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DCMI Accessibility Community

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The focus of the work of the Community is to ensure that DC metadata users can describe resources and services in a way that will increase the accessibility of information for everyone. This supports the 'AccessForAll' approach to accessibility that differs from previous reliance solely on good resource design and construction. The AccessForAll approach:

• makes it easier, or possible, to find accessible resources;
• makes it more likely that a resource of use to an individual user will be found, even when it is not generally 'accessible', and
• enables accessibility services to deconstruct resources containing inaccessible material and to replace, augment or transform that material before replacing it in the composite resource and delivering it to the user.

The adaptation of resources is of interest to many users but currently there is no standard way to indicate the adaptability of resources. There are a number of different communities interested in such adaptability e.g. those concerned with:

• local dependence and independence of resources and services;
• internationalisation (multi-lingual and multi-cultural resources);
• accessibility, and
• mobility and ubiquity, etc.

The general aim of the DCMI Accessibility Community has been to develop an application profile for resources and one for an individual user's accessibility needs and preferences so these can be matched. The definition of 'accessibility' is wide to include a range of definitions, particularly including those based on the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The range of resources is also likely to be wide but initially relates to digital resources. The Dublin Core metadata solution will work across all domains and the application profiles may be thought of as 'modules' of metadata, to be combined with other metadata to enhance the opportunities for their accessibility.

All the work done to date has been done in collaboration with others also working on accessibility metadata.

The DCMI Accessibility Community considered the role of metadata to indicate conformance to the well-respected W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. As claims of conformance frequently relate to legal obligations, it has been decided that such metadata is not reliable and as it does not indicate the accessibility of a resource to an individual, such metadata is not specific enough to be of significant value in resource discovery for individuals.

The current work started with a demonstration system built by the ATRC at the University of Toronto. The Inclusive Learning Exchange (TILE) at http://inclusivelearning.ca/ shows how metadata-driven systems can significantly increase accessibility and is undergoing significant implementation. Two metadata profiles for educational users of LOM metadata were developed by IMS Global Consortium: one for describing the needs and preferences of individual users and the other for describing the resources they might want to use (see http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/). This work was then considered by the ISO JTC1 SC36 WG7 and is the first part is due for release in 2008 as an ISO standard. See Framework, Digital Resource Description and Personal Needs and Preferences docs. All this work has been directed towards the educational community.

The first parts of AccessFor All metadata are designed to enable matching of digital resources and services to people's needs and preferences for display, control and content. Others are expected to follow eg to enable matching the accessibility of places and events to people's needs and preferences. This matching is particularly important when users have limitations for any of these, for whatever reason (preferences). It is, of course, essential for some users with physical or cognitive disabilities (needs). Microsoft's research shows that more than 60% of existing users will benefit if digital resource adaptations are possible. Inconvenience and frustration will be lessened if it is possible to find out about resources, or events or places, in advance of arriving at them. We are concerned that the number of people suffering disabilities is increasing as populations around the world get older. If the accessibility of resources, services, events and places are described in standard ways, many more people will be able to find what they need and want.

Discussion about any of the work should be directed to the DC-Accessibility Community's mailing list.

Tasks

Finalise a version of AccessFor All metadata for Dublin Core metadata users

Outstanding Tasks:

• promotion of accessibility metadata
• guidelines for the use of accessibility metadata
• cross-walks from DC to other relevant accessibility element sets

Liaison efforts

• Continue working with related groups and activities
• Encourage involvement of new members/experts

Timeline

The aim is to complete the work as soon as possible. The term should be ready for submission to the DCMI Usage Board in 2008.

Forum

The DC Accessibility Community main mailing list archive is: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/dc-accessibility.html This list is used for open discussion. It is also available for notification of the community of other activites that may be of interest. Practitioners may use it to seek help from their peers.

Recent tasks

• many revisions of a proposal for an application profile module for accessibility of digital resources
• many revisions of the ISO JTC1 SC36 proposal for an ISO standard for accessibility metadata for education
• development of an abstract model for DC Access For All resources and metadata
• production of a namespace for the new terms and vocabularies

Open Issues

The DC-Accessibility Working Group seeks the addition of a term 'accessibility' in order to enable accessibility metadata to be used in the description of resources.

The Working Group's approach to accessibility depends upon not just accessible content (WCAG conformant?) being created in the beginning, with good authoring tools (ATAG conformant), for use with good user agents (UAAG compliant) but also that responsibility for accessible content delivery be taken by the server. This is a shift from earlier approaches which depended solely on WCAG/ATAG/UAAG conformance. It is consistent with other work that aims to provide more device flexibility for users, and so more information mobility. It does not avoid the need for content authoring to be done according to the WCAG Guidelines.

Face-to-Face Meetings

• DC-Accessibility Working Group session at DC 2006 in October 2006
• Many Task Groups meetings took place in 2006 including weekly teleconferences
• DC Working Group meeting in Melbourne Australia in December 7 - 9
• IMS/DC Working Group meeting in New Jersey in November 2005
• ISO JTC1 SC36 meetings in North Carolina USA in September 2005
• DC-Accessibility Working Group sessions at DC 2005 in September 2005
• IMS/DC Working Group meeting in Toronto Canada in July 2005
• IMS/DC Working Group meeting in Sheffield UK in April 2005
• ISO JTC1 SC36 meetings in Tokyo Japan in Febuary 2005
• AltiLab and IMS meetings held in Melbourne Australia in February 2005.
• OZeWAI 2004 - December 2004 in Melbourne, Australia
• IMS/DC Working Group meeting - November in Milton Keynes, UK
• DC 2004 - October 2004 in Shanghai, China
• Semantic Web Advanced Development in Europe/MMI-DC 2004 Copenhagen
• MMI-DC 2004 Brussels
• DC 2003 - October 2003 in Seattle
  Two special sessions were held at the DC 2003 Conference: see http://www.ischool.washington.edu/dc2003/accessibility.html
• DC/INCITS Accessibility Roadmap Meeting - January 2003 in Washington
  There is a report of this meeting at http://www.dc-anz.org/access-roadmap/
• DC 2002 - October 2002 in Florence

Forums

Mailing list

To join or leave:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/dc-accessibility.html

There have been a number of activities of relevance to this Working Group. (If others know of relevant activities, please let us know!)

• Original meeting of interested members at DC 2001, Tokyo, October 2001.
• Meeting of W3C WAI Interest Group and IMS Accessibility Working Group, Melbourne, November 2001.
• Meeting of W3C Authoring Tools WG and IMS Accessibility WG associated with W3C Technical Plenary, Nice, February 2002.
• Meeting at WWW 2002 Accessibility Workshop, Waikiki, May 2002.
• EARL meeting in Bristol, June 24-26, 2002. Meeting Report.
• DC 2002 meeting in Florence, October 13-17. Meeting Report
• DC/INCITS Roadmap meeting in Washington, January 22-23, 2003. Meeting Report
• Release of Guidelines for Accessible Learning in Education by IMS (http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/).
• Release of ACCLIP AccessForAll Metadata Profile and Best Practice Guide for Implementers (http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/).
• Release of ACCMD Accessibility Metadata Overview, Best Practice Guide, XSD, XML Binding and Information Model (http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/).
• Release of draft ISO Committee draft in May 2005: http://jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1024.pdf, http://jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1025.pdf, http://jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1026.pdf.
• Release of W3C Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) 1.0 Schema in September 2005.

Background

Meeting of interested members at DC 2001, Tokyo, October 2001

Members of the Dublin Core Community who met in Tokyo at DC2001 Workshop considered the need for DCMI to demonstrate its concern for accessibility of Web content by exemplifying good accessibility practices and providing a context for others who also take time to make their content accessible.

History

• Date constituted: 2001-10-25
  At the 9th Dublin Core Workshop in Tokyo a small group met to consider interest in forming a special interest group relating to issues concerning web content accessibility.
• Previous working group home page - 2002
• Previous working group home page - 2004
• Previous working group home page - 2005-06-13
• Previous working group home page - 2005-09-16
• Previous working group home page - 2006-01-09
• Previous working group home page - 2006-16-11

Related Work

• W3C/WAI, developing accessibility standards, tests, and EARL, etc.
• IMS, working on metadata about resources and learners and accessibility
• NCAM, accessibility of all media
• INCITS V2, accessibility of devices to a universal remote console (URC).
• CEN/ISSS European Standards Centre and Information Society Standardization System
• WGBH-NCAM - National Center for Accessible Media
• ATRC - Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
• W3C Device Independence, Accessibility and Multimodal Interaction Working Group
• CC/PP - W3C Composite Capabilities and Personal preferences
• TILE - The Inclusive Learning Exchange