Accessibility in Digital Libraries Andrew Kirkpatrick CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media October 15, 2003

An Argument for Accessibility >Assertion #1: Everyone needs access to your content. “Now that a large number of Americans regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activites, people who lack access to those tools are at a growing disadvantage” - From “Falling through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion (US Dept. of Commerce report).

An Argument for Accessibility >Assertion #1: Everyone needs access to your content. > Information and services via the Web have transformed our lives. > For people with disabilities, the Web can provide greater independence. Accessing educational content Locating health information Entertainment

An Argument for Accessibility >Assertion #2: Broaden your audience and increase efficiency. > An estimated 52.6 million people (about 1 in 5) of all Americans have a disability that substantially limits a major life activity 12 million blind or visually impaired (4%) 28 million Deaf or hard-of-hearing (10%) 12 million other disabilities (6%)

An Argument for Accessibility >Assertion #2: Broaden your market and increase efficiency. > Accessibly designed sites are more easily used by cell phones, handheld computers, and by people using assistive technologies. > Accessibly designed sites are more machine-readable.

An Argument for Accessibility >Assertion #3: You may have to do it. > Section 504, Section 508 regulations > Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) > State regulations > Other countries (Canada, Australia, United Kingdom…) have laws governing Web accessibility.

Legislation >Section 504 > Applies to student complaints. > "Reasonable accommodation" >Section 508 > Standards related to Web, software, and other electronics and information technologies >Americans with Disabilities Act > Title II – "…services, programs, and activities provided…by State and local governments" > Title III – "Places of public accommodation"

Access NSDL Project >Provides the NSDL community with recommendations, tools and resources to guide the development of a universally designed infrastructure and accessible services and content. >Collaboration between WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) and the Internet Scout Project.

NSDL Accessibility Guidelines >Original plan was to establish a set of guidelines just for NSDL content. >Given the variety of well-recognized guidelines already available, recommendations will be made on the use of existing guidelines instead.

Accessibility Guidelines >W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) > WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) > UAAG (User Agent Accessibility Guidelines) >Section 508 Standards >NCAM > IMS Guidelines for accessible learning > Making Educational Software and Web Sites Accessible

Integrated Accessibility Evaluation Tool >AccessNSDL is working with developers from Watchfire (Bobby) and UsableNet (Lift). >Collection developers will be able to use Bobby and/or Lift to evaluate their sites for accessibility compliance. >IAET will harvest XML output from the evaluation tools, and direct collections developers to appropriate accessibly resources.

Integrated Accessibility Evaluation Tool >Access NSDL is collecting information about the informational needs and development tools of collection developers in order to provide the most useful set of resources possible.

Integrated Accessibility Evaluation Tool

Access NDSL Resource Directory

NCAM's Rich Media Accessibility site

NCAM's Software and Web Guidelines

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines >Developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative at the W3C. >Deal exclusively with Web content. >Emphasis on markup languages. >Offered as recommendations by the W3C, but have been adopted by some institutions as rules.

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines >Developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative at the W3C. >Address access needs for software tools used to access content. > Web broswser > Multimedia player > Other software to view Web content

Section 508 Regulations >Federal law which sets standards for electronic and information technology, including Web content and standalone applications. >Web content standards are a slightly- altered subset of the WCAG. >Standalone application standards incorporate parts of the UAAG.

SALT Guidelines >Developed as part of the SALT project at NCAM. >Focused on learning applications. >Address specific issues for users of learning systems: > Common access issues > What LMS developers can do > What content providers can do > Examples & resources

Making Educational Software and Web Sites Accessible Guidelines >Developed as part of the PIVoT project at NCAM. >Share information about making an online educational resource accessible. >Includes a wide variety of best practice examples and links to available resources.

References >accessnsdl.org >ncam.wgbh.org >Guidelines > > > > >

Contact >Andrew Kirkpatrick > Project Manager, Access to Rich Media Project CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media 125 Western Avenue Boston, MA > > >