charter 15.4 KB

Raw Blame History Permalink

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">
<head>
  <title>QA Working Group Charter (QAWG)</title>
  <link href="/StyleSheets/activity.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

<body xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<p class="banner"><a href="/"><img alt="W3C" src="/Icons/WWW/w3c_home"
/></a><a href="/QA/"><img alt="QA" src="/QA/images/qa" /></a></p>

<h1>QA Working Group Charter (QAWG)</h1>

<p><em>This charter is written in accordance with <a
href="http://www.w3.org/2004/02/Process-20040205/groups.html#WGCharter">section 6.2.6</a> of the
W3C Process Document.</em></p>
<hr />

<h3 class="toc">Table of Contents</h3>
<ol>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Mission">Mission Statement</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Scope">Scope and Deliverables</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Duration">Duration</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Criteria">Success Criteria</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Milestones">Milestones</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Confidentiality">Confidentiality</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Patent">Patent Disclosures</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Coordination">Dependencies/Relationship With
    Other W3C Activities</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#ExternalGroup">Coordination With External
    Groups</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Comms">Communication Mechanisms</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Vote">Voting Mechanisms</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#Participate">Participation</a></li>
  <li><a class="toc" href="#HowToJoin">How to Join the Working Group</a></li>
</ol>
<hr />

<h2><a id="Mission" name="Mission">1. Mission Statement</a></h2>

<p>The mission of the <strong>QA Working Group</strong> (QAWG) is to solidify
and extend current W3C quality practices regarding operational functions;
specification editing; production of validation tools and test suites; and
coordination efforts within W3C. The emphasis of this <strong>second
phase</strong> of the QA Activity (2003-2005) is on implementability of the
QA OpsGL and SpecGL (CR phase for both of them) and production of quality
test materials by W3C Working Groups (TestGL).</p>

<h2><a id="Scope" name="Scope">2. Scope and Deliverables</a></h2>

<p>The main objective of the QA Working Group is to foster the development of
usable and useful test suites endorsed by the W3C, and ensure that the
validating tools of the W3C are fully operational, useful and educational.</p>

<p>As a step in performing this task, the QA Working Group will need to work
on conformance testing methodology, on the quality of W3C specifications with
respect to conformance and clarity, and the tracking of issues related to
specification ambiguity and evolution.</p>

<h3>The scope of the QAWG includes:</h3>
<ul>
  <li>Improving the quality of W3C specifications (with respect to
    conformance statement, test assertions, tutorial and examples, formal
    representation of languages, etc.), by conducting reviews of
    specifications and applying the QA Specs guidelines</li>
  <li>Continuing the development of a common framework and harness for
    developing and running tests, and a process for maintaining, adding and
    removing tests from test suites; and reviewing existing test tools.</li>
  <li>Ensuring coordination with W3C Working Groups who are developing
    specifications (formal channel, appeal)</li>
  <li>Coordinating work with internal W3C horizontal groups: the <a
    href="/WAI/">Web Accessibility Initiative Activity</a>, the <a
    href="/International/">Internationalization Activity</a>, the <a
    href="/2001/07/19-tag">Technical Architecture Group</a> and the <a
    href="/Press/">Communications Team</a>.</li>
</ul>

<h3>Deliverables of the QAWG include:</h3>
<ul>
  <li>Maintenance of an up-to-date <a href="/QA/WG/">QAWG Web site</a></li>
  <li>Timely minutes of teleconferences and face-to-face meetings</li>
  <li>Up-to-date Matrix of specifications/QA activities (a.k.a. <a
    href="/QA/TheMatrix.html">The Matrix</a>);</li>
  <li>Maintenance of a glossary of QA terms and a <a
    href="/QA/Taxonomy.html">taxonomy of tests</a> used in the W3C;</li>
  <li>Monitoring and reporting on QA reviews of other Working Groups'
    activities (charter, specs, tests) with respect to the QA Framework</li>
  <li>Continuing work during their Candidate Recommendation periods on
    example and techniques for OpsGL and SpecGL, e.g. identification and
    development of templates to facilitate implementation of the QA
  Framework</li>
  <li>Evaluation of the next steps for OpsGL and SpecGL in the W3C
    Recommendation track process, incorporating changes for the
    exit-Candidate Recommendation version of those documents.</li>
  <li>A framework and process for developing, managing and running tests
    (data driven, platform independent, formal output language for results -
    e.g. <a href="/2001/03/earl/">EARL</a>, etc). This is TestGL and its
    Examples &amp; Techniques.</li>
  <li>Test materials in the form of questionnaires and/or interactive forms
    that lead the tester through the guidelines document, asking about each
    conformance requirement.</li>
  <li>Refinement of the QAPD (the QAWG's own QA Process Document), that is,
    the way we do QA of QA.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Quality Commitments</h3>

<p>In its operations, specifications, and test materials the QAWG will
 comply with its own guidelines.</p>
<p>The QAWG is the decision making body for the QA Activity.</p>

<h2><a id="Duration" name="Duration">3. Duration</a></h2>

<p>This Working Group is scheduled to last 24 months, from August 2003
through August 2005.</p>

<h2><a id="Criteria" name="Criteria">4. Success Criteria</a></h2>

<p>The main criterion of success for the QAWG is that W3C Recommendations
released during the operation of the Working Group are of better quality than
those released before, and that validators and test suites are available for
each technology. (We note that this criterion for success is dependent on the
success of communications with other W3C Working Groups.)</p>

<p>Timely delivery of the materials mentioned above (including our own
quality commitments) is a criterion for judging the quality of the work of
the group.</p>

<h2><a id="Milestones" name="Milestones">5. Milestones</a></h2>

<p>For the first year only:</p>
<ul>
  <li>End of Summer 2003: renewal of the Activity</li>
  <li>Fall 2003: face-to-face in the USA</li>
  <li>Winter 2004: second face-to-face and live coordination activities at
    the W3C Technical Plenary Week in Europe</li>
  <li>Spring 2004: face-to-face in Santa-Clara CA, USA</li>
</ul>

<h2><a id="Confidentiality" name="Confidentiality">6. Confidentiality</a></h2>

<p>The Working Group and the Activity resources in general are publicly
accessible.</p>

<p>All documentation, test suites, and validating tools produced inside this
Activity will have to be defined under a license. There are still questions
about the kind of license to use (for instance, we have two licenses at W3C:
one for document and one for software, the document license being more
restrictive for the change control, which may be of interest to ensure the
integrity of QA tools). This will be discussed in the QA Activity.</p>

<p>In any case, we expect the tools to be freely usable, runnable, and
downloadable and that the group will operate under a royalty-free licensing
mode (RF).</p>

<h2><a id="Patent" name="Patent">7. Patent Disclosures</a></h2>

<p>This Working Group operates under the <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/">W3C Patent Policy</a> (5 February 2004 Version). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis.</p>

<h2><a id="Coordination" name="Coordination">8. Dependencies/Relationship
With Other W3C Activities</a></h2>

<p>The QAWG is heavily dependent on the participation of Other W3C groups for
its success.</p>

<p>This is particularly important for the production of good quality
specifications and the resolution of issues between external test developers
and specification editors pertaining to ambiguity in specifications.</p>

<p>See the note in the Participation section below for details.</p>

<p>QA will also need to coordinate with other W3C Activities doing reviews,
like WAI, I18N, Device Independence and the TAG.</p>

<p>Finally, since the quality of W3C specs is today in the hands of the
Communications Team (<a href="/Guide/Reports">pubrules</a> - Member-only
document), good coordination with this W3C team is very important.</p>

<h2><a id="ExternalGroup" name="ExternalGroup">9. Coordination With External
Groups</a></h2>

<p>We expect coordination with external groups to happen in both the QAWG and
the <a href="/QA/IG/charter.html">QA Interest Group</a> (QAIG). QAIG is where
issues about outside activities are raised and discussed and QAWG is where
partnership will actually happen.</p>

<h2><a id="Comms" name="Comms">10. Communication Mechanisms</a></h2>

<h3><a id="Email" name="Email">10.1 Email</a></h3>

<p>The <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/">archived</a>
mailing list <a href="mailto:www-qa-wg@w3.org"><tt>www-qa-wg@w3.org</tt></a>
is the primary means of discussion within the group.</p>

<h3><a id="Web" name="Web">10.2 Web</a></h3>

<p>The group maintains a <a href="/QA/WG/">public</a> Working Group page.</p>

<h3><a id="Phone" name="Phone">10.3 Phone Meeting</a></h3>

<p>At the time of this renewal, the QAWG meets every week by phone on Monday
at 10am Boston time, for one hour to one hour and a half.</p>

<h3><a id="Meetings" name="Meetings">10.4 Face-to-face Meetings</a></h3>

<p>Face to face meetings will be arranged 3 to 4 times a year, rotating
location between USA west coast, east coast, Europe, and occasionally
Asia/Pacific/Australia. Meeting details are made available on the <a
href="/Member/Eventscal.html">W3C Member Calendar</a> and on the <a
href="/QA/WG/">QAWG home page</a>.</p>

<h3><a id="Pubcom" name="Pubcom">10.5 Communication with the Public</a></h3>

<p>The <a href="/QA/WG/">QAWG home page</a> is the primary way of
communicating the group's progress to the public.</p>

<h2><a id="Vote" name="Vote">11. Voting Mechanisms</a></h2>

<p>The Group works by consensus. In the event of failure to achieve
consensus, the Group may resort to a <a
href="/Consortium/Process/#GroupsWG">vote</a> as described in the Process
Document. All group participants in good standing are allowed to vote.</p>

<p>Escalation: Appeals from Working Group decisions are made first to the W3C
Team following the procedures established by the W3C Process Document (first
the Domain Leader and then the Director).</p>

<h2><a id="Participate" name="Participate">12. Participation</a></h2>

<h3>W3C Staff Resource Commitment</h3>
<ul>
  <li>Conformance Manager <a href="mailto:karl@w3.org">Karl Dubost</a>:
  50%</li>
  <li>Activity Lead (acting as Domain Leader) <a href="/People/Dom/">Dominique Hazaël-Massieux</a>: 30%</li>
  <li>QA staff <a href="/People/olivier/">Olivier Thereaux</a>: 10%</li>
</ul>

<p>W3C also funds Lofton Henderson part-time to lead the QAWG as Chair.</p>

<p><em>Note</em>: In addition to this core team, it is important to point out
that most of the W3C technical staff acting as staff contact for a technology
will end up working "part time" for QA, when their technology is up on the QA
agenda. E.g. X is not in the QA team, but when the QA team starts looking
closely at a test suite for the specification he or she is dealing with, we
expect X to free up some time and resources to coordinate with us, interface
with people in the group, help us promote whatever W3C test guidelines we
have come up with during Working Group meetings, if needed, etc.</p>

<p>All W3C group participants should realize that QA is to be considered a
<strong>natural overhead</strong> of any Working Group, even if it is not
written down in W3C process yet. QA will succeed only if every person inside
W3C participates in it.</p>

<h3>External Participant Commitment (W3C Members or invited experts)</h3>

<p>For participation in the QA Working Group, the <a
href="/Consortium/Process-20010719/process.html#good-standing">requirements
for meeting attendance and timely response</a> are described in the W3C
Process Document. This participation (attending meetings, reviewing
documents, preparing drafts or tools) is expected to consume between
<strong>one half to one day per week</strong>.</p>

<p>We expect and will be welcoming different communities to contribute to the
Activity:</p>
<ul>
  <li>W3C Working Group participants (W3C Team or not) developing
    specifications;</li>
  <li>W3C Working Group participants developing tests for specifications;</li>
  <li>W3C Team and other individuals working on validators and test
  suites;</li>
  <li>Organizations that specialize in conformance testing for Web
    technologies (W3C or not);</li>
  <li>End-user advocacy groups tracking and lobbying content and/or product
    compliance;</li>
  <li>Organizations involved in certification and/or labeling of compliant
    products; and</li>
  <li>W3C Members representing end users interested in seeing the Web
    interoperability dream become a reality.</li>
</ul>

<p>As this Activity has a clear multi-stakeholder approach, we expect to use
multiple approaches to reach our goals, and not a fixed set of rules that
would not be applicable to all participants.</p>

<h2><a id="HowToJoin" name="HowToJoin">13. How to Join the Working
Group</a></h2>

<p>Information about how to join the Working Group is available on a separate
<a href="/QA/howto-join.html">How-to-Join page</a>.</p>
<hr />
<address>
  <a href="/People/Dom/">Dominique Haza&euml;l-Massieux</a> &lt;<a
  href="mailto:dom@w3.org">dom@w3.org</a>&gt;, <a
  href="http://www.w3.org/"><acronym
  title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym></a>
  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;$Date: 2003/07/17
</address>

<p><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
src="http://validator.w3.org/images/vh40" alt="Valid HTML 4.0!" height="31"
width="88" /></a> <a href=" http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/"><img
alt="Made with CSS!" src="http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/mwcos" /></a>
<a href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AA-Conformance"
title="Explanation of Level Double-A Conformance"><img height="32" width="88"
src="http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag1AA"
alt="Level Double-A conformance icon, W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"
/></a></p>
<hr />

<p class="policyfooter"><a rel="Copyright"
href="/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright">Copyright</a> © 2000-2004 <a
href="/"><acronym
title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym></a><sup>®</sup> (<a
href="http://www.lcs.mit.edu/"><acronym
title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</acronym></a>, <a
href="http://www.ercim.org/"><acronym
title="European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics">ERCIM</acronym></a>,
<a href="http://www.keio.ac.jp/">Keio</a>), All Rights Reserved. W3C <a
href="/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Legal_Disclaimer">liability</a>, <a
href="/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#W3C_Trademarks">trademark</a>, <a
rel="Copyright" href="/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents">document use</a>
and <a rel="Copyright" href="/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software">software
licensing</a> rules apply. Your interactions with this site are in accordance
with our <a href="/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Public">public</a> and
<a href="/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Members">Member</a> privacy
statements.</p>
</body>
</html>