The mission of the Audio Working Group is to define a client-side script API adding more advanced audio capabilities than are currently offered by audio elements. The API will support the features required by advanced interactive applications including the ability to process and synthesize audio streams directly in script.

Chairs: Olivier Thereaux, Alistair MacDonald
W3C Staff Contacts: Doug Schepers, Thierry Michel
Scheduled to end: 2013-02-28

The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group is chartered to maintain and support the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 W3C Recommendation, and develop ATAG 2, a second version of these authoring tools accessibility guidelines.

Chair: Jutta Treviranus
W3C Staff Contact: Jeanne Spellman
Scheduled to end: 2013-06-30

The mission of the Browser Testing and Tools Working Group is to produce technologies for use in testing, debugging, and troubleshooting of Web applications running in Web browsers.

Chair: Wilhelm Joys Andersen
W3C Staff Contact: Michael(tm) Smith
Scheduled to end: 2013-12-31

The mission of the group is to develop and maintain CSS.

Chairs: Daniel Glazman, Peter Linss
W3C Staff Contacts: Bert Bos, Chris Lilley
Scheduled to end: 2013-09-30

The mission of the Device APIs and Policy Working Group is to create client-side APIs that enable the development of Web Applications and Web Widgets that interact with devices services such as Calendar, Contacts, Camera, etc. Additionally, the group will produce a framework for the expression of security policies that govern access to security-critical APIs (such as the APIs listed previously).

Chairs: Frederick Hirsch, Robin Berjon
W3C Staff Contacts: Dominique Hazael-Massieux, Dave Raggett
Scheduled to end: 2013-07-31

The mission of the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) is to develop strategies, and awareness and training resources, to educate a variety of audiences regarding the need for Web accessibility and approaches to implementing Web accessibility.

Chair: Shawn Henry
W3C Staff Contact: Shawn Henry
Scheduled to end: 2013-06-30

The main objective of the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Working Group is to develop a format that allows efficient interchange of the XML Information Set.

Chairs: Takuki Kamiya, Michael Cokus
W3C Staff Contact: Carine Bournez
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG) is to develop techniques and resources to facilitate the evaluation and repair of Web sites with regard to their conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, and to facilitate testing across all three WAI guidelines also including the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines.

Chair: Shadi Abou-Zahra
W3C Staff Contact: Shadi Abou-Zahra
Scheduled to end: 2013-06-30

The mission of the Forms Working Group is to develop specifications to cover forms on the Web, producing a system that scales from low-end devices through to the enterprise level.

Chairs: Leigh Klotz, Jr., Steven Pemberton
W3C Staff Contact: Philippe Le Hégaret
Scheduled to end: 2012-03-31

The mission of the Geolocation Working Group is to define a secure and privacy-sensitive interface for using client-side location information in location-aware Web applications.

Chair: Lars Erik Bolstad
W3C Staff Contact: Matt Womer
Scheduled to end: 2011-12-31

The mission of the Government Linked Data (GLD) Working Group is to provide standards and other information which help governments around the world publish their data as effective and usable Linked Data using Semantic Web technologies.

Chairs: George Thomas, Bernadette Hyland
W3C Staff Contact: Sandro Hawke
Scheduled to end: 2013-05-31

The mission of the HTML Working Group is to continue the evolution of HTML (including classic HTML and XML syntaxes).

Chairs: Sam Ruby, Paul Cotton, Maciej Stachowiak
W3C Staff Contact: Michael(tm) Smith
Scheduled to end: 2014-12-31

The mission of the Internationalization Core Working Group is to enable universal access to the World Wide Web by proposing and coordinating the adoption by the W3C of techniques, conventions, technologies, and designs that enable and enhance the use of W3C technology and the Web worldwide, with and between the various different languages, scripts, regions, and cultures.

Chair: Addison Phillips
W3C Staff Contact: Richard Ishida
Scheduled to end: 2011-12-31

The mission of the Math Working Group is to facilitate and promote the use of the Web for mathematical and scientific communication. The main purpose of the Working Group is to improve and extend the functionality of the MathML 2.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation (W3C Recommendation, 21 October 2003) in light of several years of experience of large-scale deployment by many individuals and organizations.

Chairs: Patrick D F Ion, Robert Miner
W3C Staff Contact: Bert Bos
Scheduled to end: 2012-03-31

The mission of the Media Annotations Working Group is to provide an ontology designed to facilitate cross-community data integration of information related to media objects in the Web, such as video, audio and images.

Chairs: Soohong Daniel Park, Joakim Söderberg
W3C Staff Contact: Thierry Michel
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the Media Fragments Working Group is to address temporal and spatial media fragments in the Web using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI).

Chairs: Erik Mannens, Raphaël Troncy
W3C Staff Contacts: Thierry Michel, Yves Lafon
Scheduled to end: 2011-12-31

The mission of the Model-Based UI Working Group is to develop standards as a basis for interoperability across authoring tools for context aware user interfaces for Web-based interactive applications.

Chair: Gerrit Meixner
W3C Staff Contact: Dave Raggett
Scheduled to end: 2013-11-30

The primary goal of this group is to develop W3C Recommendations that enable multimodal interaction with various devices including desktop PCs, mobile phones and less traditional platforms such as cars and intelligent home environments. For rapid adoption on a global scale, it should be possible to add simple multimodal capabilities to existing markup languages in a way that is backwards compatible with widely deployed devices, and which builds upon widespread familiarity with existing Web technologies. The standards should be scalable to enable richer capabilities for subsequent generations of multimodal devices.

Chair: Deborah Dahl
W3C Staff Contact: Kazuyuki Ashimura
Scheduled to end: 2013-07-31

The OWL Web Ontology Language is playing an important role in an increasing number and range of applications, and is the focus of research into tools, reasoning techniques, formal foundations and language extensions. The mission of the OWL Working Group is to produce a W3C Recommendation that refines and extends OWL.

Chairs: Ian Horrocks, Alan Ruttenberg
W3C Staff Contacts: Sandro Hawke, Ivan Herman
Scheduled to end: 2012-12-31

The mission of the Points of Interest Working Group is to develop technical specifications for the representation of "Points of Interest" information on the Web. Points of Interest data has many uses, including augmented reality browsers, location-based social networking games, geocaching, mapping, navigation systems, and many others. In addition, the group will explore how the AR industry could best use, influence and contribute to Web standards.

Chairs: Andrew Braun, Alex Hill
W3C Staff Contact: Matt Womer
Scheduled to end: 2011-12-31

The mission of the Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG) (Member Confidential PFWG) is to increase the support for accessibility in Web specifications. This mission flows from the W3C mission of promoting universal access and interoperability across the Web.

Chair: Janina Sajka
W3C Staff Contact: Michael Cooper
Scheduled to end: 2013-06-30

The mission of the Provenance Working Group is to support the widespread publication and use of provenance information of Web documents, data, and resources. The Working Group will publish W3C Recommendations that define a language for exchanging provenance information among applications.

Chairs: Luc Moreau, Paul Groth
W3C Staff Contact: Sandro Hawke
Scheduled to end: 2012-10-01

The mission of the RDB2RDF Working Group is to standardize a language for mapping relational data and relational database schemas into RDF and OWL.

Chairs: Ashok Malhotra, Michael Hausenblas
W3C Staff Contacts: Ivan Herman, Eric Prud'hommeaux
Scheduled to end: 2012-09-30

The mission of the RDFa Working Group is to support the developing use of RDFa for embedding structured data in Web documents in general. The Working Group will publish W3C Recommendations to extend and enhance the currently published RDFa 1.0 documents, including an API. The Working Group will also support the HTML Working Group in its work on incorporating RDFa in HTML5 and XHTML5 (as a followup on the the currently published Working Draft for RDFa 1.0 in HTML5).

Chairs: Ben Adida, Manu Sporny
W3C Staff Contact: Ivan Herman
Scheduled to end: 2012-10-01

The mission of the RDF Working Group, part of the Semantic Web Activity, is to update the 2004 version of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) Recommendation. The scope of work is to extend RDF to include some of the features that the community has identified as both desirable and important for interoperability based on experience with the 2004 version of the standard, but without having a negative effect on existing deployment efforts.

Chairs: David Wood, Guus Schreiber
W3C Staff Contacts: Sandro Hawke, Ivan Herman
Scheduled to end: 2013-01-31

The mission of the Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) is to increase the incorporation of accessibility considerations into research on Web technologies, and to identify projects researching Web accessibility and suggest research questions that may contribute to new projects. The desired outcome of more research in Web accessibility and awareness of accessibility in mainstream Web-related research should decrease the number of potential barriers in future Web-related technologies.

Chair: Simon Harper
W3C Staff Contact: Shadi Abou-Zahra
Scheduled to end: 2013-06-30

The Working Group is to specify a format for rules, so they can be used across diverse systems. This format (or language) will function as an interlingua into which established and new rule languages can be mapped, allowing rules written for one application to be published, shared, and re-used in other applications and other rule engines.

Chairs: Christian de Sainte Marie, Christopher Welty
W3C Staff Contact: Sandro Hawke
Scheduled to end: 2012-12-31

The mission of the SOAP-JMS Binding Working Group is to produce a W3C Recommendation for how SOAP should bind to a transport that supports the Java™ Message Service (JMS) api by refining the “SOAP over Java™ Message Service 1.0” Member Submission. In the case of SOAP 1.2 this binding must use the SOAP Protocol Binding Framework defined by the XML Protocol Working Group.

Chair: Eric Johnson
W3C Staff Contact: Yves Lafon
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the SPARQL Working Group is to develop SPARQL, the query language for the Semantic Web. The scope of its current charter is to extend SPARQL technology to include some of the features that the community has identified as both desirable and important for interoperability based on experience with the initial version of the standard.

Chairs: Lee Feigenbaum, Axel Polleres
W3C Staff Contact: Sandro Hawke
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the SVG Working Group is to continue the evolution of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies.

Chairs: Erik Dahlström, Cameron McCormack
W3C Staff Contacts: Doug Schepers, Chris Lilley
Scheduled to end: 2011-07-31

The mission of the SYMM Working Group is to continue W3C’s work on synchronized multimedia that started with SMIL 1.0, SMIL 2.0. Its main contribution is extending the functionality contained in the current SMIL 2.0 Recommendation.

Chair: Dick Bulterman
W3C Staff Contact: Thierry Michel
Scheduled to end: 2012-03-31

The mission of the Timed Text Working Group is to produce a W3C Recommendation for media online captioning by refining the W3C specification Timed Text (TT) Authoring Format 1.0 — Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP) based in implementation experience and interoperability feedback.

Chair: Sean Hayes
W3C Staff Contact: Philippe Le Hégaret
Scheduled to end: 2012-03-31

The mission of the Tracking Protection Working Group is to improve user privacy and user control by defining mechanisms for expressing user preferences around Web tracking and for blocking or allowing Web tracking elements.

Chairs: Aleecia M. McDonald, Matthias Schunter
W3C Staff Contact: Nick Doty
Scheduled to end: 2012-07-31

The mission of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group is to produce guidelines for the development of accessible user agents: software that retrieves and renders Web content, including text, graphics, sounds, video, images, etc. In particular, the groups seeks to support the implementation of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 , and to collect requirements for a subsequent version of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines.

Chairs: Jim Allan, Kelly Ford
W3C Staff Contact: Jeanne Spellman
Scheduled to end: 2013-06-30

The mission of the Voice Browser Working Group, part of the Voice Browser Activity, is to enable users to speak and listen to Web applications by creating standard languages for developing Web-based speech applications. The Voice Browser Working Group concentrates on languages for capturing and producing speech and managing the dialog between user and computer, while a related Group, the Multimodal Interaction Working Group, concentrates on additional input modes including keyboard and mouse, ink and pen, etc.

Chair: Daniel Burnett
W3C Staff Contacts: Kazuyuki Ashimura, Matt Womer
Scheduled to end: 2012-01-31

The mission of the Web Application Security Working Group is to develop security and policy mechanisms to improve the security of Web Applications, and enable secure cross-site communication.

Chairs: Brad Hill, Eric K. Rescorla
W3C Staff Contact: Thomas Roessler
Scheduled to end: 2013-03-31

The mission of the Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group is to provide specifications that enable improved client-side application development on the Web, including specifications both for application programming interfaces (APIs) for client-side development and for markup vocabularies for describing and controlling client-side application behavior.

Chairs: Charles McCathieNevile, Arthur Barstow
W3C Staff Contact: Doug Schepers
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group is to develop guidelines to make Web content accessible for people with disabilities. In particular, the group is responsible for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation.

Chairs: Loretta Guarino Reid, Gregg Vanderheiden
W3C Staff Contact: Michael Cooper
Scheduled to end: 2013-06-30

The Web Events Working Group is chartered to develop specifications physical multitouch interface events (including such related interface as pen-tablets, electronic whiteboards, and similar input devices), as well as for higher-level events which encapsulate touch interfaces, keyboard input, mouse control, and other input devices, into a single simple, consistent model that defines user actions (such as zoom-in, scroll, redo, undo, and so forth).

Chair: Arthur Barstow
W3C Staff Contact: Doug Schepers
Scheduled to end: 2012-09-30

The mission of the Web Notification Working Group, part of the Rich Web Client Activity, is to produce specifications that define APIs to generate notifications to alert users. A Notification in this context may be displayed asynchronously and may not require user confirmation. Additionally, events are specified for managing user interactions with notifications.

Chair: Anne van Kesteren
W3C Staff Contact: Michael(tm) Smith
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the Web Performance Working Group is to provide methods to measure aspects of application performance of user agent features and APIs.

Chairs: Arvind Jain, Jason Weber
W3C Staff Contact: Philippe Le Hégaret
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group is to define client-side APIs to enable Real-Time Communications in Web browsers. These APIs should enable building applications that can be run inside a browser, requiring no extra downloads or plugins, that allow communication between parties using audio, video and supplementary real-time communication, without having to use intervening servers.

Chairs: Harald Alvestrand, Stefan Håkansson
W3C Staff Contacts: Dominique Hazael-Massieux, François Daoust
Scheduled to end: 2013-02-28

The mission of the Web Services Policy Working Group is to produce W3C Recommendations for Web Services Policy by refining the “WS-Policy” Member Submission, addressing implementation experience and interoperability feedback from the specifications, maximizing compatibility with existing policy assertions and considering composition with other components in the Web services architecture.

Chairs: Paul Cotton, Christopher Ferris
W3C Staff Contact: None
Scheduled to end: 2008-12-31

The mission of the Web Services Resource Access Working Group is to produce W3C Recommendations for a set of Web Services specifications by refining the WS-Transfer, WS-ResourceTransfer, WS-Enumeration, WS-MetadataExchange and WS-Eventing Member Submissions , addressing existing issues in those specifications, implementation experience and interoperability feedback from implementers and considering composition with other Web services standards. The submitted specifications define SOAP-based mechanisms for interacting with the XML representation behind a resource-oriented Web Service, accessing metadata related to that service, as well as a mechanism to subscribe to events related to that resource.

Chair: Bob Freund
W3C Staff Contact: Yves Lafon
Scheduled to end: 2011-06-30

The mission of the Web Fonts Working Group is to develop specifications that allow the interoperable deployment of downloadable fonts on the Web. Existing specifications (CSS3 Fonts, SVG) explain how to describe and link to fonts, so the main focus will be the standardisation of font formats suited to the task, and a specification defining conformance (for fonts, authoring tools, viewers, etc.) all the technology required for WebFonts.

Chair: Vladimir Levantovsky
W3C Staff Contact: Chris Lilley
Scheduled to end: 2012-03-31

The mission of the XML Core Working Group is to maintain and develop as needed core XML specifications.

Chairs: Paul Grosso, Norman Walsh
W3C Staff Contact: Liam Quin
Scheduled to end: 2013-01-31

The mission of the XML Print and Page Layout Working Group is to develop and maintain specifications for the styling and formatting of XML documents, specifically the XSL-FO (Extensible Style Language Formatting Object) specification, and to provide review and expertise to other Working Groups as needed.

Chair: Liam Quin
W3C Staff Contact: Liam Quin
Scheduled to end: 2013-01-31

The XML Processing Model Working Group is defining XProc, an XML-based language that allows the creator of any given XML document to indicate that operations on that document should be performed in a specific order for a particular result, and if so, how to apply those operations.

Chair: Norman Walsh
W3C Staff Contact: Liam Quin
Scheduled to end: 2012-01-31

The mission of the XML Query Working Group is to provide flexible query facilities to extract data from XML and virtual documents, such as contents of databases or other persistent storage that are viewed as XML via a mapping mechanism, on the Web.

Chair: Jim Melton
W3C Staff Contacts: Liam Quin, Carine Bournez
Scheduled to end: 2013-01-31

The mission of the XML Schema Working Group is to maintain and enhance the XML Schema Definition Language, an XML vocabulary for defining document classes by specifying structural and non-structural constraints on documents. XML Schema is similar to, but more expressive than, the notation given in XML 1.0 and SGML for document type definitions.

Chair: David Ezell
W3C Staff Contact: Liam Quin
Scheduled to end: 2013-01-31

The mission of the XML Security Working Group is to take the next step in developing the XML security specifications.

Chair: Frederick Hirsch
W3C Staff Contact: Thomas Roessler
Scheduled to end: 2012-06-30

The mission of the XSL Working Group is to define and maintain a practical style and transformation language capable of supporting the transformation and presentation of, and interaction with, structured information (e.g., XML documents) for use on servers and clients. The language is designed to build transformations in support of browsing, printing, interactive editing, and transcoding of one XML vocabulary into another XML vocabulary. To enhance accessibility, XSL is able to present information both visually and non-visually. XSL is not intended to replace CSS, but will provide functionality beyond that defined by CSS, for example, element re-ordering.

Chair: Sharon Adler
W3C Staff Contacts: Liam Quin, Carine Bournez
Scheduled to end: 2013-01-31