outreach update

Vision Australia Foundation joins XForms project as accessibility partner

Vision Australia Foundation is part of a consortium led by the Distributed
Systems Technology Centre Pty Ltd at the University of Queensland, with
SpeedLegal Pty Ltd, Victorian Society for Computers and the Law Inc and the
W3C Australia Office, that has been given a Commonwealth Government grant
to develop an emerging technology (XForms) and its implementation in the
Australian economy. The grant has come from the Information Technology
Online (ITOL) Program

This is an important project that positions the Vision Australia Foundation
web accessibility team at the forefront of web technologies and their
implementation in the economy in a way that fundamentally includes people
with disabilities. Implemented properly, XForms will enable people using
assistive technology to undertake complex data exchanges in business to
business and business to government transactions. This technology will
become a basic building block of ecommerce and egovernment in the next few
years and we have the opportunity to ensure that it is implemented with
accessibility in mind.

The ITOL project will reduce the costs of regulatory compliance by small
and medium sized business by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of
electronic business and government information transfer.

The objective of the project is to trial the use of new generation web
forms (the World Wide Web Consortium's XForms) in a range of business
environments and pilot their implementation with at least three
organisations in diverse environments including the Queensland Department
of Innovation and the Information Economy, the Victorian Civil and
Administrative Tribunal and the Victorian Society for Computers and the
Law. XForms could be used in applications such as business licences.

The outcome of the project will be three fully tested implementation models
that can be adopted widely by Australian business and government. SMEs
(small-medium enterprises) will benefit from the introduction of web forms
through reduced costs of regulatory compliance and improved efficiencies as
part of day-to-day business.

More details are at
http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/media_releases/2003/May/itol.htm

Brian Hardy
_________________________________
Dr Andrew Arch
Manager Online Accessibility Consulting, Vision Australia Foundation
Ph 613 9864 9222; Fax 613 9864 9210; Mobile 0438 755 565
http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/webaccessibility |
http://www.it-test.com.au/ | http://www.dc-anz.org/

Member, Education & Outreach Working Group,
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/

Received on Friday, 30 May 2003 08:30:16 UTC