W3Conf: Practical Standards for Web Professionals – Free for Remote Participants!

The W3C are hosting their first conference: “W3Conf: Practical Standards for Web Professionals” which will take on 15-16 November 2011 at the Redmond Marriot Town Center, Redmond, USA. Although the early bird registration fee of $199 for the two day event seems very reasonable I suspect that despite the event’s focus on HTML5 and the Open Web Platform probably being of interest to many readers of this blog, not many will be able to travel to the US to attend this conference (but if you do wish to attend note that the deadline for the early bird registration is 1 November when the fee will go up to $299).

However the event Web site states that “The recordings of the presentations will be freely available” and goes on to add that “During the event, there will be a live stream of the sessions, with English subtitling. After the event, each session will be archived for future reference“.

The following sessions will be held at the conference:

Day 1, 15 November:

• Welcome: Contributing to Open Standards, Ian Jacobs (W3C)
• Testing to Perfection, Philippe Le Hégaret (W3C)
• Community Groups: a Case Study With Web Payments, Manu Sporny (Digital Bazaar)
• Developer Documentation, Doug Schepers (W3C)
• HTMl5 Games
• Web Graphics – a Large Creative Palette, Vincent Hardy (Adobe)
• Modern Layout: How Do You Build Layout in 2011 (CSS3)?, Divya Manian (Opera)
• Shortcuts: Getting Off (Line) With the HTML5 Appcache, John Allsopp (Web Designs)
• The n-Screens Problem: Building Apps in a World Of TV and Mobiles, Rajesh Lal (Nokia)
• The Great HTML5 Divide: How Polyfills and Shims Let You Light Up Your Sites in Non-Modern Browsers, Rey Bango (Microsoft)
• HTML5: the Foundation of the Web Platform, Paul Irish (Google)

Day 2, 16 November:

• HTML5 Demo Fest: The Best From The Web, Giorgio Sardo (Microsoft)
• Shortcuts: Data Visualisation With Web Standards, Mike Bostock (Square)
• Universal Access: A Practical Guide To Accessibility, Aria, And Script, Becky Gibson (Ibm)
• Security and Privacy: Securing User Identities and Applications, Brad Hill (Paypal), Scott Stender (Isec Partners)
• Shortcuts: Touch Events, Grant Goodale (Massively Fun)
• Mobile Web Development Topic: Building For Mobile Devices
• Shortcuts: Modernizr, Faruk Ateş (Apture)
• Browsers and Standards: Where the Rubber Hits the Road, Paul Cotton (Microsoft), Tantek Çelik (Mozilla), Chris Wilson (Google), Divya Manian (Opera)

It was very timely to read about this conference during Open Access 2011 Week, which the JISC, among many other organisations, are supporting. The free access to the talks and resources which will be used illustrates how openness can be used to enhance learning and creativity, in this context for developers who are looking to use Web standards to enhance their services.

The provision of remote access to the conference is also very timely in the context of the JISC-funded Greening Events II project which is being provided by ILRT and UKOLN.    It would be valuable if the conference organisers were able to provide statistics on remote participation during the event.  How many people viewed from the UK, for example, and for how long. It would be interesting to see if the environmental costs of delivering the steaming video and hosting videos and slides for subsequent viewing could be compared with the costs of flying to the US.