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About CalConnect

Introduction
Goals
Structure
CalConnect Members
Press Releases
Policies
Document Availability
Membership Information
Membership Application
Events and Activities
Technical Committees
Liaisons and Partnerships

Introduction

The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium is focused on the interoperable exchange of calendaring and scheduling information between dissimilar programs, platforms, and technologies. The Consortium's mission is to promote general understanding of and provide mechanisms to allow interoperable calendaring and scheduling methodologies, tools and applications to enter the mainstream of computing. An overview presentation is available at this link: CalConnect, Calendaring Interoperability and Calendaring Standards. A review of Calendaring standards and standards-related activities to date may be found here: Calendaring Standards.

The Consortium's major activities are:
  • Promote calendaring and scheduling to the information technology industry and the general public
  • Promote and support collaboration between Consortium members to achieve and improve interoperability
  • Conduct interoperability testing events ("Interops") where vendors may bring candidate applications and products and determine their degree of conformance and implementation of relevant calendaring and scheduling standards
  • Promote design and implementation of open calendaring and scheduling standards
  • Report to standards bodies on the accuracy and completeness of calendaring and scheduling standards as determined in open interoperable testing sequences
  • Organize and conduct Technical Committees, Roundtables, and other Consortium activities in pursuit of its goals
The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium was incorporated in the State of California as a California Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation at the beginning of 2004, and is recognized as a 501(C)6 tax-exempt mutual benefit association by the Federal government.


Background

Under the auspices of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) significant work has been done on Calendaring and Scheduling standards in recent years, in particular iCalendar (RFC 2445), iTIP (RFC 2446), and iMIP (RFC 2447), together with work on the Calendaring Access Protocol (CAP) draft and the the CalDAV Calendar Server draft. The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium will build upon this work by promoting the widespread adoption and implementation of these and future Calendaring and Scheduling standards and the general acceptance and use of interoperable Calendaring and Scheduling among the internet-using community.


Membership

Membership in the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium is open to any organization interested in furthering the goals of the Consortium upon submission and acceptance of a membership application and payment of the appropriate dues. The Consortium invites members from
  • Producers and vendors of Calendaring and Scheduling applications and products
  • Open source organizations interested in Calendaring and Scheduling implementations
  • Academic Institutions
  • Customers interested in Calendaring and Scheduling and interested in supporting the goals of the Consortium and influencing the direction of technology evolution
  • Standards-setting organizations
  • Interested individuals

Steering Committee and Technical Committees

The technical affairs and direction of the Consortium will be directed by a Steering Committee made up of representatives chosen from Consortium members. In addition, the Consortium will establish Technical Committees as necessary, open to all members of the Consortium and headed by chairs from Consortium members. Technical Committees will have a well-focused charter and a specific timeframe in which to accomplish their work. Among the topics suggested for Technical Committees are:
  • develop requirements for existing Calendaring and Scheduling standards
  • identify needs for extensions to existing Calendaring Standards or for new standards
  • develop requirements statements for such standards
  • provide business case statements, requirements, etc. to the appropriate standards-setting organization for standards development
  • develop test scripts to extend the capabilities available to developers at Interops

Interoperability Testing Events

The primary external events held by the Consortium are "Interops" -- Interoperability Testing Events where developers of Calendaring and Scheduling products and applications gather to test their code's interoperability and conformance to the Calendaring and Scheduling Standards. The Consortium expects to hold between three and four Interops each year. Interops are open to both members and non-members of the Consortium; however members of the Consortium receive a significant discount on the participation fees.


Roundtables

Consortium Roundtable meetings may include physical meetings of Technical Committees if they desire, a Steering Committee meeting if needed, and an all-hands meeting of Consortium members to review ongoing work and develop new initiatives. Consortium Roundtables may be co-located with Interops but are members-only.


Work Products

Work in progress is restricted to Consortium member participants. However, all completed work products of the Consortium are intended to be publicly and freely available and posted on the Consortium website.


Standards Setting

The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium does not intend to be a standards-setting organization itself. Instead it intends to provide direction and influence in the calendaring and scheduling community by identifying and stating needs and requirements and progressing that information into the appropriate standards-setting organizations for development as standards. The Consortium believes that participation in the requirements identification and development process by a broad range of interests including developers, customers, and academic interests will allow the development of requirements and related statements with a very high degree of credibility and content.



CalConnectSM is a Service Mark of The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium. © 2008 The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium