WCAG 1.0 official translation to Catalan LTO submission of intent

For a number of years the Librarianship and Documentation Faculty at the 
University of Barcelona [i] has been involved in promoting web 
accessibility, both through its standard course offering and through 
research and dissemination activities.  An early example of this 
involvement was the 2001 Catalan translation of the Web Content 
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 1.0, that was prepared by three 
Faculty members (http://www.ub.es/biblio/bid/06w3c.htm).  This document 
has been widely disseminated among the Catalan speaking community on the 
Internet.

Recently the World Wide Web Consortium has established a new translation 
policy for its documents [http://www.w3.org/2005/02/TranslationPolicy] 
that sets out a validation process for translations to become official, 
thereby helping to avoid a fragmentation of W3C standards.

Catalan is the language of Catalonia. It has the category of official 
language along with Spanish, which is official throughout the Spanish 
State. Catalan is also the language of an extensive area covering the 
eastern part of the Spanish State (the Balearic Islands, Valencia, and a 
part of Aragon -the Franja de Ponent or Western Marches-), Andorra, 
where it is the only official language, the south of France (the 
so-called Northern Catalonia) and the Italian city of Alghero. As a 
whole, the Catalan language is spoken in a territory of 68.000 km² 
inhabited by 11 million people. Of these, it is estimated that 7,5 
millions are able to speak it, while 10 million can understand it [1].

The Librarianship and Documentation Faculty of the University of 
Barcelona University is interested in becoming the Lead Translation 
Organization for translating the Web Content Accessibility 
Guidelines(WCAG), version 1.0, into Catalan.

In order to coordinate the revision of the translation, the 
Librarianship and Documentation Faculty of the University of Barcelona 
has contacted various stakeholders interested in, or affected by, these 
guidelines:

* Spanish Office of World Wide Web Consortium [ii]: This consortium has 
agreed to give backing to the translation but can not actively 
participate in the validation, as no one in the organization has a 
command of Catalan.

* ONCE Foundation (Fundació ONCE) [iii]: The ONCE Foundation for 
Cooperation and Social Integration of Persons with Disabilities, created 
in February 1988 by an agreement of the General Council of ONCE 
[National  Organisation for the Blind in Spain] the Foundation serves as 
an instrument for cooperation and solidarity on the part of blind 
persons in Spain toward other communities of disabled persons in order 
to improve the conditions of their lives.  The main objective of the 
ONCE Foundation consists of carrying out programmes for integration into 
the labour force --training and employment for persons with 
disabilities- and for universal accessibility for overcoming all types 
of barriers.  Since its creation in 1988, the ONCE Foundation has 
provided support to some 20,000 projects, presented by individuals and 
legal entities, amounting to over 1,100 million euros. In the past three 
years the Foundation has also been focussing its efforts on the field of 
accessibility of new technologies in general and of the Internet, which 
is a paradigm of communication and communication/information 
technologies.  As such, the ONCE Foundation --among other activities-- 
is a member of the Governing Committee of WAI (Web Accessibility 
Initiative) and of the Advisory Committee of W3C.

* SIDAR Foundation [iv]: The Sidar Foundations that holds the 
Iber-American Seminar on Disability and Accessibility on the Net 
(Seminario Iberoamericano sobre Discapacidad y Accesibilidad a la Red 
(SIDAR)): This Seminar, constituted in 1997, is composed of experts in 
new technologies and accessibility, representatives of institutions and 
associations dealing with disabilities, technological companies, public 
sector, and individuals interested in the field. The main goal of the 
Sidar Foundation is to conduct research and activities leading to the 
development of an accessible and inclusive Information Society. As its 
main goal, the SIDAR aims to stimulate web accessibility design 
(universal design) and to promote the presence of "disability" on the 
Internet. This entity has disseminated the WAI guidelines widely, 
especially in Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

* Foundation "Manuel Caragol" for the Blind (Fundació de Cecs Manuel 
Caragol)[v] : This private foundation that covers the whole of Spain is 
very active in promoting assistive technology for visually impaired 
persons. Some activities are: free software distribution, training about 
assistive technology software, and support to the blind users.

* Computer-Human Interaction Association (Associació Interació 
Persona-Ordinador (AIPO)) [vi]:  This entity, also Iber-American in 
scope, brings together teachers, researchers and companies working in 
the area of computer-human interaction. AIPO has promoted teaching 
programs in usability and accessibility in Spain through the creation of 
various electronic resources for providing teaching support and through 
the establishment of a specific masters degree in computer-human 
interaction. The Association organizes an annual international congress 
in the field.
 

* TERMCAT [vii]: This consortium is made up of the government of 
Catalonia ("Generalitat de Catalunya"), the Institut of Catalan Studies 
("Institut d'Estudis Catalans"), which acts as the academy of the 
Catalan language, and the Consortium for Linguistic Standardization 
("Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística"). As a leading center in 
the field of terminology, TERMCAT works to guarantee the quality and 
availability of resources and working methods to be put into practice in 
the public and private sectors. The Center also promotes the 
participation and involvement of the entire society in all its 
activities in order to motivate, within a multilingual scenario, the 
development of terminology in Catalan and to contribute to the general 
progress of this language in all social settings.

These different stakeholder institutions, brought together to 
collaborate on the translation, offer a broad range of expertise and 
experience: an official representative of content (W3C Consortium); an 
official representative for the language (TERMCAT); local and national 
organizations working with persons with disabilities (ONCE); public 
sector entities and individuals concerned with accessibility (SIDAR and 
Manuel Caragol Foundation); and research and teaching institutions and 
industry (AIPO). All of them have been invited, and have agreed, to 
participate in the translation of WCAG 1.0 to Catalan. The translation 
has the technical backing of the Linguistic Services at the University 
of Barcelona as well.

As established by the W3C translation policy, and given that the 
document to be translated forms part of the WAI guidelines, the first 
step of this project will be the translation into Catalan of the basic 
glossary of WAI documents [http://www.w3.org/WAI/glossary/basic.html].

We believe that we comply with all the requirements stated in the base 
document for official translations in order to become a Lead Translation 
Organization for preparing the Catalan version of WCAG 1.0. We also wish 
to express our intention to translate WCAG 2.0 guidelines as soon as 
they become an approved W3C recommendation.

Barcelona, 27th February 2006

[1] Text taken from [http://www.gencat.net/catalunya/cat/llengua.htm]

[i] Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació
c/Melcior de Palau 140
08014 Barcelona
Tel. 93 4035758
Fax. 93 4025770
Tel.: 93 403 57 58 - Fax: 93 403 57 72
bibdoc@ub.edu
http://www.ub.es/biblio

[ii] W3C Oficina Española
Edificio CTIC
Parque Científico Tecnológico de Gijón
33203 GIJÓN
ASTURIAS • ESPAÑA
Tel: +34 984 39 06 16
Fax: +34 984 39 06 12
email: info@w3c.es
www.w3c.es/

[iii] Fundació ONCE
c/ Sebastian Herrera, 15
Madrid
http://www.fundaciononce.es
dae@fundaciononce.es

[iv] SIDAR
Attn. Emmanuelle Gutiérrez
Sancho Dávila 35
28028 Madrid
España
Tel. 91 7257147
Fax. 91 3614493
http://www.sidar.org
direccion@sidar.org

[v] Fundació de cecs Manuel Caragol
c/ Girona, 78, 3r, 3ª
08009 Barcelona
Tel: +34 93 2653909
E-mail: mail@funcaragol.org

[vi] AIPO
c/Campus de Cartuja s/n
Facultad de Psicología
Granada
http://www.aipo.es

[vii] TERMCAT
Diputació 119, 5ª
08015 Barcelona
Tel. 934526161
Fax. 93451 6437
http://www.termcat.net/
informacio@termcat.net

Received on Monday, 27 February 2006 13:31:15 UTC