Leading the Web to its Full Potential

The Consortium is pivotal in ensuring that the World Wide Webadvances communications and serves cultures around the globe.— Nobuo Saito, Dean and Professor of Environmental Information, Keio University‘‘ ,,

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The Internet: the world’s largest computer network

In1969, the U.S. Department of Defense’sAdvanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),established the Internet as a way to connect themany military, university, and defense contractorsworking on its projects. ARPANet was designedto use decentralized networking.This allowed thenetwork to grow extremely quickly and to surviveisolated computer failures.

In the mid-1980s, the National Science Foundation(NSF) developed its own network, NSFNet, to beused for scholarly research at colleges throughoutthe United States. NSFNet however, also offeredstudents and faculty new ways to collaborate withtheir peers. Before long, email, newsgroups, andpublic file servers sprouted, computer lines becameoverloaded, and the Internet was flourishing. Sincethen, the Internet’s continued growth has beenphenomenal to say the least.Today it spans theglobe, even Antarctica, and recent estimatesplace the number of users at more than 60 million people.

The World Wide Web: simplified anduniversal access to the Internet

The World Wide Web, commonly referred to asthe “Web,” was first conceived in 1989 by TimBerners-Lee as a project to improve collaborationbetween researchers at CERN (the EuropeanLaboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva,Switzerland).The Web was devised as a seamlessmodel in which all information on the Internetcould be accessed in an extremely simple and consistent manner — from any computer, in any country, by any authorized user.

Although the Web soon spread outside the hallsof the CERN research laboratories, it didn’t reallytake off until late 1992. Its sudden success was due,in part, to the popularity of Mosaic, a graphicalbrowser created by NCSA (National Center forSupercomputing Applications).Today, the Web isthe most popular and fastest growing informationsystem deployed on the Internet, representingmore than 80% of its traffic.

The World Wide Web Consortium:the leader in global Web evolution andinteroperability

The rapid growth of the Web made it difficult forCERN to continue to oversee and coordinate theentire network. It became clear that the Web hadoutgrown its beginnings in the physics community.By October 1994, the independent World WideWeb Consortium (W3C) was founded at MIT incollaboration with CERN and with seed fundingfrom DARPA and the European Commission.From the beginning, Director Tim Berners-Lee hasbeen committed to developing a neutral, openforum for the evolution of Web technology, a mission reflected by today’s 250-plus-Memberglobal Consortium.

See pages 2-3 for details on the World Wide WebConsortium.

An essential power of the Web is that when you put somethingon it and when you make a link to it, anyone authorized canfollow that — no matter what computer, network connection,or software they are using.

THE WEB AND THE INTERNET: REVOLUTIONIZING INFORMATION SHARING AND ACCESSIBILITY

— Tim Berners-Lee, Director

‘‘ ,,

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Leading the World Wide Web’s evolution meansstaying ahead of a significant wave of applications,services, and social changes. For W3C to effectivelylead such dramatic growth — at a time when a“Web Year” has shortened to a mere three months— it must demonstrate exceptional agility, focus,and diplomacy. To this end, the Consortium fulfillsa unique combination of roles traditionally ascribedto quite different organizations.

Like its partner standards body, the InternetEngineering Task Force (IETF),W3C is committedto developing open, technically sound specificationsbacked by running sample code. Like other infor-mation technology consortia,W3C represents thepower and authority of hundreds of developers,researchers, and users. Hosted by research organi-zations, the Consortium is able to leverage the most recent advances in information technology.

Host Institutions

W3C was formally launched in October 1994 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’sLaboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS).Moving beyond the Americas, the Consortiumestablished a European presence in partnershipwith France’s National Institute for Research inComputer Science and Control (INRIA) in April1995. As the Web’s influence continued to broadeninternationally, the resulting growth in W3CMembership created the need for an Asian host.In August 1996, Keio University in Japan became the Consortium’s third host institution.

Members

The Consortium’s real strength lies in the broadtechnical expertise of its Membership.W3Ccurrently has more than 250 commercial and academic Members worldwide, including hardware

and software vendors, telecommunications companies, content providers, corporate users,and government and academic entities.

W3C provides a vendor-neutral forum for itsMembers to address Web-related issues.Workingtogether with its staff and the global Web commu-nity, the Consortium aims to produce free, interop-erable specifications and sample code. Fundingfrom Membership dues, public research funds,and external contracts underwrite these efforts.

The Consortium’s Advisory Committee (AC) is comprised of one official representative from eachMember organization who serves as the primaryliaison between the organization and W3C.TheAdvisory Committee’s role is to offer advice on theoverall progress and direction of the Consortium.

W3C: UNIQUELY POSITIONED TO LEAD THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB

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Staff

W3C is led by Director Tim Berners-Lee, creatorof the World Wide Web; and Chairman Jean-François Abramatic.With more than 30 years’combined expertise in a wide array of computer-related fields, including real-time communications,graphics, and text and image processing, Berners-Lee and Abramatic are well prepared to lead theConsortium’s efforts in spearheading the globalevolution of the Web.

The Consortium’s technical staff includes full- and part-time employees, visiting engineers fromMember organizations, consultants, and studentsfrom more than 13 countries worldwide.W3Cstaff works with the Advisory Committee, thepress, and the broader Web community to promote W3C’s agenda.

Recommendation Process

Specifications developed within the Consortiummust be formally approved by the Membership.Consensus is reached after a specification has proceeded through the review stages ofWorking Draft, Proposed Recommendation,and Recommendation. As new issues arise fromMembers, resources are reallocated to newareas to ensure that W3C remains focused on topics most critical to the Web’s interoperabilityand growth.

Domains

Leading the evolution of technology as dramaticallyin flux as the World Wide Web is a challenging taskindeed.W3C is a unique organization, well adaptedto today’s fast-paced environment. Its mission is tolead the Web to its full potential: as an elegant

machine-to-machine system, as a compellinghuman-to-computer interface, and as an efficienthuman-to-human communications medium.In order to achieve these goals,W3C’s Team ofexperts works with its Members to advance thestate of the art in each of the four Domains:Architecture, User Interface,Technology &Society and The Web Accessibility Initiative.Each Domain is responsible for investigating and leading development in several Activity areaswhich are critical to the Web’s global evolution and interoperability.

See pages 8-15 for more information on each of the Consortium’s four Domains and the Activitieswithin each.

W3C’s hope is to become a truly global organization with an ever-expanding and wide-reaching membership. Our goal is to further the Web’s evolution as a robust, scalable, and adaptive infrastructure; as a platform for the application of computation to knowledge; and as a human communications medium — all while preserving its universal interoperability. — Jean-François Abramatic, Chairman

‘‘,,

4 Executive Man

Jean-François AbramaticW3C Chairman

Joined W3CApril 1995ResponsibilitiesSpearheads the Consortium’s strategic direction

EducationPh.D. in Computer Science,University of Paris VI

M.S. in Engineering, Ecole des Mines, Nancy, France

Related positions1992 -1996: Director of

Development, INRIA 1989 -1992: Chairman and Chief

Executive Officer, a start-up X Window terminal company

Other activitiesGeneral Chairman of the Fifth

International World Wide Web Conference, held in Paris in May 1996

Holds two patents and has authored more than 40 papers in journals and conferences

Tim Berners-LeeW3C DirectorPrincipal Research Scientist, MIT LCS

Joined W3CSeptember 1994ResponsibilitiesOversees all activities within the

ConsortiumEducationB.A. in Physics, Queen’s College at Oxford University, England

Honorary degrees from the Parsons School of Design (D.F.A., 1996),Southamptom University (D.Sc. 1996) and University of Essex (D.U. Essex)

Related positions1987-1994: Inventor of the World Wide Web (1989) while a staff member at CERN, continued to develop Web and defined HTML, HTTP, and URLs

1984 -1987: Fellowship at CERNAwardsDistinguished Fellow of the British

Computer SocietyRecipient of 1997 Duddell Medal of the

Institute of PhysicsRecipient of 1996 ACM Kobayashi

AwardRecipient of 1996 IEEE Computer

Society Wallance McDowell AwardCo-recipient of 1996 Computers and

Communication (C&C) AwardCo-recipient of 1995 ACM Software

Systems Award

Alan KotokW3C Associate Chairman and ActingTechnology& Society Domain Leader

Joined W3CMay 1997ResponsibilitiesMembership recruitment and relationsW3C Site Management at MITEducationM.B.A. Clark University,Worcester, MAB.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering,MIT, Cambridge, MassachusettsRelated positions1996 - 1997: V.P. Marketing, GC Tech, Inc.1962 - 1997: Corporate Consulting Engineer, Digital Equipment Corp.

1994 -1996:W3C AC Representative,Digital Equipment Corp.

Other activitiesMember of Science Advisory Board,Cylink Corp.

Consultant: Digital Equipment Corp.

Vincent QuintW3C Deputy Director for Europe andUser Interface Domain LeaderResearch Director, INRIA

Joined W3CFebruary 1996ResponsibilitiesAssists Director with the Consortium’s European operations

Chair of Hypertext Coordination GroupCoordinates all activities withinthe User Interface domain

EducationPh.D., in Computer Science,University of Grenoble, France

M.S. in Engineering,University of Grenoble, France

Related positions1990 -1996: Leader, Project Opera,INRIA

1980 -1990: Project Manager,Structured Documents Project

Other activitiesMember of several committees,including the Electronic Publishing (EP) Series of Conferences

Actively involved in the design and development of various systems,including Grif,Thot, and Tamaya

Nobuo SaitoW3C Associate Chairman andDean of the Faculty of EnvironmentalInformation at Keio University

Joined W3CSeptember 1996ResponsibilitiesAssociate Chairman of W3CEducationPh. D. in Computer Science, University of Tokyo

M. Eng. in Mathmatical Engineering and Instrumentation, University of Tokyo

Related positions1995 - Present: Dean, Faculty of Environmental Information, Keio University

1990 -1995: Professor, Faculty of Environmental Information, Keio University

1978 -1990: Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Keio University

Other activitiesISO/IEC SC22/WG15(POSIX),the head of Japanese delegation

The Chairman of AOW (Asia Oceania Workshop)Actively involved in several projects including development of multimedia platform, campus networks, etc.

agement

Dan ConnollyW3C Architecture Domain Leader

Joined W3CMarch 1995ResponsibilitiesCoordinates all activities within the

Architecture DomainChair of HTML Working GroupEducationB.S. in Computer Science,

University of Texas, AustinRelated positions1994 - 1995: Software Engineer,

Hal Software Systems1993 - 1994: Software Engineer,

Dazel (formerly Atrium)1990 -1993: Software Development

Engineer, ConvexOther activitiesEditor of Issue 2 of The World Wide

Web JournalEditor of HTML 2.0 specificationEditor of World Wide Web JournalVol. 2

— XML: Principles,Tools, and Techniques

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Tatsuya HaginoW3C Deputy Director for AsiaAssociate Professor, Keio SFC

Joined W3CSeptember 1997ResponsibilitiesAssists Chairman and Director with the Consortium’s Asian operations

EducationPh.D. in Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

M.S. in Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, Japan

Related positions1993-1996:Associate Professor,Keio University

1990 - 1993: Lecturer, Keio University1987 -1990:Assistant Professor, Kyoto University

Other activitiesActively involved in several system projects, including the next generation micro kernel project and multimedia network education project

Member of SFC’s steering committee

Daniel DardaillerWeb Accessibility Initiative Technical Activity Lead

Joined W3CJuly 1996ResponsibilitiesWAI Project ManagerW3C Site Manager at INRIA Sophia - Antipolis

EducationPh.D. Computer Sciences, University of Nice, France

Master Computer Sciences, University of Grenoble, France

B.S. Math Physics, University of Marseille, France

Related positions1994 -1996: Software Architect,X-Window Consortium

1990 -1994: Principal EngineerThe Open Software Foundation

1986 -1990: Research Fellow, Bull Research Center

Other activitiesLecturer and teacher of computer science at engineering cchools and uni-versities internationally for more than ten years

Judy BrewerDirector,Web Accessibility InitiativeInternational Program Office

Joined W3CSeptember 1997ResponsibilitiesOversees all activities within the Web Accessibility Initiative

Directs Web Accessibility Initiative International Program Office

EducationManagement Certificate, Boston University Corporate Education Center

Graduate Certificate,Technical Writing,Northeastern University

M.A. in Teaching ESL, University of Massachusetts, Boston

B.A. Independent Concentration in Applied Linguistics, Princeton University

Related positions1990 - 1997: Project Director,Massachusetts Assistive Technology Partnership

Other ActivitiesChair of RESNA Tech Act SIG,1996 -1997

Co-chair of Compliance and Coordination Subcommittee of the US Telecommunications Access Advisory Committee, 1997

Co-chair of Steering Committee formingthe Association of Access Engineering Specialists, 1997-1998

Sally KhudairiHead of Communications

Joined W3CApril 1996ResponsibilitiesOversees global marketing, public relations and communications initiatives

Facilitates Member relationsManages W3C Website and Webmaster activities

EducationB.S. in Art and Architecture,Northeastern University, Boston

Graduate Studies: Harvard University Graduate School of Design,Tulane University, Boston Architectural CenterRelated positions1989 - 1996: Consultant, multidisciplinaryand interactive design, corporateimaging and branding, marketing communications, project management and global joint venture mitigation

Other activitiesW3C Track Manager for the International World Wide Web Conference series

Frequent presenter on new media technologies,Website design and imaging strategy

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MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a major U.S. research university in Cambridge,Massachusetts. Its Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), now in its third decade, conducts a broadresearch program in information science, from the development of information infrastructures like theWorld Wide Web to understanding the theories that underlie computer science.The LCS is dedicatedto the invention, development, and understanding of information technologies expected to drive substan-tial technical and socio-economic change.

The National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA)

The National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) is a French public-sector scientific institute. INRIA is made up of five Research Units located at Rocquencourt (near Paris),Rennes, Sophia Antipolis, Nancy, and Grenoble. INRIA’s main assignments include transferring researchresults to industry and conducting both fundamental and applied research. Areas of current researchinclude information processing, advanced high-speed networking, structured documents, and scientificcomputation.

Keio University

Keio University, one of Japan’s oldest private universities and foremost computer science research centers, has five major campuses around Tokyo. In 1990, the University opened Shonan Fujisawa Campus and two new faculties including the Faculty of Environmental Information.At that time, Keiobegan to focus on next generation education, research on fundamental information technology, andglobal solutions in the advanced information society. Shonan Fujisawa Campus, as well as Keio’s othercampuses, promotes joint research projects in cooperation with industry, government, and internationalorganizations. Keio is currently one of the world’s leading research centers for network and digital mediatechnology.

A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP

W3C is an international industry-supported consortium, jointly hosted by three institutions: theMassachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science — MIT LCS (Americas);the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control — INRIA (Europe); and KeioUniversity (Asia). All three hosts work together to provide vendor-neutral leadership in the evolution of the Web, including designing, developing, and promoting common technical standards.

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To enhance the com-munication betweenW3C and the Webcommunity, W3C hasopened W3C Officescovering specific geo-graphical areas.W3COffices are the firstpoint of contactbetween theConsortium and itsMembership, as wellas the general publicin their correspondingregion. CLRC-RAL hasbeen established asthe first W3C Office,covering the UnitedKingdom. OtherOffices being launchedin 1998 include GMD(Forschungszentruminformationstechnik)in Germany, CWI(Centrum voorWiskunde enInformatica) in theNetherlands, SICS(Swedish Institute ofComputer Science) in Sweden, andFORTH (FoundationOf Research andTechnology) inGreece.

The Central Laboratory of the Research Councils - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (CLRC-RAL)

The facilities and expertise of the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, one of Europe’s largestmultidisciplinary research support organisations, support the work of more than 12,000 scientists and engi-neers from around the world, both in universities and in industry. Operating from three sites - DaresburyLaboratory in Cheshire, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, and Chilbolton Observatory inHampshire - CLRC supports research projects in a wide range of disciplines, and actively participates in collaborative research, development and technology transfer projects.The Laboratory has some 1,800 staffand a turnover in excess of £90m.

Forschungszentrum Informationstechnik (GMD)

GMD conducts research in Informatics, Communication, and Media. Its headquarters, in Sankt Augustin nearBonn, are housed in Birlinghoven Castle. Its research institutes are in Sankt Augustin, Darmstadt, and Berlin.It is funded mainly by the Federal Republic of Germany (BMBF ministry) and the Länder Berlin, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and Hessen. GMD is a member of the Hermann von Helmholtz Association of German ResearchCenters (HGF).

Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI)

CWI is the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands.The mission of CWI is twofold: to perform frontier research in mathematics and computer science; to transfer new knowledge in these fields to society in general and trade and industry in particular CWI is funded for 70 percent by NWO, the National Organisation for Scientific Research.The remaining 30 percent is obtained through national and international programmes and contract research commissioned by industry.

The Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS)

SICS, is a non-profit research foundation.The objects are to contribute to the competitive strength of Swedishindustry by carrying out advanced research in selected areas of Computer Science on one hand, and actively promoting use of new ideas and results in industry on the other hand. SICS personnel is also engaged in education at Swedish universities.The core of the research at SICS (one third) is financed by NUTEK, theSwedish National Board for Technical and Industrial Development.

Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH)

FORTH, the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) is one of seven research institutes constituting theFoundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, a center for research and development monitored bythe Ministry of Industry, Energy and Technology of the Greek Government. Since its establishment in 1983,ICS-FORTH conducts applied research, develops applications and products, and provides services. The mainobjective of ICS-FORTH is to contribute to the development of the Greek Informatics industry, through theprovision of services and the development of applications, and to facilitate the use of Information Technologyand Telecommunications in both the private and the public sectors.

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ArchitectureARCHITECTURE:ENHANCING THE

INFRASTRUCTURE

OF THE WEBAND

INCREASING ITS

AUTOMATION

The Architecture Domainis responsible for leadingW3C efforts to maintainthe seamless and simpli-fied integration of theglobally distributed infor-mation space known asthe Web.The Domainfocuses on automatinginformation exchange sothat users are insulatedfrom the technicaldetails of the Web’smachine-to-machinecommunication.

Hypertext TransferProtocol (HTTP)

As HTTP traffic has come todominate the Internet, reme-dying the weaknesses of theprotocol have become critical.W3C has worked with theInternet Engineering TaskForce (IETF) to develop evolutionary refinements ofHTTP. Work has culminatedin HTTP/1.1, which is currentlyan IETF Proposed Standardscheduled to become an IETFDraft Standard in Spring 1998.HTTP/1.1 allows the process-ing of multiple outstandingrequests on a single TCP con-nection, facilitates caching, andallows a single IP address toserve multiple Web sites, thus

alleviating pressure on thedwindling pool of IP addresses.

XML

XML - the eXtensible MarkupLanguage - is a simple andvery flexible language basedon SGML.Although originallyconceived to meet the chal-lenges involved in large-scalepublishing, XML is set to playan increasingly important rolein the markup of a wide vari-ety of data on the Web. Notonly will XML help peoplefind the information theywant, but the wealth of XMLmetadata on the Web - information about information- will help many Web-basedapplications.

Widespread support forHTML will ensure its continu-ing popularity, but for differentkinds information - customerdata, bibliographic details, cata-loging, scientific data, docu-ment databases, to name afew - XML will come into itsown. Designed and written bythe W3C XML WorkingGroup, the syntax of the XMLlanguage is now defined indetail. XML 1.0 became aW3C Recommendation in February 1998 and hasalready attracted much attention from the press.

SynchronizedMultimedia

The Web is fast-evolvingbeyond the limits of simple

pages of text and images.W3C is focussing on thedesign of a new language for scheduling multimedia presentations where audio,video, text and graphics arecombined in real-time.Synchronized MultimediaIntegration Language (SMIL),enables authors to specifywhat should be presentedwhen.You can, for example,control the precise time that a sentence is spoken andmake it coincide with the display of a given image.

HTTP - The NextGeneration

As HTTP has developed, therequest for extensions andnew features has exploded;

DOMAIN ACTIVITIES:

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About W3C’sArchitectureTeam

W3C has assembledan outstanding team of technical experts tolead the evolution ofWeb Architecture.Dan Connolly buildsupon his extensiveexperience in distrib-uted information systems and formalmethods to lead hisseven-member team.The team uses itsknowledge in protocoldesign and distributedsystems to spearheadwork in a number ofkey areas, includingobject oriented programming, real-timemultimedia, and wire-less communications.

stretching the initial design toits limits.The purpose of theHTTP-NG Project is to designa prototype of the new gen-eration of the HTTP protocolby using sound engineeringpractices: modularity, simplicityand layering.The task of theProject is to design, imple-ment, and test a new architec-ture for the HTTP protocolbased on a simple, extensibledistributed object-orientedmodel.A key part of developmentwork is the characterization of the Web, involving meas-urement and analysis of thesystem in real life, work thatwill help in designing the newprotocol and an understand-

ing of how to manage asmooth phase in.

Addressing (URLs)

The Web is “the universe of network-accessible infor-mation.” Its foundation is thespecification of a universaladdress space. TheConsortium continues to facilitate consensus about the evolution of URLs andstimulate development ofinnovative naming and resolution techniques.

SAMPLE CODE

Jigsaw

Jigsaw is the Consortium’sJava-based Web server.With amodular architecture and fullHTTP/1.1 compliance, Jigsaw

is a premier experimentalplatform for W3C and theInternet community. Theserver uses an object-orientedapproach when it comes tothe storage of files and theprocessing of incomingrequests, making it both moreefficient and easily extensible.

Libwww

W3C’s libwww is a maturecross-platform softwarelibrary supporting the mostcommon Web protocols, andwell-suited for building a widevariety of applications: clients,servers, robots and more.Recent work on libwww hasfocussed on a record breakinghigh performance implemen-

tation of HTTP/1.1, with per-sistent connections, pipelining,smart output buffering, andpersistent caching.W3C isnow looking for volunteers toeither help with or to takeover the maintenance anddevelopment of libwww andassociated tools that demon-strate how to use the library.

The challenge is to find the right mix of reliability and flexibility and theright mix of tried-and-true techniques with novel but promising ideas.

— Dan Connolly, Architecture Domain Leader‘‘ ,,

User Interface

USER INTERFACE:IMPROVING THE

TECHNOLOGY THAT

ALLOWS WEB USERS

TO EFFICIENTLY PER-CEIVE AND EXPRESS

INFORMATION

The User InterfaceDomain seeks toimproveall user/computercommunications on theWeb. In particular, theDomain is working onformats and languagesthat will present infor-mation to users withmore accuracy and ahigher level of control.

Hypertext MarkupLanguage (HTML)

HTML - the Hyper textMarkup Language - is the lingua franca for publishing onthe World Wide Web. Havinggone through several stages ofevolution, today’s HTML has awide range of features reflect-ing the needs of a verydiverse and international com-munity wishing to make infor-mation available on the Web.HTML 4.0, created by W3C,became a Recommendationin December 1997. It hasmany new features, particular-ly in the areas of accessibility,internationalization, multimediaand support for style sheets.W3C is currently collectinginformation on needs forfuture versions of HTML.

Style Sheets

Style sheets offer precise con-

trol over the presentation ofWeb pages. Not only canWeb designers specify thevisual effects they want, butaural style sheets give controlover voice, pitch andother aspects of how the textwill sound when rendered tospeech.W3C continues towork with its Members, evolv-ing the Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) language to provideeven richer stylistic control,and to ensure consistency ofimplementation world-wide.For more complex publishingtasks, such as automaticallyproducing a table of contents,and for converting documentswritten in XML into HTMLfor publication,W3C is devel-oping the Extensible StyleSheets Language (XSL), whichbuilds upon experience withCSS and DSSSL.A key goal isto ensure that W3C

Recommendations all use acommon underlying frame-work for style.

Document ObjectModel

The HTML publishing lan-guage allows authors to struc-ture documents into headings,paragraphs, hypertext linksand other component parts.W3C’s Document ObjectModel (DOM) is a standardinternal representation of thedocument structure andmakes it easy for programersto access components anddelete, add or edit their con-tent, attributes and style.DOM offers a consistent pro-gramming interface for manip-ulating a document with pro-gramming languages such asJava and ECMAScript.A com-panion DOM for XML appli-cations is similarly beingdefined.

Graphics

Graphics are an importantpart of the Web.W3C contin-ues to work with its Membersto improve graphical quality,decrease download times and improve interoperability.The Portable NetworkGraphics (PNG) format,issued as a W3CRecommendation in 1996, givestruecolor, real transparencyand faster incremental display;it is now widely implementedin browsers and authoringtools.Growing Member interest in a scalable 2D vector graphicsformat for the Web is likelysoon to lead to W3C activityin this area.This will providebetter printing of Web docu-ments, will speed up down-loads, adapt to different sizescreens and will work withstyle sheets.

DOMAIN ACTIVITIES:

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About W3C’sUser InterfaceTeam

Currently eleven members strong,W3C’s User Interfaceteam brings togethersome of today’s mostrespected innovatorsin Web design tools.Its representatives have considerableknowledge in markuplanguages, style sheets,graphics, fonts, andinternationalization.The team is led byVincent Quint, whoseareas of expertiseinclude electronic documents, documentmodels, hypertext, anddocument productionsystems.The team alsosolicits external advicefrom leading experts in the field.

One of the greatest challenges for the future, especially in User Interface, is tokeep the Web as simple as possible to use, while improving its functionality.

— Vincent Quint, User Interface Domain Leader‘‘ ,,Internationalization

The Web was originally developed to enable peoplethroughout the world tocommunicate with one another. The vision has nowbecome reality. W3C is nowcommitted to ensuring thateverybody, not just speakersof Western European lan-guages, get the best out of a truly World Wide Web.W3C’s HTML 4, CSS2 andXML specifications are basedon the Unicode character set with a repertoire of thousands of characters.This means that documentscan be written in Devanagari,Hebrew, Cyrillic,Arabic andany number of other scripts,and can be displayed bybrowsers with access to theright fonts.The HTTP proto-col can now carry informationabout character encoding

and the human language ofcontent, assisting browsersin their selection and displayof documents.

Math

W3C has brought togetherkey players to fill an urgentneed for math on the Web.Out of this work has comethe Mathematical MarkupLanguage (MathML), a formatenabling authors to presentmathematical expressions onthe screen, as well as formingthe basis for machine tomachine communication ofmath on the Web.Written inXML, MathML provides twosets of tags, one for the visualpresentation of math and theother associated with themeaning “behind” equations.MathML is not designed forpeople to enter by hand butanticipates that specialized

tools will provide the meansfor typing in and editing math-ematical expressions. MathML1.0 has recently been issuedas a W3C Recommendation.

Fonts

Early browsers gave authorsno control over the fontsused to display Web pages.Today’s authors have greaterexpectations - they want tocontrol the font family, size,and boldness of differentparts of their Web pages.They are also writing for aninternational audience; theirpages may require fonts andwriting systems not installed in all browsers. CascadingStyle Sheets (CSS1), issued asa W3C Recommendation in1996, provided good controlover whatever fonts wereinstalled. CSS2 builds on thisand adds WebFonts, which

allow improved font substitu-tion, font synthesis, anddynamic download of fontsover the Web.

SAMPLE CODE

Amaya

Amaya is W3C’s own test-bed browser/editor.With theextremely fast moving natureof Web technology, Amayaplays a central role at theConsortium. Easily extendedto integrate new ideas into itsdesign,Amaya provides devel-opers with many specializedfeatures including multipleviews, where the internalstructural model of the docu-ment can be displayed along-side the browser’s view ofhow it should be presentedon the screen.

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Technology & SocietyTECHNOLOGY &SOCIETY:UNDERSTANDING THE

SOCIAL IMPACT OF

THE WEB AND

REACHING OUT

TO AFFECTED

COMMUNITIES

The explosive growth oftechnology has forcedthe entire Web commu-nity to look at society’sethical and legal issuesfrom a new internationalperspective. TheTechnology &SocietyDomain seeks to under-stand these issues inlight of new technology— partly by changingthe technology, and partlyby educating users aboutthe technology’s benefits,costs, and limits.

Metadata

Metadata is machine-under-standable description of infor-mation on the Web.W3C’sstrong interest in metadatahas prompted developmentof the Resource DescriptionFramework (RDF), a languagefor representing the proper-ties of HTML documents,images, fonts, downloadablecode, and the relationshipsbetween them. RDF will playan important role in enablinga whole gamut of new appli-cations, for example, theautomation of many tasksinvolving bibliographic records,product features and termsand conditions. Metadata willfacilitate searching, helpingauthors to describe their

documents in ways thatsearch engines, browsers andWeb crawlers can understand.

Platform for InternetContent Selection(PICS)

The World Wide WebConsortium has developed asuite of specifications calledPICS (Platform for InternetContent Selection) so thatpeople can distribute infor-mation about the content of digital material in a simple,computer-readable form.Information can be given a“label” which computers canthen process in the back-ground, filtering out undesir-able material or directingusers to sites that may be of

special interest to them. PICSwas originally designed toallow parents and teachers toscreen out materials unsuit-able for children using theInternet. Rather than simplycensoring the informationitself, as various legislative bod-ies have suggested, PICS givesresponsibility to users to con-trol themselves, or to delegatecontrol, of what they receiveon their browsers.

Privacy

Users want to know whetherthey should entrust personalinformation to a given Website. How does the site man-age personal information? Willit disclose any of this informa-tion to others? What will the

user get in return? W3C’sPlatform for PrivacyPreferences Project (P3P) isworking on a platform thatallows users to be informedof a site’s practices. Users, orsoftware operating on theirbehalf, can then negotiate fora different privacy policy andcome to an agreement withthe site which is the basis forany subsequent release ofinformation.

Digital SignatureInitiative

Digital signatures are inessence the digital equivalentof string and sealing wax: theyserve to identify the origin ofa document and to ensurethat the information has not

DOMAIN ACTIVITIES:

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About W3C’sTechnology &Society Team

Drawing upon morethen 30 years of systems experience,Alan Kotok is wellequipped to lead thisfour-member group.The team has expert-ise in a number ofareas, including elec-tronic commerce,intellectual propertyrights, metadata, andpublic policy.Furthermore, the team has considerableknowledge about proj-ect management andmultilateral Memberdevelopment groups.

As the Web becomes pervasive in our global society, we have aduty to address the consequent social impact. Working with ourMembers and the international policy community, we developand explain technological approaches to enhance the social valueand mitigate the challenges raised with this new medium.

— Alan Kotok, Acting Technology & Society Domain Leader

‘‘ ,,been tampered with en route.A single bit change in giga-bytes of data can be detected.Digital signatures allow usersto check that downloadedsoftware has come from a reputable source, especiallynecessary for documentsimplying commitments such ascontracts, price lists, manifestsand press releases.ThefirstW3C Recommendationon Digital Signatures, applyingto the signing of PICS Labels,has now been developed.Future work will focus onRDF Metadata.

Public Policy Role

Cutting across nations andcultures, the Web attracts theattention of public policy

makers from right across theglobe. Indeed the Web is nowat the center of a number ofpolicy debates.While W3C isnot a lobbying organization, agood understanding of thisarea is vital to promote thedevelopment of a networkarchitecture that supports awide range of policy options,encouraging all cultures to use the Web.Additionally W3C can providefeedback to policy makersregarding what is technicallypossible, how effectively thetechnology can meet policyrequirements, and any unin-tended consequences of proposed policies.

Electronic Commerce

The Web may very quicklybecome one of the primaryplaces where businesses oper-ate, with billions of dollars ofgoods and services boughtand sold every year.W3C’sinterest in the development of the Web extends to commercial exchange, andthe Consortium aims tounderstand the problems andsupport the development of solutions.To this end theElectronic Commerce InterestGroup (ECIG) was createdas a forum to discuss areassuch as micropayments andelectronic transaction proto-cols and also to advise therole that W3C should play in this field.

Security

Web Security issues rangefrom system and networksecurity, to authentication services and personal privacyconcerns.W3C is involved inthe development of severalprotocols designed toenhance Web security including the Digital SignatureInitiative, the Platform forInternet Content Selection(PICS), and the Platform forPrivacy Preferences (P3P).The Security Interest Groupmeets to share informationon the state of Web securityand to advise W3C onopportunities for Consortiumefforts.

14

Web Accessibility InitiativeTHE POWER OF

THE WEB IS IN ITS

UNIVERSALITY.ACCESS BY EVERYONE

REGARDLESS OF

DISABILITY IS AN

ESSENTIAL ASPECT.

The Web AccessibilityInitiative (WAI), in coordination with industr y leaders,disability organizations,research institutions and governments, seeksto ensure the accessibili-ty of the Web through amulti-pronged approachranging from technology,to education, outreach,and research and devel-opment.

WAI TECHNICAL ACTIVITY

The WAI Technical Activityencompasses three areas ofwork:Technology develop-ment, Guidelines and Tools.These areas are closely coor-dinated with the educationand outreach, and researchand development activities, ofthe WAI InternationalProgram Office.

Technology Development

The Web Accessibility Initiativereviews all W3C technicalspecifications to identify acces-sibility issues and makes rec-ommendations to improve

accessibility to these technologies.The WAI contributed to thedesign of Hypertext MarkupLanguage (HTML 4.0),Cascading Style Sheets: level 2 (CSS2) and SynchronizedMultimedia IntegrationLanguage (SMIL) specifications.Some of the biggest improve-ments in accessibility willcome as these specificationsare implemented.The HTML 4.0Recommendation includes a number of features toincrease the accessibility ofWeb pages. It makes a strong

distinction between structureand presentation, fully inte-grating the use of style sheetsfor Web pages, and encourag-ing an approach to authoringthat makes it easier forbrowsers to render documents into speech or Braille output.Users relying on synthesizedspeech will welcome auralstyle sheets in CSS2, allowingfor example, different inflec-tions to be used for differentparts of the document, andthe stereo positioning ofsound.

Guidelines

The Web Accessibility Initiativeis developing three sets ofguidelines: page author guide-lines, guidelines for user agents(including browsers), andguidelines for authoring tools.For authors, practical tips andrecommendations coverevery aspect of making Webpages accessible.A checklist ofgood Web site design includesways to test pages for accessi-bility.Browser developers will bene-fit from their own set of WAIguidelines.These encourageimplementation of an accessi

DOMAIN ACTIVITIES:

15

About W3C’sWeb AccessibilityInitiative Team

As Director of theWAI InternationalProgram Office,Judy Brewer leads thegrowing WAI team.With a wealth ofexperience directingaccessibility initiatives,and a broad-basedunderstanding of thebusiness benefits thataccessible Web pagedesign brings, Judy iswell qualified to leadW3C’s WAI efforts.Daniel Dardailler,formerly of the X-Consortium, managesthe WAI TechnicalActivity.The WAI team bridges exten-sive knowledge ofaccessibility issues with technical and educational skills withan international focus.

ble user interface and recentimprovements in Web technology in the area ofaccessibility.Authoring tool guidelines willpromote the automation ofaccessible page design.

Tools

The WAI will review existingaccessibility evaluation toolsand approaches, and coordi-nate prototyping or develop-ment work in the area ofaccessibility validation and tool prototypes.

WAI INTERNATIONAL

PROGRAM OFFICE

The WAI InternationalProgram Office (IPO) enablespartnering and coordinationamong the many stakeholdersin Web accessibility: industry,disability organizations,government, and researchorganizations.The WAI IPOcoordinates the education and outreach, and researchand development work, of the WAI, and promotes imple-mentation of all areas of theWAI’s work including the WAITechnical Activity’s technology,guidelines and tool work.

Education andOutreach

Education and outreach to allsectors of the Web communi-ty tie together the WAI’sdevelopments in technology,guidelines and tools.The WAIEducation and OutreachWorking Group coordinatesthe development of curricu-lum modules, demonstrationpackages, workshops, andrelated materials to increaseawareness of the need forand solutions to Web accessibility.

Research andDevelopment

The WAI IPO will monitorresearch and developmentthat could affect the futureaccessibility of the Web.Thiswill include giving input intotechnologies that hold thepromise of enhancing thefuture accessibility of the Web,as well as technologies thatcould create new barriers onthe Web, to ensure thatdevelopers are aware of auniversal design (“design forall”) approach.

W3C realizes the critical importance of the Web for people with disabilities, and is committed to increasing the accessibility of the Web.— Judy Brewer, Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative International Program Office‘‘ ,,

16

As a World Wide Web Consortium Member, your organiza-tion can participate in the collective voice of the global Web community. Member organizations gain access to W3C’s technical expertise and can lead the evolution of innovativeWeb technologies in a neutral forum.There are already morethan 250 Members: hardware and software vendors, contentproviders, telecommunications companies, corporate users,and government and academic entities.

Membership benefits

• A voting seat on W3C’s Advisory Committee (AC)• Participation in working groups, workshops, and symposia• A voice in providing strategic direction to the Consortium• Access to Members-only Web site containing information

on events, technologies, software releases, working groups,forums, mailing lists, news, and announcements

• Members-only weekly news service containing updates on W3C activities; announcements for meetings, workshops,and conferences; calendar of events; and team information

How to become a Member

Membership in the World Wide Web Consortium is open to any organization that completes a Full or AffiliateMembership agreement.As described in W3C’s Prospectus,http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Prospectus.Affiliate status isreserved for non-profit organizations and commercial firmswith annual revenues under $50 million.

For more information about the World Wide WebConsortium and its Members, visit W3C’s home page at http://www.w3.org/ or send email to membership@w3.org.

Membership

http://www.w3.org/

The Web community is made up of everyone who browses or putsinformation on the Web, who uses the Web as their workplace, whodevelops new products and services on the Web, who providesInternet access, and who has ideas about how to improve the Web...The Consortium is the neutral rock on which these parties can meetto agree on common specifications. W3C gains richness from themeeting of all these forces. — Tim Berners-Lee, Director

‘‘,,

© April 1998

http://www.w3.org/