Meeting minutes
<tzviya> Date: 2024-12-07
Chairing the Steering Committee
Tzviya: this will be my last meeting of the steering committee
… this group needs s new person or two to volunteer to lead it
George: what guidance do you have for us?
Tzviya: the most important thing is that the three groups; CG, BG, and WG, continue to communicate
… we've not been paying sufficient attention to the CG
… if the CG is willing to work on enhancements to EPUB there may be someone willing to co-chair
George: I'd like to consider this from the top down
<Bill_Kasdorf> +1
<liisamk> +1
Ralph: I've been contemplating turning the BG into a CG, still to focus on discussions of the business needs of Publishing
… would this broaden participation?
… your thoughts?
Tzviya: I think it makes sense
… it's hard to separate the business from the technical
Bill: it's been difficult to recruit Members; I get interest from technical people in big companies but the company isn't prepared to join as Members
… for some reason they aren't joining the CG, though they could do this right now
Tzviya: we need someone to chair this meeting
… building an agenda
… figuring out how to plan ahead
… we'd been attempting to do that in collaboration with other organizations
… we also need to plan for TPAC
Avneesh: we've discussed the need for good overlap with the IDPF Board
… I think IDPF has recently selected a new chair
… we could approach them to participate here
George: I believe all of the IDPF Board is on the mailing list for the Steering Committee
Tzviya: all but one
George: do we need a person from this group to co-chair or would the two IDPF co-chairs become the co-chairs?
Tzviya: it's not labor-intensive; it just needs someone to do the coordination
… who will accept the action to contact them?
George: I'll take it
… ask if they are willing to co-chair the combined steering committee
Bill: splendid idea
… they bring the skills and network
Ralph: thanks George!
Tzviya: I encourage you to continue the leadership discussion in the August meeting
TPAC planning
Tzviya: the Working Group came up with many topics to discuss at TPAC
… Wendy, Shinya, Ivan, and I were wondering who else might be able to attend
<ivan> w3c/
Ivan: ^^ TPAC 2024 Planning #5
Tzviya: we've talked about some sort of workshop
… I'm not sure that is going to pan out
… Wendy added the list of things we talked about here in the steering committee
… [reads from pm-wg/#5 ]
… are there topics that we would particularly want to invite people for?
… e.g. EU a11y landscape changes
… or do people just want to focus on technical topics?
George: in the US there has been a Title II rule change announcement that goes into effect in 2 years
… it is not identical to EAA but some of the rules have identical impact
… I think we will need to help the industry get a handle on this
… particularly in K-12 education
Ivan: do you think we will know enough by TPAC to hear more details and have a comparison with the EAA ?
… is there more that will need attention for the US side?
George: the key details are posted; the rule is available and there are FAQs
Ivan: perhaps someone could give an overview and highlight things that need to be done that aren't already being worked
… re: whether to have detailed technical discussions at TPAC
… detailed technical discussions are enjoyable but I am worried that if we don't know what the industry is willing to do these discussions will be dead-ends
… for technical discussion in Anaheim, what I want to hear is what the technical people expect and what is realistic from the reading system developers to engage?
… without this feedback we end up with a WG producing specs that don't get industry pick-up
<AvneeshSingh> +1 Ivan
Liisa: it is important for us to raise the new US regulations and encourage people
… some folk have not take EAA seriously
… there are publishers, particularly small ones, who need reminders
… to try to get into what Ivan is asking, scrolling content is one topic that would get to what the technical folk are interested in doing and what the industry feels it wants
… other topics: pens on e-ink devices
… the current implementations are using locators but in a way that is not consistent and not tied to the content
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to ask which topics interest people from a user perspective
Liisa: the RS have been asking questions
Tzviya: Canada just adopted EN-301549 as well
… the best practices for a11y have not changed
… this is something we should stress: what's changed is the legislation
… from a user perspective, or a developer, or a publisher; what are the most interesting questions
… the landscape of annotation has changed
… audiobooks, the way text-to-speech is implemented
… these may be of more technical interest than market interest
… what else interests you?
Cristina: could we have links to the Title II updates?
Liisa: there are still parts of EPUB that publishers are being asked if they want implemented
George: in K-12 the publishers are putting together a platform that a school buys; the content is put into that LMS
… the student uses the book inside the LMS; there's a kind of reading system in there
… but epubtest.org has not been able to get into testing those
… when a student moves to another level different classes may be in different LMS with different interfaces
… it's a mess
… what can we do to help?
… I see this as a disaster in US education
Liisa: you're not wrong
… the limited ability of the RS and the limited understanding of EPUB in those spaces
… there's an assumption that things can be swapped but the implementations aren't up to spec
Tzviya: what's the ask for TPAC?
Liisa: space to talk about the challenges of implementations in various LMS
George: I have great EPUBs but they don't integrate well in LMS, in QTI, and maybe a consistent user interface with expectations
… a consistent user interface
Tzviya: this sounds a lot like the beginnings of Edupub
… we documented these issues 10 years ago
… we're now seeing in this corner of the market that standards are not being embraced
… publishers are creating their own reading systems in their own LMS
… building a reading system is not easy
… Norton is an exception; they could be a good case study
Ivan: I'm wondering if the EPUB structure has too many hurdles
… packaging Web contact and then integrating [those packages] creates more challenges
Bill: the multiple LMS issue sounds like a good topic for incubation in a CG task force
<Ralph> +1
George: the business side is where each publisher wants to differentiate
… there's no open vehicle for content from multiple publishers
… the things students need to do: draw, create graphs, interact with science experiments -- these are the Web, not EPUB
Cristina: we should separate two topics: reading systems and LMS
… the publishers' market is no longer only content; it is also the platform
… better graphs, better infographic, etc.
<tzviya> +1 cristina
Cristina: it would be useful to get people to use more standards; the platform is part of the business strategy
… the way is to work on the backend, not the frontend
Liisa: to Ivan's point, there is an implementation best practice that could be helpful to a lot of people
… it's not the structure of EPUB that people get caught on; it's the assumptions they make
… such as not expecting margins but then finding them in CSS
… a silly thing: we don't have a consistent way to identify the head of a page
… so each RS implements it differently
… there's some help in the middle that we could give
… that would lead to a better experience and would be easier for a lot of folk to implement
Bill: competition concerns are true for the business folk but the technical folk can be more interested in collaboration
… an activity along the lines of Peter Brantley's Books in Browsers: "Publishing to Platforms"
… involving media and other issues that are not "book" things
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to rs dev
Tzviya: maybe it's time to focus more on the system side of the spec than the publisher side
Tzviya: you'll still see me around
Liisa: thank you, tell us where you land
Tzviya: I will
Chairing the Steering Committee
I/Tzviya: this will be/topic: Chairing the Steering Committee