WAI Interest Group Charter

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

The WAI Interest Group's mission supports the work of other Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) groups within the WAI Technical Activity and the WAI International Program Office Activity. WAI IG is renewing its charter in order to continue its role as a forum for discussions of Web accessibility.

Join the WAI Interest Group mailing list.

End date	24 September 2015
Confidentiality	Proceedings are Public.
Initial Chairs	Shawn Lawton Henry
Initial Team Contacts (FTE %: 10)	Shawn Lawton Henry
Usual Meeting Schedule	Teleconferences: No teleconferences Face-to-face: Between none and two annually

Scope

The WAI Interest Group's scope of work includes:

review and discussion of deliverables under development by other WAI groups, including in the areas of development of W3C technologies, development of WAI guidelines and specifications, education and outreach around Web accessibility, and research that may affect future Web accessibility;
exploration of barriers to accessibility of the Web, and potential solutions for accessibility of the Web;
exchanging information about Web accessibility activities around the world.

Success Criteria

Participation via mailing list subscription and postings from a broad range of areas, including disability communities, research organizations, industry, government, and education; from a broad range of roles, including developers, designers, project managers, policy makers, advocates, and Web users with disabilities; and from a broad range of levels, from beginners to experts in Web accessibility;
Mailing list discussion demonstrating awareness and use of WAI deliverables;
Constructive mailing discussion of Web accessibility issues;
Constructive feedback on WAI deliverables posted for review on the WAI IG mailing list.

Deliverables

Rather than producing deliverables itself, the role of the WAI Interest Group is primarily to review and comment on draft deliverables from WAI groups; and raise issues that become inputs to WAI groups.

WAI IG enables contributions to other WAI groups' deliverables by members of disability communities, research organizations, industry, government, and others who have an interest in Web accessibility but do not have time to directly participate in WAI groups.

The WAI IG's on-going discussion of technical and implementation issues related to Web accessibility contributes to other WAI groups' deliverables. Also, WAI groups occasionally ask WAI IG for input on specific issues in order to get additional perspectives.

Dependencies and Liaisons

W3C Groups

The WAI IG provides a forum for review and discussion of draft deliverables from the following WAI groups:

Participation

Participation in the WAI Interest Group is open to the public. There are no minimum requirements for participation in this group. Participants are strongly encouraged to take advantage of frequent opportunities to review and comment on deliverables from other groups.

The Chair may call occasional meetings consistent with the W3C Process requirements for meetings.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list w3c-wai-ig@w3.org (archive). Specific documents under review usually have a designated mailing list for comments, which is included in the document itself and in the review notice.

Information about the group (documents under review, face-to-face meetings, etc.) is available from the WAI Interest Group home page.

Decision Policy

Consistent with its mission, this group is not a decision-making body, but rather provides a forum for discussion and advice on different topics relating to Web accessibility.

Patent Disclosures

The WAI Interest Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on the topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds Interest Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Interest Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Interest Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure obligations do apply.

For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

About this Charter

This charter for the WAI Interest Group has been created according to section 6.2 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Please also see the previous charter for this group. There are no significant differences between this and the previous charter.

Charter author: Shawn Lawton Henry

$Date: 2015/08/19 15:23:47 $