1. Finally, Certified Accessible Educational Materials from Publishers
6/27/2011
Finally, Certified Accessible Educational Materials from Publishers
George Kerscher, Ph.D., Chief Innovations Officer, DAISY Consortium; Senior Advisor Benetech
Charles LaPierre, M.Eng., Technical Lead, Born Accessible and DIAGRAM; Benetech
Rachel Comerford, Director of Content Standards, Macmillan Learning
Digital Image and Graphics Resources for Accessible Materials

2. Born Accessible EPUB That Meets the Baseline for Accessibility
6/27/2011
Born Accessible EPUB That Meets the Baseline for Accessibility
George Kerscher
Digital Image and Graphics Resources for Accessible Materials

3. Standards at the Core of Accessibility
6/27/2011
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
HTML 5, CSS, SVG
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
WCAG 2.0
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
EPUB the digital publishing standard
EPUB Accessibility Conformance and Discovery 1.0 Specification
Digital Image and Graphics Resources for Accessible Materials

4. 6/27/2011
IDPF and W3C Merger
For the last three years the W3C has run a Digital Publishing Interest Group
The merger has placed EPUB under the domain of W3C
IDPF members will be given reduced fees for two years
82% of members supported the combination
Digital Image and Graphics Resources for Accessible Materials

5. EPUB within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Adoption of EPUB 3 has been outstanding in most digital publishing sectors
EPUB 3.1 is an approved recommendation
Included is EPUB Accessibility 1.0
Conformance and Discovery Requirements for EPUB Publications
First ever spec to enable accessibility certification
This establishes the baseline
Important: We want to be practical in that publishers should readily be able to produce accessible EPUB from their normal production process

6. Baseline Features
Requires accessibility conformance in the EPUB publication
Builds on WCAG 2.0 with some additional publishing- specific items
in the USA WCAG 2.0 “AA” is generally recommended
“conforms To” metadata pointing to “A,” “AA,” or “AAA” Accessibility metadata must be included
Interestingly: publishers have actively participated in the EPUB Accessibility Spec development and have been updating their production process to support accessibility.

7. W3C DPUB’s ARIA 1.1 Module
The Digital Publishing Interest Group in the W3C has produced an ARIA 1.1 module to help add some Digital Publishing semantics to ARIA
Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.0
This is currently under review and has not yet been adopted as a recommendation
Sample of the proposed new Roles:
doc-abstract
doc-appendix
doc-chapter
doc-introduction

8. Concrete Examples of Some MUSTS
All headings must be marked in the HTML as headings (Critical for navigation)
All textual content must use HTML text markup, e.g., paragraphs, block quotes, list items
All content must be in a logical reading order
Images are marked as decorative, described in surrounding text or captions, or have “alt” text
If you want a fancy heading and use an image, remember to surround the image with the heading markup and use alt text (remember you can do very cool things these days with CSS)

9. Metadata Requirements to Be Compliant
EPUBs wishing to be conformant MUST:
 include accessibility discovery metadata
include the following [schema.org] accessibility metadata
accessMode
accessibilityFeature
accessibilityHazard
accessibilitySummary

10. Supporting Techniques Updated Frequently
Specifications are at a high level and techniques are concrete
WCAG and EPUB techniques are maintained independently of specifications
As support in Reading Systems evolve, the techniques will improve
TTS & Braille: The techniques ensures that Text-to- Speech can be used to present the information. Also, this supports text being sent to a refreshable braille display

11. Accelerating Publisher Adoption: Certification of EPUB Publications
Certify that digital books (and all other publications) meet the Baseline
Self-certification
Sad Story: What happened to Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)?
Would you have a fox guard the henhouse?
DAISY is building the EPUB Accessibility Conformance Checker
Auto checking must be supplemented by human inspection

12. Accessibility metadata supports
Accelerating Publisher Adoption: Conformance and Certification of EPUB Publications
Excellent accessibility metadata required to be present in the EPUB package
Accessibility metadata supports
Born accessible
Find accessible
Buy Accessible
Questions: Any questions on the Standards side?

13. Benetech Certification Pilot
6/27/2011
Benetech Certification Pilot
Charles LaPierre
Digital Image and Graphics Resources for Accessible Materials

14. Born Accessible: Certified by Benetech
Benetech is piloting the certification process
A documented process for certification must be established and followed
Publisher materials are reviewed and remediated
Long term process improvements would be recommended to publishers

15. Certification Metadata in EPUB Publications
 How to find certified content in the future:
certifiedBy: Specifies the name of the party that certified the content. The certifier of the content could be the same party that created the EPUB publication, but can also be a third-party accessibility certifier.
certifierCredential: Identifies a credential or badge that establishes the authority of the party identified in the certifiedBy property to certify content is accessible.
certifierReport: Provides a link to an accessibility report created by the party identified in the certifiedBy property. 
conformsTo: WCAG-A, -AA, or -AAA

16. Tested Software for Reading EPUB
Both the EPUB and the Reading System must be accessible.
A perfectly accessible EPUB with a terrible Reading System does not get you there
Likewise a great Reading System with an inaccessible EPUB yields zero
The answer is to test Reading Systems with perfect EPUBs
It is necessary to test using a wide range of Assistive Technologies
Note: VitalSource Bookshelf at 100%

17. Buy Accessible
Procurement MUST focus on “Buy Accessible”
“Buy Accessible” - Demand Certified Accessible EPUB 3
All content must be certified. Point them to “Certified by Benetech” initiative.

18. Role of DSS Office Supporting Born Accessible
Guide students toward great reading systems and certified accessible content
Support students who need more than what is in the baseline

19. Benetech Pilot – EPUB Accessibility Certification
Currently working with Macmillan Learning, five other publishers, and one conversion vendor
In depth evaluation of a sample of complex EPUB books from each
Generate a detailed accessibility report for each title

20. Sample Pilot: Summary
Title: Road Runner - Not a Myth Publisher: Acme Inc. Author(s): Wiley Coyote Sr. Package Metadata (Required): FAIL Page and Publication: FAIL Page Navigation: PASS Media Overlays Playback: FAIL Overall 1.0 Compliant: FAIL Born Accessible Score: 25.5% Overall WCAG Compliance Reached: FAIL EPUB Complexity Score: 5 - Very Complex

21. Sample Pilot: Born Accessible Scores
Image Accessibility: 39% WCAG FAIL Audio Accessibility: 22% WCAG FAIL Video Accessibility: 0% WCAG FAIL HTML Tags: 29% WCAG FAIL General Accessibility: 29% WCAG FAIL Language: 50% WCAG Level-A Structured Navigation: 17% WCAG FAIL Links: 50% WCAG Level-A Lists: 50% WCAG FAIL Tables: 0% WCAG FAIL Notes: 67% WCAG Level-A Java Script: 0% WCAG FAIL Package Metadata (Optional): 0% DPUB ARIA (Future): N/A Born Accessible Total Score 25.5%

22. Accessibility Pilot Results
6/27/2011
Accessibility Pilot Results
This Table shows a snapshot of the accessibility scores for thirty titles evaluated as of February 10, 2017.
Most of the EPUBs tested failed certification (requiring to meet WCAG-A compliance) with an average score of 64% and an average complexity level of 2.9 out of 5. Trends showed that Links, and Lists were correctly structured -- above 85% -- with Images, Tables, General Accessibility structured poorly (below 60%).
The table is brightly colored with bolded green text cells having a passing grade for the various titles, and any feature scoring below 70% appearing non-bolded in red.
The publishers and titles of the EPUBs were omitted due to confidentiality restrictions. This clearly shows that two of the six participants (one of which represented multiple publishers) had mostly accessible EPUBs but that all had some issue, especially with image descriptions and accessible table support.
Digital Image and Graphics Resources for Accessible Materials

23. Publishers Perspective
Rachel Comerford

24. Process is Everything
Publisher’s processes are at the heart of the Certification

25. How we Integrated New Standards
Get involved in working groups – it’s a chance to share your solutions and learn from others
Standards groups provided specifications but it was up to us to develop implementation guides based on our needs
V1 took 6 months to build
updates are coming out every 2-3 months based on feedback
Developed a validator based on open source resources and our implementation guide
Update with every implementation guide update
Established a checklist for non-automated QA and educated team members on what to look for

26. Sharing Responsibility
Art – Develop all art to have proper contrast, readable text
Design – Ensure read order is clearly indicated
Authors – Provide guidance about pedagogical intention for digital conversion
Editors – Communicate with authors about focus and development
Compositor – Apply publisher standards, give feedback on gaps
Quality Assurance – Automated and manual checking of everything developed

27. Addressing Complexity
Text with markup
Complex image layouts
Marginal elements
Texts contain a large quantity of pedagogical material in the margin
MathML
Reader compatibility is not standard
Expensive and difficult to write alt text
ChemML
Reader compatibility is rare
Graphic Novel
All image text

28. Why Are We Doing This? ‘Certified by Benetech’ advantages
3rd party confirmation of accessibility standards
Assurance for students and adopters
Easy to roll up to administrators
Gives us feedback to pass on to vendors about the quality of their work
Provides internal confidence about the quality of what we’re delivering
Helps identify for schools what errors are addressed and what warnings are relevant
Most importantly: Shows us what we’re missing and what we have left to learn

29. Helpful Resources for Publishers
EPUB Accessibility 1.0 (Specification)
EPUB Accessibility Techniques 1.0 (Supplemental)
WCAG 2.0 (Specification)
BISG: Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing
DIAGRAM Center: Image Description Guidelines
Poet Image Description Training Module

30. Questions? THANK YOU George Kerscher georgek@benetech.org
Charles LaPierre
Rachel Comerford