W3C Announces New Publishing Standards Working Group
July 2017
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recently announced a new Publishing Working Group that should arguably attract the attention of technical communicators. The group is exploring the value in combining the tradition of portable, bounded publications (books and other documents) with the "pervasive accessibility, addressability, and interconnectedness of the Open Web Platform (OWP)".
The stated mission of the Publishing Working Group is:
"to enable all publications — with all their specificities and traditions — to become first-class entities on the Web. The WG will provide the necessary technologies on the Open Web Platform to make the combination of traditional publishing and the Web complete in terms of accessibility, usability, portability, distribution, archiving, offline access, and reliable cross referencing."
As technical communicators, do we need to take an interest in how these standards develop? Should we even consider getting involved? Christchurch TechCommNZ member, Kevin Prince, suggests we "...probably should be if there is someone with the relevant interest and passion." Maybe this is you!
If you're interested in reading more about the evolution of this standard:
- Read the W3C blog post announcing the working group and the first ever W3C Publishing Summit.
- The table of requirements makes interesting reading, and has links through to the full Web Publications Use Cases and Requirements document.
- If you want to find out how to get involved, read the instructions (click Cancel if a log-in prompt appears).
Thanks to Kevin Prince of Access1in5 for bringing this news to our attention