- From: Anne Pemberton <apembert@erols.com>
- Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 16:53:01 -0400
- To: <gv@trace.wisc.edu>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Greg, The liberal democrat in me wants to vote for A, but the practical side of me says that B will be necessary. If we go with A, people may take it to extremes and are likely to miss the intent of the guideline. I would even be happy with a sliding ruler that says, for example, that complex text needs to come down some in a simpler version or summary, but it may not be practical to expect a piece written at the 15th grade level (grad school level more or less), to be re-writable down to Anne At 11:18 AM 7/29/01 -0500, Gregg Vanderheiden wrote: >Thanks Al, >Excellent info. > >This raises an interesting question for us. > >If we did have a ruler for complexity of language (one that everyone >agreed with) > >Would we > >a) Put in a rule that says "go as far down that ruler as you can"? > >or > >b) Draw a line on the ruler and say "you must get below that line but >don't need to go lower -- though it would be good if you did"? > >option (c) -- "you must have content that works for all on the rule" >doesn't work since the rules must go down to 0 to include all. > >a) takes us back to the problem of 'no clear criterion' >b) is what is usually done - but is very hard to do without a consensus >rulemaking body. > >What are people thinking? > >A? or B? or C? or ?? > >Gregg >-- ------------------------------ >Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. >Professor - Human Factors >Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis. >Director - Trace R & D Center >Gv@trace.wisc.edu <mailto:Gv@trace.wisc.edu>, <http://trace.wisc.edu/> >FAX 608/262-8848 >For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu ><mailto:listproc@trace.wisc.edu> > > >-----CLIP FROM Original Message----- > > >The idea of grade level as a metric with benefits for accomplishing >accomodation of congnitive differences is quite real. We will likely >rathole >if we try to solve this ourselves but fortunately we don't necessarily >have to >take that on. > >There are professionals pursuing this as we speak. This is an area >where W3C >and the WAI should be prepared to mostly 'follow,' as in "lead, follow, >or get >out of the way." At least one education targeted activity we can look >for >leadership from in defining a "cognitive challenge level, comparable to >what >has been called grade level in the past" is the IMS Project. We are not >competitive with that group in taking on this particular piece of work. >Jutta >and Gregory are working with them on their access metadata schema or >vocabulary. Good to check if there is grade level stuff that can be >borrowed >from IMS in general, or if the access metadata effort has to get that on >the >agenda. > >Compare this approach, where there are alternative sites differing in >grade >level all provided by one authoring activity, with Kynn's concept that >keywords >(metadata) be used as the means to relate material at one grade level >from one >source with material at a different grade level from another source. In >this >case a search or catalog lookup process does the two-dimensional >analysis of >"same topic, better level" to find resources that the user is likely to >find >desirable. > >There is a third approach where one passes a grade level parameter to a >Reef >style view synthesis processor and for example there are explicit >hyperlinks to >explanatory resources attached to tough words and sentences for an >adapted, >appropriate definition of 'tough.' There are inline ways like this to >accomplish grade level accomodation, but they tend to involve setting >thresholds that govern when one technique is applied vs. another >(explicit >glossary link vs. leave it to Atomica). And they have limited ranges >over >which they can accomodate, at the limits of which one has to flop over >the >phase boundary into a qualitatively different strategy. > >Al Anne Pemberton apembert@erols.com http://www.erols.com/stevepem http://www.geocities.com/apembert45
Received on Sunday, 29 July 2001 17:20:54 UTC