should be set up. No regular telephone conferences are envisioned.

Face-to-Face meetings

As for the Phone meetings

Voting Mechanisms

If applicable, by consensus.

Participation

This is subject to discussion within the W3C as financing will be required (either to have W3C staff work on this, or by inviting external experts/resources)

How to join the WG

N/A