Jennifer Sutton's Introduction

Greetings, EOWG:

As you know, I've been participating on the EOWG calls during the 
last few weeks. I haven't been able to post an introduction until now.


Let me say what a pleasure it is to be working with you.  I've been 
monitoring several W3C activities for a while with an eye toward 
choosing an area where my skills would fit best.  Given my background 
in writing, EOWG makes good sense.

I've had a wide-ranging career but have primarily been self-employed 
since 2000.  Before then, of most significance to EOWG, I spent five 
years at the University of Oregon where I completed all course work 
toward the Ph.D. in English. I frequently taught composition, and I 
certainly honed my presentation skills.

My focus since 2000 has been on supporting the provision of 
accessible information for people with print disabilities, whether 
that means information that's posted to the Web or whether it means 
accessible books and magazines distributed off-line. In one way or 
another, I've worked for most organizations in the U.S. related to 
the implementation of the DAISY specification, including the DAISY 
Consortium (1), CAST, Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 
Bookshare.org, and the National Library Service for the Blind and 
Physically Handicapped (NLS).  In addition, I often collaborate with 
usability experts to conduct Web site testing and demonstrations for 
usability and accessibility evaluations.  I'm self-employed because I 
prefer variety in my work.

As I imagine most of you know, the Digital Accessible Information 
SYstem (DAISY) specification is based on open Web standards, 
including XML and SMIL.  DAISY offers a navigable rich reading 
experience for a range of content including text, audio, and/or 
synchronized text and audio.

When I worked for the DAISY Consortium, I was the Web site 
coordinator from 2002 -- 2004.  During that time, I wrote the minutes 
for many of the z39.86 Maintenance Committee meetings, although an 
NLS representative was the Chair of the Consortium then.  I worked 
for both organizations simultaneously.

More recently, I worked with the DAISY Consortium to collect the 
requirements for the next version of the standard (2), and I 
conducted a survey related to braille production from DAISY content 
(3). I've written for the American Foundation for the Blind's 
publication, _AccessWorld_, on several occasions, and my most recent 
article discussed access to podcasts(4).

I live in California, just outside of San Francisco.  I'm originally 
from the Washington DC area, so I travel East at least once a 
year.  In addition to conducting Web site testing, I provide 
part-time technical support for NLS's digital download service. One 
of the reasons I am interested in assisting the EOWG is to contribute 
to writing projects that will make a substantive difference to 
further accessibility worldwide, rather than focusing on the U.S., as 
much of my current work does.

I look forward to continuing to work with you.  One day, I will post 
a link to a picture worth seeing, Sharon.

Notes:

1.  The DAISY Consortium:
http://www.daisy.org

2. daisy Requirements Gathering:
http://www.daisy.org/z3986/requirements/

3. Braille-in-DAISY A Survey of the State of the Art, January, 2008:
http://www.daisy.org/projects/braille/braille_in_daisy_state_of_the_art_survey.html

4. Podcasting Content Available Anytime, Anywhere - AccessWorld, 
September, 2006:
http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw070508

Best,
Jennifer

Received on Saturday, 27 June 2009 22:30:32 UTC