Accessibility metadata (was Re: Linking to binary URLs)

Hi Al
    We're in agreement about linking to neutral files.
    I'd like to follow on from your final comments.


...
>> (BTW It's just occured to me that using a tool like Bobby
>> across the web archive of this message could / should give an
>> accessibility warning - with the obvious implications of what
>> is a website, and can accessibility checked be turned off for
>> certain areas).
>
>Two examples of things for which there is currently no way to do
>a Bobby-like automatic check:
>
> - what is a site?


We need site mapping / web collection metadata to define sites.    Microsoft
submitted a proposal on Web Collection using XML a couple of years ago.
However it's now likely RDF will be used.  Netscape have demonstrated a
sitemap in Mozilla
(see
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/what-is-rdf-may1998/tools/i
ap-html/sld004.htm for a screen dump - GIF only but there is a link to the
text version!)

Tim Berners-Lee at WWW7 talked about the need for machine-readable metadata.
I think there is a need for accesibility metadata.  Metadata will be
important in providing personalised views of the web.  If there is
accessibility metadata, it should be possible to provide end users with an
accessible view of a website.  Similarly in a search engine a user could
specify accessibility criteria and only results satisfying those criteria
displayed in the results set.

Is anyone working on this?  I raised this at the WAI meeting in Peterborough
but nobody there seemed to be involved in the metadata area.

Thanks

Brian

------------------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, England, BA2 7AY
Email:  b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk     URL:    http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Homepage: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly.html
Phone:  01225 323943            FAX:   01225 826838

Received on Thursday, 24 September 1998 04:41:55 UTC