ERCIM Institutes promote W3C Developments to leverage the Web for European
Industry
by Jean-François Abramatic and Bob Hopgood
To enhance the communication between the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) and the Web community, W3C will open W3C Offices covering specific
geographical areas in the framework of the W3C-LA (Leveraging Action),
one of the European Commission's 'Leveraging Actions for Software Technologies',
sponsored by the Esprit programme. W3C Offices will be the first point
of contact between the Consortium and its membership, as well as the general
public in their corresponding region. CLRC has been established as the
first W3C Office, covering the United Kingdom. Other Offices to be launched
during the first quarter of 1998 include GMD, CWI, SICS and FORTH. The
deployment of W3C Offices takes advantage of ERCIM's long-standing partnership
between information technology research laboratories throughout Europe.
The five Offices are also members of W3C.
Since the launch of the W3C European host at INRIA in April 1995, the
membership has been developed and the W3C team in Europe is well established.
Significant results have been achieved within W3C's three technical Domains
Architecture, User Interface, and Technology &Society. The goal of
W3C-LA, run by INRIA in partnership with CLRC, is to promote W3C results
throughout Europe.
W3C-LA will develop awareness about W3C and encourage European industry
to demonstrate the positive impact of the Web on future business. To assist
technology and service providers as well as users, key initiatives will
be developed to characterize the business drivers for and the impediments
to the uptake of the Web's maturing technology opportunities. These include
Demonstrators to express the innovative uses to which the core developments
can be put, Mirroring and Translation, and Disseminators like Symposia
and Workshops.
Demonstrators
To express the innovative uses to which the core developments can be
put, shrink-wrapped demonstration packages will be developed and disseminated
throughout Europe. Additionally, the demonstrators allow the Web community
to feed its discussions by concrete examples and experimental developments.
The demonstrators will be designed to address the following issues:
- Performance: to implement the evolving HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
to impact the performance of the Web for the service provider and end-user
- Content Design: to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and features of
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) to achieve best practice for the content
provider
- Trust: to utilize PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) to
label, rate and filter material on the Internet and for workflow within
an Intranet
- 'Europeanisation': to develop a real multilingual information service
- Web Collections: to create a set of Web pages that effectively are
a single entity
- Synchronisation and Vector Graphics: to synchronise information in
different media and to optimize performance for schematic and vector graphics.
Mirroring and Translation
The Web community uses the Web itself as the primary medium for communication.
W3C is no exception; its site at http://www.w3.org/
is the leading reference source for information on the evolution of Web
technology. This information is currently available from MIT in America,
INRIA in Europe and Keio University in Asia. W3C-LA will enhance European
access to W3C information by mirroring the INRIA site in various European
locations. In addition, W3C will encourage translations of relevant parts
of the W3C site content into non-English European languages, and address
the consistency of information available in different languages.
Disseminators: Symposia and Workshops
Meetings will be held to encourage organizations to start to use the
Web infrastructure (particularly the demonstrator results) as a ubiquitous
medium. As users and providers become involved, they will be able share
their experiences in an interactive mode; to augment the continuous process
conducted over the Web. W3C-LA will organize events throughout Europe to
promote W3C demonstrator results and to seek feedback from the European
community. These events will initially take place as open symposia describing
recent Web advances and announcing the status of demonstrators in development.
The first Symposium was organised in London, 3 December 1997. Other Symposia
are being planned by the other Offices in the Spring of 1998. The following
phase will have demonstrator advice workshops aimed at the industry champions
familiar with the completed demonstrators. The final phase of the project
will be events to disseminate user's experience of the demonstrators.
Please contact:
Jean-François Abramatic - W3C
Tel: + 33 1 3963 5463
E-mail: jfa@w3c.org
Bob Hopgood - W3C
Tel: +44 1235 446822
E-mail: F.R.A.Hopgood@rl.ac.uk
