LTO WCAG translation into Catalan Submission Intent

Dear Sirs,

For many years the Librarianship and Documentation Faculty [1] at the
University of Barcelona has been deeply involved in the promotion of,
and research on, web accessibility. The Librarianship and Documentation
Faculty has even integrated accessibility as a core part of the contents
of its Masters degree on Digital Content Management, being a pioneer in
the Spanish and Catalan university environment
(http://www.ub.edu/biblio/master-en-gestio-de-continguts-digitals/objectius-de-lensenyament.html). 


Taking into account the work that was done by Faculty members on the
2001 Catalan translation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG), version 1.0, (http://www.w3.org/2006/11/WCAG_ca/), the
Librarianship and Documentation Faculty of the University of Barcelona
now aims at becoming the Lead Translation Organization for translating
the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.0, into Catalan.

The translation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG),
version 1.0 has become a widely disseminated and key document among the
Catalan speaking community for raising awareness about web accessibility.

The Catalan language is the official language of Catalonia along with
Spanish. Catalan is an official 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 13,5 million people. Of these, it is estimated that 9
million are able to speak it, while 11 million can understand it.

In order to collaborate, coordinate and support the revision of the
translation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version
2.0, into Catalan, the Librarianship and Documentation Faculty of the
University of Barcelona has contacted various stakeholders interested
in, or affected by, these guidelines:

• AIPO [2] Computer-Human Interaction Association (Associació Interacció
Persona-Ordinador): This entity, 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 master’s degree in computer-human
interaction. The Association has the accessibility of interactive
systems as one of its main work axes.

• Foundation for Community Development [3] (Fundació Desenvolupament
Comunitari): This foundation is an entity with fifteen years of
experience in the field of public policies of social interest and that
works with other national and international organizations like CEBSD
(Combined European Bureau for Social Development), EURALAT or FEANTSA.
The foundation offers services and technological counselling to both
public and private entities in order to aim for an improvement in the
accessibility of their spaces and activities, including web accessibility.

• Foundation "Manuel Caragol" for the Blind [4] (Fundació de Cecs Manuel
Caragol): This private foundation that covers the whole of Spain is very
active in promoting assistive technology for visually impaired persons.
Some activities that it offers are: free software distribution, training
about assistive technology software, and support to the blind users.

• ONCE and ONCE Foundation [5] (ONCE i Fundació ONCE): ONCE and its
Foundation have worked for 70 and 20 years, respectively, in the
integration of persons with disabilities - especially blind and low
vision people- in every aspect of their lives. In the past years ONCE
and its Foundation have also been focusing their efforts on the field of
accessibility of new technologies in general and of the Internet.

• SIDAR Foundation [6]: The Sidar Foundation holds the Iber-American
Seminar on Disability and Accessibility on the Net (Seminario
Iberoamericano sobre Discapacidad y Accesibilidad a la Red (SIDAR)):
This Seminar, formed 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. SIDAR Foundation has worked for 12
years in the accessibility field in Spain and Iberoamerica and has
conducted research, developed applications and taught designers and
programmers, promoting accessibility in the Information Society since
there, becoming a reference in the Latino American world.

• Technosite [7]: Technosite is a member of the ONCE Foundation Group
(see above). Technosite has worked for 10 years on the accessibility
field in Catalonia. Technosite has collaborated in many European work
groups as well as with the W3C.

• TERMCAT [8]: This consortium is made up of the government of
Catalonia (“Generalitat de Catalunya”), the Institute 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 applied in both 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.

• World Wide Web Consortium (Spanish Office)[9]: This consortium has
agreed to give backing to the translation but cannot actively
participate in the validation, as no one in the organization has a
command of Catalan.

All these different stakeholder institutions mentioned above, brought
together to collaborate on the translation, offer a broad range of
expertise, experience and counsel: an official representative of content
(W3C Consortium); an official representative for the language in use
-Catalan- (TERMCAT); local and national organizations working along with
persons with disabilities (ONCE, Manuel Caragol Foundation and
Technosite); public sector or private entities concerned with
accessibility issues (SIDAR and Fundació Desenvolupament Comunitari);
and research and teaching institutions and industry (AIPO). All of them
have been invited, and have agreed, to participate in, collaborate with
and validate the translation of WCAG 2.0 to Catalan.

We believe that we comply with all the requirements stated in the base
document for official translations
(http://www.w3.org/2005/02/TranslationPolicy) in order to become a Lead
Translation Organization for preparing the Catalan version of WCAG 2.0.

Barcelona, 24th April 2009

-- 

The first draft of the translation could be found in:
http://bd.ub.es/twcag in Microsoft Word and Open Office Write formats.
After we arrived at a consensus about the linguistic aspects we will 
write the final version in HTML format, and seek again for comments 
through the discussion list.

-- 
[1] Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació
C/Melcior de Palau 140
08014 Barcelona
Tel: 934035770
Fax: 934035772
bibdoc@ub.edu
http://www.ub.es/biblio
According to [http://www.gencat.cat/catalunya/cat/llengua.htm]
[2] AIPO
c/Campus de Cartuja s/n
Facultad de Psicología
Granada
Tel. (34) 973702714
http://www.aipo.es
[3] Fundació Desenvolupament Comunitari
Via Laietana, 54, 4t 3a
08003 Barcelona
Tel. (+34) 932680477
Fax (+34) 932680139
info@fdc.cat
http://www.desenvolupamentcomunitari.cat
[4] Fundació Manuel Caragol
Calle Girona, 78, 3º 3ª
08009 Barcelona
Tel. (+34) 93653909
http://www.funcaragol.org/
[5] ONCE
C/ Sepúlveda, 1
08015 Barcelona
http://www.once.es
[6] Fundación SIDAR
C/ Sancho Dávila 35
28028 - Madrid
Tel: (+34) 917257147
Fax: ( +34) 913614493
direccion@sidar.org
http://www.sidar.org/
[7] Technosite
Edificio Windsor
Vía Augusta, 2 bis 5ª planta
08006 Barcelona
Tel: 932387132
Fax: 934150462
http://www.technosite.es/en/default.asp
[8] TERMCAT
Diputació 119, 5ª
08015 Barcelona
Tel: 934526161
Fax: 93451 6437
informacio@termcat.net
http://www.termcat.net/
[9] W3C Oficina España
Parque Científico Tecnológico de Gijón
Cabueñes S/N
33203 Gijón, Asturias