Draft
This a is the “shadow” copy of the insert: <a href="index.html"> draft for the chartering process of a Publishing Working Group, envisioned as part of the delete: <a href="https://www.w3.org/2017/01/pressrelease-idpf-w3c-combination.html.en"> combination of IDPF and W3C delete: </a> announced on the 1st of February 2017 delete: </a> . This draft is charter of the Publication Working Group insert: </a> , currently under the review of the W3C Advisory Committee. AC review. This shadow copy includes the changes on the charter agreed upon by AC representatives who have commented on the charter. Unless some formal objections occur, this shadow copy is due to become the final, official charter of the Working Group. insert: </p>
insert: <p>There is a separate insert: <a href="diff.html"> diff file insert: </a> , highlighting the changes as a result of the AC review.
Publishing Working Group Charter
The mission of the delete: <a href="https://www.w3.org/@@@@"> insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/dpub/WG/"> 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. delete: <span class="todo"> [Final URL for the group to be filled in if and when the charter is formally approved.] delete: </span>
| Start date | 1 June, 2017 delete: <span class="todo"> [planned dates, final date filled in if and when the charter is formally approved.] |
|---|---|
| End date | 31 December, 2019 delete: <span class="todo"> [planned dates, final date filled in if and when the charter is formally approved.] 1 July, 2020 |
| Chairs | Garth Conboy (Google) and Tzviya Siegman (John Wiley & Sons., Inc.) |
| Team Contacts | Ivan Herman (0.4 FTE ) |
| Meeting Schedule | Teleconferences: 1-hour calls will be held weekly Face-to-face: We will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year. |
Goals
Publications, from magazine articles to product documentation, from electronic books to scholarly journal articles, are increasingly present on the Web. While following the traditions of the publishing world in terms of typesetting, layout, ergonomy, and usage patterns, the Web brings a new level of pervasive accessibility, internationalization, addressability, and interconnectedness to these publications. However, the combination of traditional publishing and the Web is not yet perfect: the “Web Publications Use Cases and Requirements” document, published by the Digital Publishing Interest Group , lists a number of use cases and requirements for publications on the Web. It will be the task of the Working Group to identify those requirements that are not yet fully covered by the current environments based on the Open Web Platform, and would therefore need further work, while re-using existing technologies developed by other Working Groups as much as possible and practical.
It is the goal of the Publishing Working Group to provide, in concert with other W3C Groups as outlined in Section 4.1 , the necessary technologies on the Open Web Platform to make the combination of traditional publishing and the Web complete in terms of the readers’ needs, portability, distribution, archiving, offline access, or reliable cross referencing. In short, all publications—with all their specificities and traditions—should become first-class entities on the Web .
Scope
For the purpose of this document, a Web Publication (WP) is a collection of one or more constituent resources, organized together in a uniquely identifiable grouping that may be presented using standard Open Web Platform technologies. A Web Publication is not just a collection of links. The act of publishing involves obtaining resources and organizing them into a publication, which must be “manifested” by having files on a Web server. Thus the publisher provides an origin for the WP, and a URL that can uniquely identify that (FRBR) manifestation . A Web Publication must provide a number of features whose detailed specification is in the scope of this Working Group. While some of the detailed requirements have already been documented elsewhere , the most important and high-level characteristics that must be translated into specifications are:
- A Web Publication may be portable, and it may be hosted at some other origin. However, it must preserve information about its original origin and identity, so that references to a portable copy can be reconciled with the original publication, and so that the user (or user agent) of the other origin can make informed choices about how much trust to grant to the publication, just as if it was referring to the original origin.
- A Web Publication may be packaged by having all its constituent resources combined into a single file. The package must include the unique identifier of the manifestation. A Web Publication’s origin is essential information if it is to become portable. The act of packaging must be reversible; one must be able to recover the original structure and organization.
- It must be possible to make Web Publications accessible to a broad range of readers with different needs and capabilities.
- A Web Publication must be available and functional while the user is offline. Users should, as much as possible, have a seamless experience of interacting with a Web Publication regardless of their network connection. When defining Web Publications, we make no distinction between online and offline reading. Regardless of their network connections, users should have a seamless experience interacting with a Web Publication. Any software agent consuming and rendering a Web Publication must ensure that it is available and functional while the user is offline.
- A Web Publication, having an identity and nature beyond its constituent resources, will have metadata that describes the publication as a whole. We also introduce the abstract concept of a manifest, which serves to carry information about the constituent resources of the publication. The metadata and manifest will also incorporate information about the sequence and presentation of the content.
- A Web Publication must provide access to a range meta-information including (but not restricted to):
- table of contents, default or alternate reading order;
- security and authentication data;
- metadata such as author(s), title, and unique identification.
Recommendation-track deliverables will contain mechanisms to make Web Publications accessible to a broad range of readers with different needs and capabilities. This includes general WCAG and WAI requirements of the W3C as well as requirements for international readers using different scripts and document formats. Additional extended requirements will be identified as conformance requirements in the Working Group’s normative specifications, which will serve as a reference for content producers and for incorporation of publishing requirements in W3C standards like WCAG. Profiles of Web Publications may be defined with more stringent accessibility requirements.
EPUB has become one of the fundamental technologies for the global publishing ecosystem (see the separate document , published by the W3C Publishing Business Group , for more details and background). It is the preferred format for a broad range of types of publications, not only for distribution but increasingly also for authoring and production workflows. As part of the work on Web Publications, described in this charter, it is also critical essential that a next generation of EPUB, currently referred to as EPUB 4, retain the specificity, portability, predictability, accessibility, and internationalization required by the publishing ecosystem while benefitting from the improved features and functionalities offered by Packaged Web Publications. EPUB 4 must should not be in conflict with Web Publications; it must should be a type of Web Publication that provides the predictability and interoperability that this ecosystem has come to rely on.
Input Documents
The following documents may be considered by the Working Group as direct inputs to the specifications to be developed.
insert: <h4>W3C documents insert: </h4>
W3C Recommendations or Recommendation track documents
- delete: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/"> Web Publications for the Open Web Platform insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/html/"> HTML 5.1 . This As a fundamental format for content on the Web, the features of HTML may influence some of the details for the definition of Web Publications. (Note that the link refers to the latest standard version of HTML. At present this is HTML 5.1, but may change during the lifetime of the Working Group.) insert: </li> insert: <li>
- insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/"> SVG 1.1 insert: </a> . As a fundamental format for the graphical content on the Web, the features of SVG may influence some of the details for the definition of Web Publications. (Note that the link refers to the latest standard version of SVG. At present this is SVG 1.1, but may change during the lifetime of the Working Group.) insert: </li> insert: <li>
- insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS/"> CSS Snapshot 2017 insert: </a> . As a fundamental format for formatting the content on the Web, the features of CSS may influence some of the details for the definition of Web Publications. (Note that the link refers to the a document summarizes the technical deliberations that lists the CSS modules that form CSS. At present this is for 2017, but may change during the lifetime of the Working Group.) insert: </li> insert: <li>
- insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/"> Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1 insert: </a> . ARIA 1.1 provides the basis for the work on the subject by the DPUB Interest Group and provides possible technical avenues for the final specifications. delete: </li> delete: <li> delete: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp-ucr/"> Web Publications Use Case and Requirements ARIA Module 2.0. insert: </li> insert: <li>
- insert: <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/dpub-aria-1.0/"> Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.0 . This The planned DPUB ARIA Module 2.0 is a collection of use cases collected by the DPUB Interest Group showing the requirements for Web Publications and Packaged Web Publications. planned to be an extension to this specification.
- Web App Manifest . The definition of Web Publications may rely on the introduction of a manifest and, if so, a compatibility with, and/or linkage to, Web App Manifests should be considered. (Note that Web App Manifests are distinct from the now-defunct effort on Cache Manifests.)
- Service Workers . Service Workers may provide an implementation vehicle for some aspects of Web Publications in a browser context. In particular, Service Workers offer facilities for an offline access to documents published on the Web.
- Packaging on the Web . The definition of packaging for Packaged Web Publications should consider this format as (one of) its standard format(s). delete: <li> delete: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/"> Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1 insert: </ul>
Other Documents (Notes, Member Submissions, Working Drafts for Notes, etc.) insert: </h5>
insert: <ul>- insert: <li>
- insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/"> Web Publications for the Open Web Platform: Vision And Technical Challenges . ARIA 1.1 provides the basis for the work This document summarizes the technical deliberations on the subject by the DPUB ARIA Module 2.0. delete: </li> delete: <li> delete: <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/dpub-aria-1.0/"> Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.0 Interest Group. insert: </li> insert: <li>
- insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp-ucr/"> Web Publications Use Case and Requirements . The planned This is a collection of use cases collected by the DPUB ARIA Module 2.0 is planned to be an extension to this specification. Interest Group showing the requirements for Web Publications and Packaged Web Publications.
- Digital Publishing and Accessibility in W3C Documents . This Interest Group Note collects a number of accessibility features that are relevant for the publishing community and not (yet) part of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These document provides a basis for the working aiming at the extension of future versions of WCAG regarding publishing.
- EPUB 3.1 . The Member Submission of EPUB 3 will be an important input into Web Publications, Portable Web Publications, and EPUB 4. Compatibility with EPUB 3 will be a consideration in development of all three specifications. (Note that this reference is to an “umbrella” document for a suite of six specifications .)
- Requirements for Latin Text Layout and Pagination . This document has been worked on by the Digital Publishing Interest Group (whose charter expires in October 2017). The Working Group will continue this work and plans to publish a Working Group Note.
Non-W3C documents delete: </h5> insert: </h4>
- EPUB for Education . This profile of EPUB 3 gives a good example for the type of profiles that the publishing community uses.
- EPUB 3 Structural Semantics . This document will form the basis for the work on DPUB-ARIA Module 2.0.
- Readium Web Publication Manifest . First draft of a Web Publication manifest format, provided by the Readium Consortium .
Out of Scope
The following features are out of scope, and will not be addressed by this Working group.
- Digital Rights Management (DRM) features for Web Publications.
- New metadata vocabularies.
- New document identification schemes (i.e., alternatives to DOI or ISBN).
- Maintenance of EPUB 3 (to be done (done in a the separate insert: <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/epub3/"> EPUB 3 Community Group). Group insert: </a> ).
Success Criteria
In order to advance to Proposed Recommendation , each specification is expected to have at least two independent implementations of each of feature defined in the specification.
Each specification should contain a section detailing any known security or privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.
Each specification should contain a section describing: known impacts on accessibility for users with disabilities; ways the specification features address those impacts; and recommendations for minimizing accessibility problems in implementation.
Testing plans for each specification should be provided, starting from the earliest drafts.
Deliverables
More detailed milestones and updated publication schedules are available on the delete: <a href="https://www.w3.org/dpub/WG/PubStatus"> insert: <a href="@@@@@"> group publication status page . insert: </p>
insert: <p>To facilitate timely progress on the Recommendation track and for the sake of maintainability the Working group may, based on consensus in the Working Group, split or merge its deliverables.
Recommendation-track Deliverables
The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications (titles of the documents are provisional; some documents listed below may be grouped into one document or split into several, constituent documents):
- Web Publications
-
This specification defines a Web Resource representing a collection of one or more constituent Web Resources, organized together in a uniquely identifiable grouping that may be presented using standard Open Web Platform technologies. A Web Publication may represent a journal or magazine article, an in-house documentation, or a digital book. It provides a standard to access information pertinent for the collection as a whole and that may be usable for the proper presentation of the publication.
- Packaged Web Publications
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This specification defines a way to combine the resources of a Web Publication into a distributable file using a packaging format. Note that if the insert: <a href="https://w3ctag.github.io/packaging-on-the-web/"> Packaging on the Web insert: </a> work leads to a W3C Recommendation and fulfills all the requirements for Packaged Web Publications, publishing this deliverable insert: <i> may insert: </i> become unnecessary.
- EPUB 4
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This specification defines a functional profile of the general idea of Packaged Web Publications that may deliver a higher degree of comprehensive accessibility capabilities and reliability. This specification should generally be a functional superset of EPUB 3.1. Functional round-tripping to/from EPUB 3.1 considered highly desirable.
- DPUB-ARIA Module 2.0
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This specification extends the DPUB-ARIA Module 1.0 specification, adding terms for a more complete coverage of publication-related terms. Its primary input is the full set of terms defined by the EPUB 3 Structural Semantics Vocabulary but other, similar vocabularies will also be considered.
Other Deliverables
- Requirements for Latin Text Layout and Pagination (Working Group Note)
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This document will describe the requirements for pagination and layout of publications that use the Latin script, based on the tradition of print book design and composition. These principles can inform the pagination of digital content as well, and serve as a reference for the CSS Working Group and other interested parties.
This deliverable draws upon a previous version of this document , published by the Digital Publishing Interest Group.
Other non-normative documents may also be created such as:
- Use case and requirement documents.
- Test suites and implementation reports for the specification.
- Primers or Best Practice documents to support content authors and application developers.
The group should also contribute to the ongoing work to newer releases of WCAG to ensure the inclusion of publication-specific features.
Milestones
The group’s Publication Status document provides current data about all of the group’s specifications. [Final URI to be set up if the charter is formally accepted.] Although the group expects all of its active deliverables to progress during this charter period, the charter does not include detailed milestone data for each specification because such data is speculative and easily becomes out of date. The Working Group does expect the following to occur:
- Face-to-face meeting, June 22-23, 2017, New York City, NY, USA.
- Face-to-face meeting at the W3C TPAC meeting, week of November 6, Burlingame, CA, USA.
- WP:
- First Public Working Draft (FPWD): Q4 2017.
- Candidate Recommendation (CR): Q4 2018. Q1 2019.
- Recommendation (REC): Q4 2019. Q2 2020.
- PWP:
- First Public Working Draft (FPWD): Q4 2017.
- Candidate Recommendation (CR): Q4 2018. Q1 2019.
- Recommendation (REC): Q4 2019. Q2 2020.
- DPUB-ARIA: EPUB 4:
- First Public Working Draft (FPWD): Q1 2018.
- Candidate Recommendation (CR): Q3 2018. Q1 2019.
- Recommendation (REC): Q2 2019. 2020.
- EPUB 4: DPUB-ARIA:
- First Public Working Draft (FPWD): Q1 2018.
- Candidate Recommendation (CR): Q4 2018.
- Recommendation (REC): Q4 2019.
Coordination
For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility (via the Accessible Platform Architectures WG ), internationalization (via the Internationalization WG ), performance (via the Web Performance WG ), privacy (via the Privacy IG ), security (via the Web Security IG ), and with the Technical Architecture Group (TAG) . Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD and at least 3 months before CR , and should be issued when major changes occur in a specification.
Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document :
W3C Groups
- Web Platform Working Group
-
This group develops and/or maintains a number of specifications that may be fundamental for the specification and/or the implementation of Web Publications. Examples are:
- Web App Manifests , that may be the basis for specifying table of content, metadata, etc., provided by a Web Publication.
- Service Workers , that may become the fundamental building block for the implementation and testing of Web Applications.
- Packaging on the Web (jointly developed with the Technical Architecture Group ) may provide a way of packaging for the purpose of Packaged Web Publications.
- CSS Working Group
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New CSS features may be needed to support web publications. Such features would be specified in the CSS Working Group, with the Publishing Working Group providing use cases, requirements, and examples. The Publishing Working Group would also help the CSS WG with the development and testing of new and existing CSS functionality that is of interest to the publishing community. The group will designate liaisons to work with the CSS WG on issues as needed. Liaisons will ideally be part of both groups.
- Web Application Security Working Group
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Porting a Web Publication, hosting the publication at some other origin, may raise security issues. The Publishing Working Group will have to work closely with the Web Application Security WG to ensure that the approaches developed by that Working Group are adopted by Web Publication, and any additional work done by the Publication Working Group are in line with general Web Application Security.
- Accessible Rich Internet Applications WG
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This Working Group is responsible for the development of ARIA; the development of DPUB-ARIA Module 2.0 should be done in close cooperation with the further development of ARIA in general.
- Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
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The Publishing Working Group will work with the AG Working Group to address digital publishing use cases in accessibility guidelines, and develop techniques to implement accessibility features in web publications. The group will designate liaisons to work with the AG on issues as needed. Liaisons will ideally be members of both groups.
- EPUB 3 Community Group
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While working on EPUB 3-related projects, the EPUB 3 Community Group may surface technical concerns, requirements, and issues that are also relevant to the work of the Publishing Working Group. The two groups will formally cooperate coordinate to ensure that such issues are duly handled taken into account by the Publishing Working Group.
- Publishing Business Group
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The mission of the Publishing Business Group is to foster ongoing participation by members of the publishing industry and overall ecosystem in the development of the Web for publishing, and to serve as a conduit for feedback between the publishing ecosystem and W3C. In doing so, technical or business requirements may come up that are also relevant to the work of the Publishing Working Group. The two groups will formally cooperate to ensure that such issues are duly handled taken into account by the Publishing Working Group.
External Organizations
- Book Industry Study Group (BISG)
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This group currently maintains the EPUB 3 Support Grid , which provides information and reading-system support for EPUB 3. This tool may be extended to track support for WP in general and EPUB 4 in particular.
- EDRLab
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EDRLab, acting as the European headquarter of the Readium Foundation , is actively working on the ReadiumJS, Readium SDK and Readium-2 projects. The latter is especially interesting as a future reference implementation of PWP and EPUB 4.
Participation
To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from key implementors and users (e.g, publishers, authors) of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication .
The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy .
Communication
Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public : the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor’s Drafts of specifications will be developed on a public repository, and the drafts may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.
Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Publishing Working Group home page. [Final URL to be filled in if and when the charter is formally approved.]
Most Publishing Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications. The calls will be conducted on a weekly basis.
This group primarily conducts its technical work on the public mailing list public-pub-wg@w3.org ( archive ) and on GitHub issues [email and github addresses filled in if and when the charter is formally approved.] . The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.
The group may use a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.
Decision Policy
This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 3.3 ). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers. Consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.
However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress, but consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote, recording a decision along with any objections.
To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email and/or web-based survey), with a response period from one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised on the mailing list by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have obtained consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.
All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available, or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs or the Director.
This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 3.4, Votes) . It includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.
Patent Policy
This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (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. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation .
Licensing
This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.
About this Charter
This charter has been created according to section 5.2 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.