Outreach Update

27th May 2005: With my colleage Morag Munro, presented a paper at
"EdTech 2005", the Irish Learning Technology Association Users'
Conference, entitled "Conflict of interests? Can tensions between
accessibility, interactivity and multimedia be overcome?".
Should be available online sometime "soon"...

1st June 2005: Participated in one day seminar organised by
"irl-dean", the Irish "Design-for-all e-Accessibility Network",
on "legislation and e-accessibility".  Good discussion on the
(limited) application of existing and pending Irish legislation
to e-Accessibility in general, including web accessibility.

Separate point/query: As I indicated somewhat crypticaly in my
original introduction to EOWG I am currently working on a project
looking at accessibility of EU e-Government sites and services.
I have now been advised that it is OK to be a bit more
forthcoming about this!  So, the project has been commissioned by
the UK Cabinet Office, in the context of the upcoming UK
presidency of the EU (July - December 2005).  It is looking at
the accessibility of central "e-government" sites and services
across the EU, and also a separate sample of UK local government
organisations. The lead organistion for the study is RNIB; other
partners are AbilityNet and SOCITM (links at bottom of message).
The detailed work is currently in progress, and the the results
should be published in September.  This is a fairly major
project, and will be something of a "flagship" activity of the UK
presidency, so will hopefully attract some significant attention.

Now the query.  One part of the project has involved a
survey/questionaire to be completed about web accessibility
policy and initiatives in each of the 25 EU members states.  We
will shortly be collating/analysing this data.  However, it would
also be useful to have any directly comparable information from
outside the EU.  To some extent we can, and will, gather this
from existing public sources.  But I was wondering if members
of EOWG, from outside the EU, might be willing to try completing
the questionaire also?  If so, perhaps you could let me know and
I will liase directly off-list.

Thanks - Barry.



Some links:

Irl-DEAN: http://www.design-for-all.ie/
RNIB:  http://www.rnib.org.uk/
AbilityNet: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/
SOCITM: http://www.socitm.gov.uk/public/default.htm

Received on Friday, 3 June 2005 09:35:49 UTC