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Buzz Archives: W3C/Standards Documentation

WCAG 2 now “candidate recommendation”

The W3C announced today that WCAG2 is now a candidate recommendation and is likely to be "live" by the end of the year. The W3C says Candidate Recommendation means that we think the technical content is stable and we want developers and designers to start using WCAG 2.0, to test it out ...

By Bruce Lawson | April 30th, 2008

What do you want from CSS3 - one week left

(Polish translation) As part of the outreach work we're doing in partnership with the W3C's CSS Working group, we invited all web professionals to tell the Working Group what they want from the next version of the spec. As the Working Group's face-to-face meeting is at the end of March, we will ...

By Bruce Lawson | March 2nd, 2008

Tell the CSS WG what you want from CSS3

The W3C's CSS Working Group charter expires on 1 July 2008, so the group will be discussing its revised charter in March this year. Fantasai, an Invited Expert in the group, has put out a call for web professionals to help the working group prioritise its work: The CSSWG plans to ...

By Bruce Lawson | January 18th, 2008

Opera complains to Europe over IE lock-in

Opera Chief Technology Officer and co-inventor of CSS, Håkon Wium Lie has written an open letter to the Web community explaining the reasons that Opera has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Union to force Microsoft to support open Web standards in Internet Explorer and to unbundle Internet ...

By Bruce Lawson | December 13th, 2007

A review of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, May 2007 Working Draft

In last month's Interview with Judy Brewer on WCAG 2.0, we read that:WCAG 2.0 went through several Public Working Drafts in recent years, and a Last Call Working Draft in 2006. Each Working Draft was sent out for public review — altogether to hundreds of individuals, organizations, and lists around ...

By Patrick Lauke | June 11th, 2007

London: Shawn Lawton Henry on WCAG 2.0

Organised by the RNIB, Shawn Lawton Henry will be talking about WCAG 2.0 at Westminster University, New Cavendish campus on Tuesday 5th June 7pm.

By Mike Davies | May 28th, 2007

Current browsers and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

In web accessibility, you’ll often hear emphasis being placed on the duty of web authors to create accessible content. However, this is only one part of the web accessibility equation.One that has been particularly close to me, or rather one that has provided me with a lot of opportunity to ...

By Patrick Lauke | May 20th, 2007

What’s happening with WCAG 2.0?

Following a conversation with Judy Brewer from the W3C back in February, Jared Smith had the chance to interview her and submit some probing questions about what's happening with WCAG 2.0. Thanks Judy...and nice one Jared! See the interview with Judy Brewer on WCAG 2.0 in our WaSP Asks the ...

By Patrick Lauke | May 5th, 2007

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) at ALA

WaSP ILG member Martin Kliehm writes about the WAI draft for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) at A List Apart this week.

By Holly Marie Koltz | April 11th, 2007

CSS Turns 10

Hard to believe it, but Cascading Style Sheets are ten years old!

By Kimberly Blessing | December 20th, 2006

Have Your Say about the Future of HTML

This article has been written on behalf of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) and has been cross posted on The Web Standards Project, Lachy’s Log, Molly.com and 456 Berea Street. There’s been a lot of discussion about the W3C’s recent decision to continue the development of HTML ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 7th, 2006

Video Presentation: Douglas Crockford on the “Theory of the DOM”

Douglas Crockford, discoverer of JSON and JavaScript evangelist/veteran has given a training on the theory of the DOM lately and the videos are available on the web. The course takes you through the theory of the DOM, how browsers implement it and what the problems with the DOM and the ...

By Christian Heilmann | October 18th, 2006

Misplaced Anger: A Rebuttal to Zeldman’s Criticism of the W3C

There’s been discussion in the community about unrest at the W3C. This isn’t exactly news to most, particularly if you’ve been following the WCAG 2.0 saga. This time, however, the criticism comes from a strong voice, none other than Jeffrey Zeldman.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | July 26th, 2006

IBM Endorses Dojo and Lends Accessibility Support

On Monday, IBM officially announced its support for the Dojo Toolkit JavaScript framework. This announcement comes soon after the creation of the Dojo Accessibility email list, and like its other open source donations, IBM’s support for Dojo includes a major emphasis on accessibility for people with disabilities. Several weeks ago, Dojo ...

By James Craig | June 6th, 2006

WCAG review period extended

The comment period for WCAG 2 has been extended to Thursday, June 22. If you are thinking about giving feedback, I suggest reading the directions for commenters. The ATF will be publishing a broader set of issues shortly, and working to help the WCAG Working Group cover narrower technical issues as ...

By Matt May | May 26th, 2006

getElementsByTagNames()

getElementsByTagNames() returns elements with several tag names in the order they appear in the document.

By Peter-Paul Koch | January 30th, 2006

Star HTML and Microsoft IE7

Chris Wilson, Group Program Manager for IE Platform and Security at Microsoft, and Position is Everything's Big John Gallant have been having a conversation about * html in Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 7 for Windows (IE7). Wilson has been encouraging CSS designers and developers to repair any bug-specific hacks ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | December 22nd, 2005

Pandora’s Box (Model) of CSS Hacks And Other Good Intentions

This Thanksgiving I’ve decided it’s about time that I provided some more background and analysis on one of the things I am certainly unintentionally (in)famous for.

By Tantek Çelik | November 27th, 2005

The W3C Web API Working Group

W3C announces the Web API group to develop specifications that enable improved client-side application development on the Web.

By Jeremy Keith | November 23rd, 2005

WaSP Microsoft Task Force Update: Upcoming Products, XAML, Acid2, SXSW, and IE7 Revealed

The WaSP Microsoft Task Force held another face-to-face meeting with available members on Tuesday. We met in a Starbucks along the waterfront in rainy Seattle. While the setting might have been a bit predictable, the conversation was unique and at times, very encouraging. WaSPs at the meeting were DL Byron ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 2nd, 2005

Calling all CSS-Savvy Designers

Kevin Lawver, AOL's representative to the CSS Working Group, is making a plea to the design community to give the Working Group feedback on the CSS3 Borders and Backgrounds module. It isn't often one gets the opportunity to help define the tools you'll be using in your job, and this is ...

By Chris Kaminski | July 21st, 2005

Bad Form

There's an interesting article over at ZDNet about the future of forms on the web. Is the way forward Xforms? Or is Web Forms 2.0 the way forward? Or are we gonna find ourselves having to deal with both? Read the article and decide for yourself whether this is a ...

By Ian Lloyd | February 18th, 2005

W3C Rebranding

Andrei Herasimchuk has posted an excellent logo design tutorial based on his efforts to redesign the W3C logo. Andrei undertook the exercise after Dean Jackson asked him to lend a hand with an upcoming W3C ten year anniversary event.

By Chris Kaminski | September 7th, 2004

(X)HTML FAQ

The W3C would like to take a moment to clear up some frequently asked questions. In a brand new FAQ, they address the differences between HTML and XHTML, and what they mean to content authors. If you've ever wondered why XHTML changed things that used to work in HTML, this ...

By Dave Shea | July 21st, 2004

WHAT’s going on?

Over on the WHAT WG front, Ian Hickson has posted an update on the progress of WHAT WG in their efforts to develop backwards-compatible extensions to HTML. Ian’s post includes some very interesting background to the formation of WHAT and the impetus behind their efforts. Joe Gregorio has some other ...

By Chris Kaminski | July 10th, 2004

What’s in a namespace?

Following up on Anders Pearson's Safari post, Dave Hyatt has decided to use namespaces for the Apple's HTML extensions. The move seems to have largely satisfied Eric Meyer and Tim Bray, though Eric would still like to see a different DOCTYPE used. Personally, I agree with their ultimate conclusion: things ...

By Chris Kaminski | July 10th, 2004

It’s Okay to SMIL Again

The Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) - pronounced smile - is an XML-based W3C specification that offers numerous creative and practical uses for web-based multimedia applications. But, SMIL has been frowning along for years now with no significant activity or momentum. If you've been wondering whether SMIL was headed off to ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | May 1st, 2004

W3C Recs the DOM3 Core

The Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification was released today by the W3C as a full-fledged Recommendation. This module provides the foundation for all the other modules in the DOM Level 3 architecture. Also today, the DOM Level 3 Load & Save module, which defines the interface for dynamically ...

By Porter Glendinning | April 7th, 2004

Two DOM3 Modules Reach Proposed Recommendation Status

On Thursday the W3C released the DOM Level 3 Core and Load & Save modules as Proposed Recommendations. This is the final stop on the path to being a full-fledged W3C Recommendation. Both modules will be open for implementation feedback until March 5.

By Porter Glendinning | February 7th, 2004

W3C sets recommendations for mobile Web standards

W3C pushes handheld devices forward with its approved technical specs for mobile Web standards. The spec, Composite Capability / Preference Profiles (CC/PP): Structures and Vocabularies 1.0, enables mobiles phones and PDAs to communicate with Web servers. The CC/PP 1.0 spec uses RDF (Resource Description Framework).

By Meryl K. Evans | January 16th, 2004

W3C Calls for Invalidation of Eolas Patent

In the latest bout of activity surrounding the controversial Eolas vs Microsoft case, Tim Berners-Lee, director of the W3C and inventor of the World Wide Web, wrote an impassioned letter to the director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Acting on behalf of the HTML Patent Advisory ...

By Ethan Marcotte | October 29th, 2003

Recent Buzz

Announcing the WaSP Curriculum Framework

By Steph Troeth | July 31st, 2008

Since March 2008, the WaSP Education Task Force has begun working on the WaSP Curriculum Framework, a collection of tools aiming to identify skill sets and competencies that aspiring Web professionals need to acquire to prepare them for their chosen careers, as well as resources that will help both educators and students.

In parallel to the wonderful work that Chris Mills and team are doing on the Opera Web Standards Curriculum, the Education Task Force has begun efforts since March this year on a complementary project: the WaSP Curriculum Framework. Our framework aims to identify the skill sets and competencies that aspiring Web professionals need to acquire to prepare them for their chosen careers.

In order to help educational institutions to identify and include material for these competencies, we are creating a set of foundation courses that can be readily adapted into an existing program at a college, school or university.

The framework will include a collection of tools:

• Course overviews
• Recommended course dependencies indicating what students will need to know before beginning each course
• Learning competencies describing what students must master in order to receive a passing grade
• Ideas for assignments and test questions that allow educators to measure a student’s mastery of each competency
• Recommended textbooks and readings, including articles from the Opera Web Standards Curriculum and other reputable sources
• A list of helpful resources, tools, and utilities specific to each course that will help both educators and students

Why is it called a framework? Given the velocity at which Web technology unravels, we recognize that required skill sets can change rapidly, and that the best way to keep this material useful is for the education community to enrich it with their expertise and experiences. In this way, the WaSP Curriculum Framework will be a “living curriculum” that we hope would be a knowledge base of required skills.

The framework will include guidelines to help educators around the world develop assignments and learning modules that address issues specific to their classrooms. These independently developed teaching materials can then be submitted back to the WaSP Curriculum Framework for review and potential inclusion in the project.

We are also actively working on connecting with other organizations and institutions to create as comprehensive a curriculum framework as possible.

We encourage everyone to get involved by contributing content to the framework upon its initial release in March 2009. In the meantime, join the WaSP Edu Facebook group to share your insights and participate in the discussion. Of course, there is always the WaSP EduTF public discussion list if Facebook isn’t your thing.

Filed in Curriculum, Education, Education TF, General, Outreach, Web Standards (general) | Comments (9)

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