Re: DC2002 and Accessibility Metadata

Perhaps it is worth a few examples.

In Australia,
we have a large education program that is developing resources for 
distribution on line.
All of these must be certified to meet certain standards of 
accessibility. This metadata will be used to monitor the 
accessibility of all resources and changes to the resources will be 
checked to ensure the resource does not become inaccessible through 
changes.

The IMS Global Project has produced guidelines for accessibility and 
descriptions of users needs that will be encoded in metadata. Those 
implementing the IMS system will be matching users with resources, 
and expect to rely on the metadata, right down to the level of items 
in online testing activities.

In Canada, bank users are issued with smart cards that contain their 
needs as users. These can be used to transform the  ATM's output so 
that it is accessible for the user.

Technology on does so much however. It is still the case that some of 
the evaluation has to be done by humans, and this is why it is so 
important that the metadata proposed for accessibility contains the 
identity of the person (or agent) asserting the level of 
accessibility or accessibility standards compliance of the resource. 
Note: the latter is much easier than the former but that is why we 
are anxious to get to work on this.

Liddy

Received on Saturday, 14 September 2002 19:14:26 UTC