Page History

Implementation Details 

Progress has been made incrementally to address parts of the recommendation, especially as reflected in the At-Large website revamp.

Regarding taxonomy development, the new At-Large website has implemented a taxonomy of 18 policy topics to automatically tag, organize, enable the search, and improve the navigation of ALAC policy advice statements and other At-Large documents. This taxonomy list expands on the taxonomy used to categorize ICANN public comment proceedings. The GAC has referenced the At-Large taxonomy and adopted a similar list to categorize the GAC Advice in their new website, which is under construction. Furthermore, ICANN has hired a new library and information sciences specialist to review all types of documentation within ICANN and develop a harmonized taxonomy strategy conducive to the document management efforts of all SOs/ACs.

To aid newcomers in ICANN’s policy activities, the new At-Large website has dedicated topic detail pages (example) that explain the history and background of 18 policy issues, their relevance to end users, contributions from At-Large to those issues, and ways to get involved. Those pages also automatically curate ALAC advice in the chronological order, as well as news and further learning resources. Specifically, to help newcomers take part in ICANN public comment, the At-Large website is integrated with the public comment page on icann.org and automatically pulls in new proceedings (example). This function eliminates the manual work from ICANN Staff to publicize these proceedings among At-Large members. Furthermore, visitors can track deadlines and development status of an ALAC advice and know when to provide input. There are also information pages that explain the ALAC procedure to develop advice. Lastly, the website has a responsive design so that users can review and search policy work via mobile devices.

The various improvements of the public comment page on icann.org fulfill some of the requirements in this recommendation. An user can click on the ‘Follow Update’ button to track changes to a public comment proceeding and get notifications. To facilitate multilingual engagement, more and more public comment materials have become available in 6 UN languages and Portuguese in a timely manner. The new Upcoming Public Comment Proceedings section is helpful for early engagement planning. The public comment page on icann.org will soon go through an overhaul to become more user friendly.

To improve the cross community policy activities, the ICANN IT department, Productive Team, and the Policy Development Support team have been coordinating with the ICANN Community to develop and test out working group membership management tools. As a result of this effort, the Global Enrollment Portal will soon be launched to facilitate the signup process of working groups across SOs/ACs.  

It still remains a challenge to identify the ultimate Policy Management Process System that meets all the requirements in the recommendation. To search for such system or tool, the At-Large Technology Taskforce invited LANIC representatives to present their customized web tools that support policy development. More testing of tools are being planned, including the eXo Platform.

Next Step 

The At-Large Community will continue collaborating with relevant ICANN Staff departments in the search for and development of the Policy Management Process System. ICANN Staff are encouraged to actively reach out to At-Large to solicit input on existing projects and efforts that tackle the recommendation requirements.