CERN Web Structures

There are three structures of Web activities at CERN: the Web Policy Group, the Divisional Webmasters Group and the Web Office:

a) The Web Policy Group (WPG)

sets the overall guidelines of the laboratory with respect to publishing on the Web. It is composed of a small number of appointed persons. They represent the target audiences and monitor the effectiveness of the structures.

b) The Divisional Webmasters Group (DWG)

provides a forum for discussion. It formulates a coherent code of practice and encourages its adoption and provides feedback to the WPG from the information provider's perspective.
There is one member per Division, appointed by the Division Leader.
All material published on the Web by the staff of a Division should always be approved by their Divisional Webmaster before publication on the Web.

c) The Web Office.

 The CERN Web Office is the central coordination point for Web activities in the Laboratory. It is physically located in building 53. The Web Office is the operational unit providing services to CERN and its users. It runs the central server (www.cern.ch) where it hosts user sites, manages the top level of the CERN pages, and runs the intranet search engine. It registers authors to its machines, allocates space on the server, selects preferred authoring tools, and more.

CERN is a member of the WWW Consortium founded in 1994 with the help of CERN and the European Commission, now run by INRIA, Keio University and MIT/LCS. Its goals are to direct the development of open standards for the evolution of the World Wide Web technologies. The Web Office is the official representative of CERN at the W3C and grants others at CERN access to the member-only information available at W3C.

The official mandates of these bodies was published in the official news of the weekly bulletin of 25 March 1996:

H.Wenninger informed the Board that he had asked M.Sendall (ECP) to set up the proposed mechanisms (Policy Group and Technical Committee) described in his report entitled "Note on CERN World Wide Web Policy", (see report of the Management Board meeting of 25 January 1996 in Weekly Bulletin No 6/96 for a summary of the recommendations.) which the Management Board had discussed briefly at its January 1996 meeting, and initially to chair a World Wide Web Policy Group. He further announced that R.Cailliau (ECP) had been appointed the CERN Webmaster and would also establish and head a Web Office to ensure support for and co-ordination of WWW matters. In addition. E.Lillestøl (PPE) would work closely with them on use of the Web with a view to improving public awareness and understanding of CERN and high-energy physics in general and to setting up and directing an editorial team to that end.