Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

The W3C recently announced an exciting new incubator group – The Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA) – that is certain to have a significant impact on helping web standards and best practices find their way into classrooms around the world. The mission of OWEA is to bring together companies, schools, and organizations involved in shaping the education of Web professionals to explore the issues around the topic of Web development education and create solutions for improving it.

Many organizations like Opera, Adobe, Yahoo, WOW, and WaSP InterAct have been diligently working to develop curricula and outreach programs to help schools better prepare their students for a career on the Web. OWEA will bring many education initiatives together in a broad collaborative.

“ The mission of the Open Web Education Alliance Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to help enhance and standardize the architecture of the World Wide Web by facilitating the highest quality standards and best practice based education for future generations of Web professionals through such activities as:

• fostering open communication channels for knowledge transfer
• curriculum sharing between corporate entities, educational institutions, Web professionals, and students ”

- The Open Web Education Alliance Charter

OWEA’s origins can be traced back to Web Directions North in Denver in February, where WaSP emeritus and CSS Samuri John Allsopp brought together educators, industry experts, and representatives of the W3C to explore ways of uniting the various education efforts already underway. Four months later, OWEA has transformed from a collection of ideas at a meeting to a W3C incubator group. The Web Standards Project has a strong representation in OWEA, and will be contributing content from InterAct to the initiative.

This is a huge step towards improving web education! Want to stay informed? Subscribe to the WaSP InterAct Twitter feed.

Your Replies

#1 On June 29th, 2009 8:00 am Carlos Rodriguez replied:

This is a great initiative which I hope makes its way into classrooms very soon.

#2 On June 29th, 2009 8:48 am John replied:

We are delighted to hear that OWEA is committed toward advancing the cause of web standards worldwide and are working toward bring other institutions together to increase access to high quality educational opportunities for all.

We are going to subscribe to the WaSP InterAct Twitter feed to seek further information.

#3 On June 30th, 2009 2:37 am Claire Kay replied:

This is brilliant news, I have been trying to encourage some of my local colleagues to produce compliant sites, with little success.
Starting at the bottom with education will be the best way to produce designers of the future who understand the necessity of compliant coding.
Quality is vital for the future of the web, good luck with the venture, I look forward to joining your twitter feed.

#4 On June 30th, 2009 9:56 am Ruben Rojas replied:

It would want to participate.

I teach to design Web in an institute of design in Venezuela and would want to be part of this group thus to distribute the standards.

My brother and me worked by standard and the accessibility for the Web.

Recently my brother has done his first collaboration publishes in the translation of the bar WAVE for Firefox and the pages of tool WAVE online to spanish.

It is the best initiative than I have seen during year 2009 and I believe that it is necessary to implement it, thanks.

#5 On July 5th, 2009 12:56 pm Susan Hallam replied:

One of the biggest challenges small business owners are web designers are not sufficiently skilled to create a technically correct site, utilising the most appropriate solutions to meet the client’s requirements.

This initiative is to be applauded, and I would like to add it certainly has been a long time in coming!

I hope the alliance includes representatives from the world of search, usability, as well as reflecting the needs of the small business community.

#6 On July 6th, 2009 3:58 pm Albi replied:

Great initiative.
It would want to participate.

#7 On July 7th, 2009 2:16 am Tom replied:

Web education is the future. I hope the initiative will be successful and helps to bring the fundamental knowledge into the classrooms all around the world. Even in poor countries.

#8 On July 9th, 2009 1:43 pm Mark replied:

This is a great initiative! Looking forward to participating where I can.

#9 On July 11th, 2009 9:42 am Witze replied:

You should try to consult education politicans with this intention.

#10 On July 18th, 2009 12:11 am Tom Kaiser replied:

Helpful for all. Thank you. Great initiative!

#11 On July 18th, 2009 5:34 pm Paola Mujer replied:

Is really nice idea, i like than the education go on with all, because the education is the future. I hope like Susan say´s than this is for all the world how can have the chance to make better the things.

#12 On July 20th, 2009 1:31 pm Ajeet replied:

Seeing as I am a connoisseur of the makings of the web, this has rubbed off on the kids as well.

I’m excited to see what this will provide to our school aged children, and, I’m curious at what grade level will this be offered in the classroom.

I wonder how long it will take before GOOGLE sticks its head into the mix, or, maybe they will create their own web education incubator on their own.

At any rate, I hope this moves along quickly. Thanks for the article.

#13 On July 20th, 2009 8:43 pm Canada Immigration replied:

It is a great to hear that OWEA is working hard to help enhance and standardize the architecture of the World Wide Web. That will help to enhance the quality of education. This will lead to a huge improvement in solving the development issues world wide.

#14 On July 23rd, 2009 2:36 pm Billyboylindien replied:

Yes, gret idea. I hope we’ll have more initiatve like this!

#15 On July 27th, 2009 3:37 am Gutschein replied:

Thank you for scaling up education quality. Tell me how to participate and I will do that. Can I cite your article in a german newspaper for digital innovations?

#16 On September 15th, 2009 2:23 am Oliver Zoellich replied:

A very good initiative and a very good idea. The Web can make a huge difference in the world.
Can I help?

#17 On September 21st, 2009 1:02 am ramen replied:

Great initiative, always good news to hear that projects like this are launched! Keep up with the good work, can’t wait to see what is next for dinner! Web education is really needed in today’s economy, great initiative!

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