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Contents of Thesis ack'ments - Introduction - Context - Accessibility - W3C/WAI - LitReview - Metadata - Accessibility Metadata - PNP - DRD - Matching - UI profiles - Interoperability - Framework - Implementation - Conclusion - References - Appendix 1 - Appendix 2 - Appendix 3 - Appendix 4 - Appendix 5 - Appendix 6 - Appendix 7

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Conclusion

Final discussion

In "Accessibility, usability and adaptability: responding to Dublin Core Profiles of Needs and Preferences", the authors assert:

.. the newly emerging IMS and Dublin Core adaptability and accessibility standards and the proposed profiles of needs and preferences (PNP) is set to have a profound impact on the way we view the creation of digital content as well as the way it is presented to us (Green S, ???, p. 18).

This thesis has worked its way through a maze of issues to justify a simple contention stated at the beginning:

Considering the problems of accessibility, the context in which the problem occurs, and the available solutions, it has been necessary to define a more comprehensive framework in which the available parts can function, taking better advantage of the emerging technologies, without compromising either the interests of stakeholders or existing efforts, to achieve a better outcome for users and publishers.

The thesis has followed the structure proposed in the diagram, also shown earlier:

thesis structure

It has been shown that given the newer technologies and techniques, including what is known as Web 2.0 technologies and metadata, it is possible to be more comprehensive in the approach to accessibility without compromising hard-won efforts and that there is a receptive community that are willing to work with the new framework. The thesis is the first and only document to comprehensively explain this work and show its potential to justify the claims of Green et all and to support future work.

Future work

events and places, FLUID, distributed discovery, ..... further work includes work on how to discover the extra pieces - using FRBR??

Chapter Summaries

Acknowledgements
This chapter acknowledges contributions to this work.
 
 
Introduction
This chapter introduces the thesis. It covers:
Context and methodology
This chapter provides a context for the thesis and how it was designed to work. It covers:
Accessibility
This chapter considers accessibility as it is understood from a number of perspectives and ends by showing what accessibility means to a Web user. It covers:
WCAG-ATAG-UAAG
This chapter describes the history of universal design and shows how the technical work of accessibility has been determined by that history. It covers:
LitReview

This chapter provides a critical summary of relevant literature and activities in the field from the perspective of models and frameworks etc. It does not discuss either metadata or accessibility more than to give a necessary understanding of the literature. It covers:
Metadata
This chapter introduces metadata as it is understood from a number of perspectives and ends by showing the relationship between metadata and mapping. It covers:
Accessibility Metadata
This chapter demonstrates the availability of metadata relating to accessibility and outlines the development of DC accessibility metadata.
User Needs and Preferences Profiles
The matching process is initiated by the user profile so responsibility is on the user to provide the profile - problems when people are incapable of doing this either because of their disability or because of ignorance. It covers:
Resource Accessibility Profiles
The matching process also depends on the correct and rich descriptions of the content. responsibility is moving to the metadata creators - not so much the content creator who may not have succeeded in making universally accessible content and who may not have made good metadata. It covers:
Matching
This chapter introduces the definition of accessibility as the matching of resources to users' needs, individually. It also shows how the responsibility for accessibility is moving to the server and draws a distinction between WAI conformance and accessibility while showing their complementary nature. It covers:
UI Profiles
Where there are user profiles and resource profiles, the next step is to give access to all these by having a single, universal device that can provide the user with an interface dynamically made suitable for the context in which it is to be used - the URC. Responsibility is moving to hardware developers to make their devices intelligent and capable of speaking a common interface language. None of this works without swappable UI components so this chapter talks about the FLUID project. It covers:
Interoperability
blurb about this ..... It covers;
Framework
This chapter looks at what is on offer and talks about what makes a framework. It covers:
 
Implementation
This chapter shows that implementation is not easy - first the model from DC 2005 then the revisions for DC 2006 and the further FRBR problems .... also what ISO is doing, IMS is doing, etc ....then whether all this works in a table of georgrahic resources and their description - this last section might not work!!! - seems irrelevant...
should include list of implementers and what they know...
Conclusion
This chapter brings it all together by showing that careful investigation of the possibilities leads to a certain conclusion - .....
 
 
 
Web Content Development Section
This section is a large effort to interpret the general principles outlined in the WCAG into functional pieces that can be used as 'just-in-time' support for developers. Each section shows how the effort has really become on of using the correct language for the task - abstracting the work from the content creator to the technology.
 
Thesis management chptr
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

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