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Orientation for newcomers to IEEE 802.1 sessions

Working Group (WG) structure

The Working Group (WG) has both elected and appointed officers:

  • Chair: elected
  • Vice-Chair: elected
  • Recording Secretary: appointed by the Chair

The Chair can make appointments to help run the WG, currently:

  • Executive Secretary: handles the planning of sessions
  • Liaison Secretary: manages incoming and outgoing liaisons
  • Email exploder maintenance
  • Website maintenance

The Chair can also appoint the Chairs, Vice-Chairs and Secretaries of subgroups. The 802.1 leadership team is comprised of these officers and appointees. The Chair, in consultation with 802.1 leadership, has discretion on the number of subgroups and their focus. The Chair also appoints project editors.

IEEE 802.1 has two types of subgroups:

  • Task Groups (TGs) handle Project Authorization Requests (PARs) and Criteria for Standards Development (CSD) giving rise to projects developing Standards, Recommended Practices or Guides. Currently, 802.1 has three TGs:
    • Maintenance TG
      • Develops revisions, corrigenda and some amendments
      • Handles maintenance requests
    • Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) TG
      • Develops standalone standards (including TSN profiles), amendments
      • Currently has two joint projects on profiles of the TSN toolset.
    • Security TG
      • Develops standalone standards, amendments
  • Pre-PAR subgroups do not develop Standards, Recommended Practices or Guides but help TGs in their developments.
    • Nendica
      • Industry Connection Activity
      • IEEE 802-wide activity as encompasses wired and wireless context
      • Rechartered in July 2021 to allow discussion of new 802.1 proposals that could lead to projects in the various 802.1 TGs
    • YANGsters
      • IEEE 802-wide activity as develops YANG guidelines applicable in 802.1 and other 802 WGs
      • Determines what specifics apply to 802 standards as YANG is specified in IETF
      • Supports editors in their YANG developments

Contact information for the 802.1 leadership team and editors: https://1.ieee802.org/wg-leadership/

Meeting vs Session

  • Meeting
    • A contiguous period of time for WG, TG or another subgroup to conduct business
    • Attendance is recorded on a meeting-by-meeting basis in IMAT (https://imat.ieee.org/)
    • Meeting attendance used to calculate session attendance credit: IMAT adds up individual attendance during a session to determine a session attendance credit.
    • Minutes provided per meeting only if it the meeting is not held within a session
  • Session
    • A collection of meetings
    • Either interim or plenary
      • 3 plenary sessions a year: Mar, Jul, Nov
        • Only time the WG meets: all subgroups only meet together (and with other 802 WGs) at a plenary session
        • Typically, where votes take place on motions
        • Meetings in parallel to other 802 WGs, and usually in collocation
      • 3 interim sessions a year: Jan, May, Sep
        • At least one interim is held between two sessions
    • Minutes provided per session

Participants

Anyone may participate. The WG is individual rather than entity based.

A participant must:

  • Register for the session if needed and pay any attendant session registration fee
    • The registration fee helps mitigate the cost of hosting an in-person session
    • Unpaid registration fees accumulate over time.
  • Reuse their existing IEEE account, or create a new one if they don’t already have one.
    • Free to sign up
    • Minimal information required
    • Provides access to IMAT and to other IEEE tools
  • Subscribe to the main 802.1 Email list to:
    • Be notified of WG letter ballot announcements, session announcements and other announcements
    • Participate in miscellaneous discussions (including technical)
    • Receive privileged access to WG private documents

Additional guidance is available per IEEE and IEEE SA guidelines, rules and bylaws, as indicated at the beginning of every meeting and in agendas:

  • Copyright policy
  • Patent policy
  • Participants policy
  • Decorum
  • IMAT attendance
  • Webex guidelines

COVID-19 variations

  • Mar 2020 plenary session
    • Cancelled – electronic meetings instead
    • No attendance credit
  • May 2020 – Sept 2021 interim sessions
    • Electronic instead of in person
    • No registration fee
    • Attendance credit
  • Jul 2020 – Mar 2021 plenary sessions
    • Electronic instead of in person
    • No registration fee
    • Attendance credit
    • Losses and gains announced
  • Jul 2021 – Mar 2022 plenary sessions
    • Electronic instead of in person
    • 802 Executive Committee hybrid trial at IEEE headquarters
    • Registration fee
    • Attendance credit
    • Losses and gains announced
  • July 2022 plenary session
    • Hybrid: in person with remote attendance
    • Meetings on in-person schedule
    • Remote access on best effort basis for formal, scheduled WG/TAG/EC meetings, but not for informal ad hoc meetings
    • Registration fee
    • Attendance credit
    • Losses and gains will be announced

Schedules

  • Plenary and interim sessions
    • Normally only in person
    • WG schedule posted per session (e.g., Jul 2022 plenary session)
      • Prepared by 802.1 leadership team
      • Posted one month in advance of the session
      • WG meetings shown in white text over a blue background
  • Inter-sessions weekly electronic meetings
    • Vary by subgroup and project
    • Schedule of inter-session meetings provided as follows:
      • 802.1 calendar divided by 802.1 subgroup
      • 802 calendar for all 802 WGs
      • One may subscribe to any subgroup calendar of interest using ICS files provided at these links

Session attendance

  • Session registration
    • Solely for in-person/hybrid session host
  • Session attendance credit
    • Determined based on how a participant records in IMAT their attendance to in-session meetings. To obtain a meeting attendance credit:
      • Log in at https://imat.ieee.org/
      • Select the ongoing session
      • Select the attended meeting among those highlighted in yellow
        • In so doing, a participant is asserting that by the end of this ongoing meeting they will have been present in the meeting for 75% or more of the meeting time.
        • It is not legitimate to claim attendance at a meeting of two different WGs occupying the same time period.
    • Tracked per participant and per session in the Recording Secretary’s database to:
      • Build a participant’s ability to become a voting member
      • Maintain a participant’s voting membership (mixed with WG letter ballot returns)
    • Independent of session registration and session registration fee payment; however:
      • A participant may lose their voting membership if they do not pay their registration fees
    • A participant will qualify as having attended a session if their session attendance credit is 75% or more of the meetings set up in IMAT.
      • Typically:
        • Meetings are split morning and afternoon during a session
        • Between 8 and 10 meetings held during a session
        • 75% attendance is then attending 6 of 8 or 8 of 10 meetings
          • Some meetings count as extra
  • IMAT also used to determine attendance in the minutes of an inter-session electronic meeting

Session agendas

  • Subgroup Chairs provide detailed subgroup session agendas two weeks in advance of a session. To locate them:
    • Select the WG schedules category on the main 802.1 webpage
    • Select a given session
    • Underneath the WG schedule, links are provided to the detailed session agendas for each listed subgroup:
      • Maintenance
      • Nendica
      • Security
      • TSN
      • YANGsters
  • Also posted on the Agendas & Minutes Email list stds-802-1-minutes

Agenda & Minutes Process

IEEE 802 Executive Committee (EC) Consent Agenda Process

The WG prepares EC agenda items typically at the beginning of, and towards the end of the standardization process for a given project, for different reasons:

  • PAR to the New Standards Committee (NesCom)
  • PAR extension and/or PAR modification
  • Liaison to international bodies like ITU-T
  • Standards Association balloting
  • Draft to the Review Committee (RevCom – for recommendation to the IEEE SA Standards Board to approve for pre-publication)

Agenda items provided sufficiently in advance of the EC closing plenary meeting can go to the EC consent agenda:

  • Gives members of the EC time to review in advance
  • If there is no EC discussion of a consent agenda item, it is approved when the agenda is approved at meeting start

Typically, at an in-person plenary session:

  • EC agenda item deadline:
    • Wednesday 13:00, local time of the plenary session
  • Supporting documentation posted on Mentor deadline:
    • Thursday 13:00, local time of the plenary session
  • Notice sent to IEEE 802 Recording Secretary and IEEE 802 LMSC reflector
  • Working Group vote results provided by email deadline:
    • Friday 9:00, local time of the plenary session

WG voting member

  • 802.1 voting membership is an obligation, rather than a privilege
    • Obligation: active participation in the work of the WG is expected
    • Includes participation in WG ballots and qualifying session attendance
  • If a participant cannot commit to the work, they should reconsider whether it is appropriate to become a voting member
    • No need to be a voting member to be able to submit comments on drafts
    • No need to be a voting member to make contributions
    • No need to be a voting member to otherwise participate
  • WG voting member status
    • Requires qualifying attendance at 2 of the last 4 plenary sessions
      • Qualifying attendance at an interim session can be substituted for a plenary session attendance
    • Acquired during the next plenary session, if the participant emailed the WG Chair and Recording Secretary indicating intention to become a voting member
    • Retained by both
      • Qualifying attendance at 2 of the last 4 plenary sessions; and
      • Responding to 2 of last 3 WG letter ballot series (i.e., WG ballot series and ePolls)
        • ePolls are votes on motions held between plenary sessions and are announced on the main 802.1 Email list

Voting in the Working Group

  • All participants, i.e. anyone, can vote in:
    • Straw polls: help determine consensus
    • TG ballots on drafts that are yet to progress to WG balloting
    • Subgroup ballots or motions as used in Nendica
  • WG voting members are the only participants who can vote in:
    • WG ballots
    • WG-internal motions (including ePolls)
    • WG-external motions for the EC
    • Elections
  • SA members are the only participants who can vote in SA ballots
  • The WG uses various voting methods:
    • Consensus as determined by the Chair in the absence of objection
      • Typically used for administrative matters
    • In person raising of hands (before DVL became available – see below)
    • Email voting for TG and WG ballots announced on the 802.1 Email list
      • Need to respond as instructed in the announcement email
      • Not following instructions may result in a vote not being counted
    • myProject voting for SA ballots
    • Mentor voting for ePolls announced on the 802.1 Email list
      • ePolls have a quorum requirement and are administratively onerous
      • Every ePoll is effectively a roll call
    • Webex voting for Straw Polls opened to all participants
    • Direct Vote Live (DVL) voting for electronic motions opened to WG voting members only
      • DVL is faster than counting raised hands
      • DVL is accessible only to eligible WG voting members
      • DVL votes are private
      • DVL will be used at IEEE 802.1 closing plenary meetings
      • DVL access can be tested during the orientation meeting held 07:00-08:00 ET on the Monday of an 802.1 plenary session

Documents

Previous editions of this logistics orientation were presented as slides in March 2022 , November 2021, July 2021, …

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