Figure ???: A metadata model based on WCAG
In Tokyo in October 2001, at the DC 2001 Conference, the author convinced a group of participants to set up a working group with the following charter:
To provide a forum to:
- to consider the role of advice to DCMI about the accessibility of its products - website, tools and recommendations - and report on a strategy for ensuring that DC recommendatiojs and information are accessible in the future
- to determine the relationship between accessibility (evaluation and repair) descriptions and DC descriptions? - and report on an appropriate way to represent accessibility information in DC
- To promote the use of Dublin Core in identifying accessible resources as part of resource discovery - and conduct a half day workshop at WWW2002 in conjunction with other accessibility promotion groups (Nevile, 2002).
The original aim as stated was:
We want to convey a statement that there are appropriate multiple versions of content, within the same resource, so that everyone who has the resource will have access to a suitable transformation of it (Nevile, 2002).
In fact, this would be written slightly differently now - as the location of the alternatives need not be the same as that of the original and not everything would be 'transformed', but the sentiment was OK.
There was also reference to:
Equivalence - a special notion
Accessibility communities consider that some content can be available in alternative formats but some is more than this, it is equivalent, i.e. for some users the alternative will be not merely interpretation of the original but suitable to be used instead and simultaneously - see definitions at http://www.w3c.org/WAI (Nevile, 2002).
This, and several other ideas were challenging for a community which at that time was used to thinking of a web page as a single entity, even if they recognised that is was a composition of parts, and anyway they were mainly concerned with discovery of the composite object, not the parts, and did not have thoughts about alternative composititons of pages.
Members of the Dublin Core Community who met in Tokyo at DC2001 Workshop considered the need for DCMI to demonstrate its concern for accessibility of web content by exemplifying good accessibility practices and providing a context for others who also take time to make their content accessible. The following image shows the process whereby a web resource can be tested for accessibility, and how ERL (the W3C Evaluation and Repair Language) might be used to capture the semantics of such a report (Nevile, 2001).
At WWW2002 in Hawaii (April 2002), the author convened a workshop on accessibility and in the notes for that, taken by Kelly Cahill, it was reported from the afternoon session devoted to accessibility metadata, that:
Metadata should not only to inform user if the website is accessible but also should be informative enough that user can find information they desire. Websites shouldn't shut out a disabled person just because it is not completely accessible (example: wheelchair and restaurant). Judy pointed to the misuse of PICS (the Platform for Internet selection) and how it had become a censorship tool. She commented that people with disabilities do not want to be told to what they can or cannot have access. They like to be able to decide whether or not to make the effort, depending upon personal choice. Liddy pointed out that PICS itself was not a censorship tool but an interesting application that made it possible for users to activate preferences from their own devices. Stu Weibel added that PICS was useful for people who wanted to make personal choices at the client end. Charles said it was important to realise that it was the use of PICS on proxies that amounted to externally imposed censorship, and that was what users did not like (Cahill, 2002).
At that workshop, Charles McCathieNevile introduced the use of EARL in this context, claiming it had some advantages that should be considered:
Why would you use EARL?
Integrating tools (using Bobby and other approved evaluation tools together)" (Cahill, 2002)
IMS started an accessibility working group to develop a set of guidelines for educators. This project, known as SALT, was undertaken in collaboration with CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media in Boston. The author participated in this work and the guidelines were published as the "IMS Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning Applications" with editors Cathleen Barstow and Madeleine Rothberg of NCA (Barstow C & Rothberg, 2002)
The next project for IMS was to define a set of metadata elements for describing learner accessiblity needs and preferences to be known as the "IMS Learner Information Package Accessibility for LIP - Version 1 Final Specification" (Nevile et al, 2003). This work was done with as much exposure as possible to ensure that what was being developed would be suitable for use by a range of communities. Significantly, it included the DC Accessibility Working Group, the CEN-ISSS Learning Technologies Workshop, and others. A set of documents was published but they are now under review (see below). These documents were published in June 2003. The idea was that for the IMS community, the new profile could be used as an extension to the established IMS Learner Information Profile.
The corresponding work, for describing resources that would be used to match users' needs and preferences, was then the focus of IMS work. This work was more closely allied with work due to be done in the CEN/ISSS LTSC group and traditional work done by DCMI, in this case by the Accessibility Working Group. After some time, docuemnts were developed and published by IMS as the "IMS AccessForAll Meta-data Specification - Version 1 Final Specification" documents (Nevile et al, 2004).
The original work for the two matching profiles was undertaken by the ATRC at the University of Toronto. They developed an application called TILE (see below).
The process of development for AccLIP and AccMD was as open as was possible. A widely distributed invitation to participate in an international summit, posted prior to the January 2004 meeting in Switzerland, named as participants:
> IMS Accessibility Working Group (http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility)
> CEN-ISSS Learning Technologies Workshop (WS-LT): Accessibility Properties for Learning Resources (APLR) (http://www.cen-aplr.org/)
> Dublin Core:Accessibility (http://dublincore.org/groups/access)
> W3C/WAI (http://www.w3.org/wai)
> EuroAccessibility (http://www.euroaccessibility.org/)
> SIDAR (http://www.sidar.org/)
> CanCore (http://www.cancore.ca/)
> EduSpecs (http://eduspecs.ic.gc.ca/)
> AGLS (http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html)
> British Standards Institute (http://edd2.bsi.org.uk/link.php/ist/43)
> National Center for Accessible Media (http://ncam.wgbh.org/) (Brookes, T, 2004)
although not all those parties were in fact active on the work. In fact, the following people participated on behalf of those organisations: