Articles archive

Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
- Nicolaas Matthijs, Blackboard
- Christopher Phillips, Utah State University
- John Scott, Blackboard
Session Overview
Nicolaas Matthijs opened this session explaining that this webinar would focus on 3 main topics or lenses through which to explore approached to accessibility within the higher education arena.Exploring Learning Theories and Tools to Support Diverse Learner Success
One File Doesn’t Fit AllThe need for flexible materials has never been more important in order to:
- Work with all types of assistive technology
- To support low income students and mobile users who may only have access to low bandwidth
- To support learning from home where schedules are busy and access requirements different
How to Scale Professional Development to Impact Inclusive Course Design
Training educators is a crucial element of this journey many of whom have a limited awareness about digital accessibility, not helped by busy schedules and multiple responsibilities. The blackboard tool gives instructor feedback at all stages in the LMS, even when the user amends course content. A course accessibility report summarizes accessibility at course level and encourages instructors to build accessibility into their course material from the very start. These types of tools, supporting faculty give an insightful overview of issues, helping teachers find easy issues to get started on their inclusive design goals.The Role of Data and Analytics
There is a mountain of content with lots of accessibility issues to be resolved! Content is constantly changing and currently there are insufficient remediation workflows in place to cope with this. The realization that accessibility issues affects all students shows that we need to be ready for fall classes when online learning will continue to be an important of our “new normal”. Having the necessary data ready to support on-boarding new students and instructors with course content which is being prepared for this environment is going to be a vital part of the process.Related Resources
- PowerPoint slide deck ( 6.5 MB)
- Full transcript Word document (40 KB)
- Blackboard Ally for LMS
- Ally File Transformer
- Blackboard Help: Accessible Content Authoring
- Ecampus News Article on Inclusive Course Design
- Ally Community of Accessibility Heroes
- Bb World 2020 Conference
In our series of free weekly webinars July 8th saw a session about the journey accessible EPUB publications take to ultimately be delivered to students in their education establishments and our speakers came from organizations involved throughout this journey.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
- Michael Johnson, Benetech
- Rachel Comerford, Macmillan Learning
- Trisha Prevett, Southern New Hampshire University
- Brendan Desetti, D2L
Session Overview
This webinar looked at aspects of the educational materials ecosystem for accessibility and Michael Johnson opened by summarizing what would be covered:
- What is the Eco-System?
- The Publishing Workflow
- Accessible Titles in Retail
- What is Happening on Campus
- A View Inside a Learning Management System
Michael Johnson talked to us about what is happening now. Publishers are already creating accessible EPUBs, they are preparing files for 3rd party certification and accessible ebooks are are available for sale. There is reader software to support accessible EPUB files and campuses are buying accessible content and changing their procurement policies for their systems.
All elements in the workflow from the publisher to the point of retail, from being available for purchase to appearing within the LMS / library system, are part of the accessible eco-system. Our eco-system should be accessible from start to finish to benefit all students.
The business case is clear and Rachel Comerford reminded us that:
You or someone close to you has benefitted from accessibility work at least once in the last year / /month / week whether or not you consider yourself disabled.
The ingredients for an accessible environment must include:
- The Data
- The People
- The Content
- The Platform
- The End Product
Rachel took us through each of these areas in relation to publishing in general and, more specifically, how Macmillan Learning have approached these.
Trisha Prevett gave us an insight into how this feeds into what is happening on campus, where they currently have 180,000 online students! Accessibility is more important than ever and impacts the following areas:
- Procurement workflows
- Electronic Information Technology
- Assessment of Products
- Relationships with contracted vendors
- Cost of resources
- Training of faculty and staff
Brendan Desetti spoke to us about Learning Management Systems and how accessibility affects the three areas:
- Content: in supporting instructors with accessible course content
- Process: in facilitating practice of universal design for learning
- Platform: enabling accessibility and an equitable user experience
Brendan also showed us how D2L are ensuring that all layers of their LMS are attending to these.
Michael Johnson summarized :
- This is indeed all happening now
- A Born Accessible EPUB is a better EPUB
- This is all real work and very do-able
- Campuses must insist that their vendors are compliant
- Publishers and platform folk should make sure they are compliant
Accessibility is about meeting the specifications but also about the user experience, the audience response, the assistance and support that comes with a product, and the change that the product undergoes.
Related Resources
- PowerPoint slide deck (33 MB)
- Full transcript Word document (36 KB)
- W3C Business Case for Accessibility
- Macmillan Learning Accessibility
- VitalSource Benetech bookstore
- Desire2Learn
- Benetech Born Accessible
Discover the other webinars we’re running!
Read MoreIn our series of free weekly webinars July 1st saw a session focused on activities taking place globally to promote inclusive publishing practices.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
- Hugo Setzer, Manual Moderno and The International Publishers Association
- Deborah Nelson, eBound Canada
- Brad Turner, Benetech
- Kirsi Yianne, NIPI and IFLA
Session Overview
This week we mixed things up a little and had a brief whistle-stop tour of what is happening around the world before opening up to our esteemed panel for a larger discussion for the greater portion of the webinar. Richard Orme guided us through various initiatives from a variety of countries. There is so much happening and this is a truly exciting time for accessible publishing everywhere. We hope that some of the initiatives presented will inspire you in your market and help you to further the good work within the publishing industry.
During this time we also ran a poll to find out where our audience hails from: 56% from North America, 30% from Europe, 9% from Asia and 5% from South America so we were delighted to have such a global audience with us on this journey.
Panel Discussion
The discussion opened with a lively chat focusing on a few key themes as listed below. For a fuller overview we recommend listening to the video recording.
The Accessibility Eco-System
Hugo Setzer empahisized the importance of an entire eco-system that works together to achieve accessible experiences. Deborah Nelson sees awareness of vendors as being a hurdle within the eco-system and how we should be encouraging users to motivate these partners into action.
End User Awareness
Kirsi Yianne discussed engagement with end users to drive awareness. NIPI have worked hard to understand the needs of print disabled readers and how their needs should involve the entire eco-system.
Supporting Regulation
Kirsi Yianne reminded us all that the European Accessibility Act will come into force in 2025. Standards are vital to help with compliance to the new rulings.
International Standards and Compliance
All our panelists commented on the importance of international standards to drive compliance.
Brad Turner explained how the Benetech GCA Certification System is underpinned by international standards. GCA uses WCAG Level 2 as their gold standard. Compliance in the USA tends to be at an educational level and Higher Ed establishments are looking to publish accessible materials.
Deborah Nelson told us about the plans in Canada to develop a certification scheme as a result of their Landscape Research report. eBound Canada plans to run a pilot of the Benetech GCA scheme to see what certification will look like for 250 independent Canadian publishers.
Advocacy, Training and Expert Support
Training and awareness is a major portion of the Canadian research project and Deborah Nelson puts the end user at the very center of this project, helping to build a knowledge base and an understanding of accessibility needs.
The work of organizations such as DAISY, WIPO & ABC drives awareness building. Hugo Setzer pointed our audience towards the practical training tools provided by ABC, commenting that may publishers around the world are working hard to ensure the accessibility of their content.
Call to Action
Each panelist was asked to briefly tell us what our main takeaway from this session should be:
- Deborah Nelson: Make sure you are able to communicate the business case
- Brad Turner: Learn about Born Accessible and take the first step by reaching out for help
- Hugo Setzer: Sign the Accessible Publishing Charter which is available in 7 languages from ABC
- Kirsi Yianne: Do not wait until 2025 for the European Accessibility Act. Start learning now
In a final poll about the greatest perceived challenges to implementing inclusive publishing practices the webinar audience voted as follows:
- 33% Business case is hard to make
- 30% Do not know where to start
- 30% No strong laws to make it happen
- 7% The tools don’t exist
Related Resources
- PowerPoint slide deck (3.3 MB)
- Full transcript Word document (43 KB)
- Accessible Books Consortium
- International Publishers Association
- Benetech Born Accessible Resources
- eBound Canada
- NIPI – Nordic Inclusive Publishing Initiative
- ABC Publishing Charter
- Supporting Inclusive Digital Publishing through Training (SIDPT) EU project
Discover the other webinars we’re running!
Read MoreA component of the 2020 DAISY AGM was a showcase presentation highlighting some of the work being conducted, and the impact of that work around the world.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Showcase
Linked Resources
We have lots more information about the activities mentioned in the Showcase throughout the DAISY website. You can find further information about the content Links to DAISY activities mentioned in the recording:
Essential tools:
Collaborative projects:
Driving inclusive publishing
Extending the DAISY community
Downloadable Items
- Presentation audio recording MP3 (29 MB)
- Powerpoint slide deck (8.3 MB)
- Full transcript Word Document (32KB)
In our series of free weekly webinars June 17th saw a session focused on the process of authoring quality image descriptions which are essential for accessibility.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
- Valerie Morrison—Center for Inclusive Design & Innovation, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Charles La Pierre—Benetech
- Gregorio Pellegrino—The LIA Foundation
Session Overview
Practical Tips and Advice for Writing Image Descriptions
Valerie Morrison gave us the benefit of her expertise to open this webinar giving our audience a list of best practice tips which can be applied to all image descriptions. These included:
- Summarize what you see to begin with in one general and informative sentence
- Keep your description neutral and informative
- Use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation. Avoid hard line breaks.
- Avoid acronyms and symbols (remember a screen reader will be reading everything you include)
- Work from general to specific to provide a framework for the listener
- Think about providing information in multiple modalities to vary the experience
- Make sure that the surrounding text does not already describe the image. Avoid overlap
Knowing how long a description should be and when to stop is also important and Valerie recommends keeping to approx 125 characters. It can be hard to restrict the length of a description but screen reader software has limits. If an image is simply a photograph of a person, for example, it may be that the name of that person will suffice (depending on the context). Simple graphics can usually be described in one sentence and, whilst this can be challenging, this makes it easier for the listener—you don’t want to overload them.
Valerie’s slides give lots of examples of all of these useful notes with guidance given on describing symbols, charts and graphs.
Resources
Charles La Pierre presented the work of the DIAGRAM Center and the various resources that it offers the publishing industry. The POET tool is an image description training tool which focuses on:
- When to describe images—is the information contained within the image essential to understanding?
- How to describe images
- Practice describing images
The Diagrammar resource is a framework for making images and graphics accessible. This data model provides a structured, standard way for image description data to be modeled.
Using AI to Automate Image Description
Gregorio Pellegrino presented the recent Italian project testing AI tools within the publishing industry with the goal of producing born accessible content. Results from this project revealed that:
- some tools are better than others at identifying certain types of images
- while the image category can be identified, more work is required before image descriptions are reliably produced
Depending on how images are classified, depends on which tool should be used and the next phase of this project will look to define an all-embracing taxonomy for image classification. This will enable the creation of datasets for training.
Publisher Approaches
Richard Orme presented comments and thoughts from 4 publishers who kindly agreed to participate in this webinar. See the slides for their full thoughts and comments
Kogan Page
Current Practice—descriptions are outsourced to vendors as it was decided not to proceed with author descriptions. These vendors provide alt text and extended descriptions.
Advice—Develop guidelines for your vendors with a small library of examples. Make sure you control costs and spot check descriptions when submitted by vendors.
Macmillan Learning
Current Practice—image descriptions are produced by a number of sources: the author, outsourced alongside ebook creation, description specialists or in-house
Advice—Descriptions are content so the same rules apply, be careful with the length of your descriptions
John Wiley & Sons
Current Practice—Alt text is written by subject matter experts which goes through a QA process. In-house training is provided to ensure understanding of descriptions are used with AT.
Advice—Become familiar with different image concepts, the various types of descriptions and when to apply them. Remember that alt text is there to describe, not teach.
W.W. Norton
Current Practice—image descriptions are outsourced to specialists towards the end of production. All descriptions are checked in-house for which there is extensive training provided
Related Resources
- PowerPoint slide deck (20 MB)
- Full transcript Word document (36 KB)
- DIAGRAM Center Image Descriptions
- DIAGRAM Center Image description sample book
- Diagrammar A Framework for Making Images and Graphics Accessible
Discover the other webinars we’re running!
Read More
Introduction
At Dedicon, we strive to make information accessible to people with reading disabilities. Our roadmap aims to deliver a personalized, multi-modal reading experience to all of our customers. We expect that EPUB (version 3) will form the cornerstone of our future products, so over the last three years we have been exploring the features of EPUB as the go-to standard for inclusive publishing[1].
This article discusses two features in particular: skippability and escapability. We highlight their importance for the reading experience of people with a reading disability, but must conclude that these features are not widely supported at this time. We therefore want to engage developers in adding support for these features to their reading systems, and to gather information from other content providers about the alternatives they employ while support in reading systems is missing.
Customer needs and wishes are changing. There is a shift from standardized to personalized content. For example, someone could read large print in the morning and switch to human voice audio in the evening when reading print becomes too much of a strain. Or someone could listen to the audio version of a book, while preferring to see enlarged images rather than listening to image descriptions. EPUB allows us to build the rich, multi-modal products in which users can freely choose how they want to read. However, when synchronized audio is included or when a read-aloud function is available, we believe that skippability and escapability are features that are essential to offer the user. These features ensure that users receive the information they need without being overwhelmed by information that is irrelevant to them. This is increasingly important as publications become more complex.
Skippability and escapability
The W3C defines skippable and escapable elements as part of the EPUB Media Overlays specification, which also contains examples. An element is skippable if it can be excluded from being read. For example, sometimes you want to ignore secondary content such as footnotes or page breaks. Skippability is also useful for content alternatives that cater to a specific audience, such as image descriptions.
An element is escapable if it can be jumped out of at any point while being read. For example, you may want to stop reading a longer piece of content such as a table before reaching the end. Finally, an element can be both skippable and escapable, meaning that you can turn it on or off as well as jump out of it halfway through.
Skippability and escapability can also be applied to the read-aloud feature of a reading system, the only significant difference being that speech is synthesized instead of pre-recorded. Control of the (synthesized) audio playback remains the responsibility of the reading system. This is different from accessing the text of a publication using a screen reader. A typical screen reader offers many options for customizing its output, including features like skippability and escapability. However, not everyone who could benefit from these features will use a screen reader. People with dyslexia are much more likely to take advantage of a read-aloud function.
The state-of-the-art in reading systems
During 2018 through early 2020, we investigated the state-of-the-art of multi-modal reading in accessible EPUB (version 3) reading systems, both hardware and software. These tests did not reveal a reading system that supports skippability and escapability in media overlays. In fact, support for media overlays in general was often not available. For many reading systems, this would be a fundamental step towards multi-modal reading. For now, the limitations we encountered mean that we must strike a balance between delivering all the rich content we have to offer and giving customers too much content to listen to.
Read-aloud features of reading systems perform a bit better. For example, in the read-aloud feature of VitalSource Bookshelf it is possible to enable or disable reading of text alternatives for images. This is a promising starting point, because as the world becomes more and more visual, image descriptions should become an integral part of many accessible publications. Being able to turn them on and off aids the personalized reading experience, but is no longer sufficient when descriptions become longer, necessitating escapability as well. It would also be good to see support for other elements besides images, such as notes and page numbers.
Exploring the alternatives
Coming back to the compromise resulting from the limitations of reading systems, we could also try to remedy the situation in our content. The key requirement here remains the same: the publication must be suitable for a broad variety of users. The only feasible solution that we found is to use scripting technologies, such as JavaScript, to allow the user to toggle features on and off within the content itself. Besides the question of how to store the state of the EPUB between reading sessions, this could be a good solution to implement skippability. Escapability is a different problem, though, because the reading system controls the playback and scripting cannot influence this. Another option is to use another content format, but this imposes limits on other functionality, such as interactivity. We would like to invite other content producers to share their experiences in this area.
Conclusion
Skippable and escapable elements are important for a personalized, uncluttered reading experience. They allow the user to skip or pass over elements of a book, but also allow the content provider to include additional content without the user having to read all of it. Skippable and escapable elements are not widely supported yet, although in theory our content is ready for it, provided that the reading system is designed to support these functionalities. We would like to urge developers to invest in these features, but are also eager to learn about alternative strategies from other content providers.
Authors: Davy Kager (Product manager) and Vincent de Jong (Project manager)
Dedicon, The Netherlands
[1] The exploration of accessibility features as well as testing other state-of-the-art EPUB features in reading systems was part of a project which was made possible through funding from the National Library of The Netherlands.
Read MoreIn our series of free weekly webinars June 10th saw a session focused on the new European Accessibility Act and how we might approach this as an industry.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
- Inmaculda Placencia Porrero—European Commission
- Anne Bergman—Federation of European Publishers
- Cristina Mussinello—Fondazione LIA
- Luc Audrain—Inclusive Publishing Consultant
Session Overview
Introducing the European Accessibility Act
Inmaculda opened this webinar by giving us an overview of the EAA and how this applies to the publishing industry with regards to services (ebook content and software) and products (such as ereaders), which fall within the scope of this new legislation. Both have accessibility obligations to meet within strict timelines and these were explained as well as transition periods
How the Publishing Industry Will Need to React and the Resulting Benefit to Consumers
Cristina Mussinelli gave us an overview of how the EAA is going to affect our industry and how we need to respond to the timelines for implentation, from various points of view—publishers, legal and consumers. We need to create an accessible publishing ecosystem to ensure that all areas of our digital workflow, from content creation through to paying for ebooks online and the accessibility of our reading app, are fully accessible. Every element of this workflow needs to play their part in complying with the requirements of the EAA.
By adopting international standards publishers can work towards creating born accessible digital content ie. content that is accessible from inception and available within mainstream publishing outlets. Accessibility metadata should be included as well as an accessibility statement describing accessibility features.
Helping Publishers Understand their Obligations
Anne Bergman showed how the FEP plans to raise awareness and why this is so important. The 29 publishers associations across Europe are ideally suited to promote accessibility obligations at bookfairs and in cooperation with booksellers and technology vendors. The Aldus project that unites bookfairs is organizing accessibility camps and various accessibility events to get publishers involved and play an active role in moving forward.
Some Concrete Organizational and Technical Advice
Luc Audrain, an inclusive publishing consultant in France, but formerly of Hachette Livre, talked about the move towards accessibility from a practical point of view and outlined organization and technical steps that publishers need to concentrate on in order to comply with the EAA.
Organizational Steps:
- Raise Awareness
- Build a Team or a Charter
- Adopt a Progressive Approach
- Decouple Specifications from the Purchase Order
Technical Steps:
- Go Digital and Move to the EPUB 3 ebook format
- Support the Main Actors of the Ecosystem and benefit from them
- Use Open and Free Tools from the Community
Related Resources
- PowerPoint slide deck (9.5 MB)
- Full transcript Word document (33 KB)
- EU Directive number 2019/888
- The LIA Foundation in Italy
- LIA Foundation: E-Books for all, towards an accessible publishing ecosystem
- SNE Group, Normes & Standards in France
- EDRLab
- EPUBCheck International fund raising effort
- Accessible Books Consortium
Discover the other webinars we’re running!
Read MoreIn our series of free weekly webinars June 3rd saw a session focused on the future of the W3C, entitled Publishing, Accessibility, W3C Standards. Where Are We Going? The EPUB 3 standard can support accessibility to a degree never seen before. It’s already the most popular and most accessible publishing standard, but can we do better? Our speakers explored this theme during their webinar giving us an overview of what the publishing industry can expect from Publishing@W3C in the future.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
- Wendy Reid, Rakuten Kobo
- Dave Cramer, Hachette Book Group
- Tzviya Siegman, Wiley
Session Overview
Wendy Reid, Chair of the Publishing WG and Chair of the upcoming EPUB3 WG at W3C, opened this webinar by giving us an overview of the recent W3C survey conducted to understand how EPUB was being used within our industry. For publishers, EPUB is indeed the format of choice and it is very popular although , overall, it was concluded that publishers need it to do more. There is some misunderstanding about EPUB and better communication and spec improvements are needed to rectify this.
Dave Cramer, Chair of the former EPUB Community Group and Chair of the upcoming EPUB3 WG at W3C, gave us some background on how Publishing@W3C works and how we need to be using the W3C process as a tool to make improvements to our industry standards. The EPUB3 WG has seen 20 years of dedication to the EPUB spec but interoperability challenges, in particular, demand refinement and the new goals for the spec focus on these as well as other overdue alterations.
Tzviya Siegman, Chair of the Publishing WG and member of the W3C Advisory Board, discussed the EPUB accessibility spec—which she hopes will be a formal W3C recommendation by 2021. The EPUB Accessibility Taskforce is also working on a metadata project—The Accessibility Metadata Crosswalk, to identify gaps within the accessibility metadata in major industry standards.
Tzviya also discussed using DPUB ARIA and explained that if you use it correctly, how it can greatly enhance the reading experience for screen reader users. However, if used incorrectly the result can be quite the reverse so she suggests not using it unless competency levels are high.
WCAG Accessibility guidelines expect an update in Q4 2020 with several new success criteria to be included.
Wendy introduced us to the Audiobook specification which is on track to reach recommended status in Q3 2020, allowing for the creation of born accessible audiobooks and providing a mainstream standard for the creation of audiobook titles.
Our presenters gave us many resources and recommendations throughout the webinar and the Q & A at the end was most informative. Make sure you listen to some of the thought provoking questions and our panels expert thoughts on these topics.
Related Resources
- PowerPoint slide deck (730 KB)
- Full transcript Word document (33 KB)
- EPUB 3.2 Spec
- Draft EPUB 3 Working Group Charter
- Audiobooks Demo
- Accessibility Metadata Crosswalk
- DPUB-ARIA 1.0
- ARIA Authoring Practices
Discover the other webinars we’re running!
Read More
In our series of free weekly webinars May 27th saw a session focused on Accessibility at Apple. Today your most important assistive device is likely the iPhone or other smartphone you carry around with you in your pocket, rather than the bespoke, costly, and clinical types of equipment that pervaded accessibility in the past.
Apple has been at the forefront of this accessible technology revolution. When it comes to accessible reading, the massive popularity of iPhone and iPad has resulted in materials produced by both mainstream publishers and specialist organizations being accessed primarily using popular consumer devices.
This page contains:
Full Video of the Webinar
Speakers
- Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
- Sarah Herrlinger, Apple
Session Overview
Sarah Herrlinger, Director of Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives at Apple introduced the subject of today’s webinar with some interesting statistics and information on disability and learning:
- 15% of the world’s population is reported to have a disability
- In the U.S. 1 in 5 students have a learning or an attention disability
- In the U.S. 1 in 10 students are English language learners
These numbers alone show Apple takes accessibility so seriously both externally and internally where it is one of their 6 corporate values.
Accessibility is part of Apple’s DNA
Apple have concentrated heavily on creating a cohesive eco-system across all devices to provide “seamless continuity” for accessibility. With the 4 areas of focus: vision, hearing, cognitive and motor functions, Sarah walked us through a number of major features and tools that can be utilized on apple products. This webinar looked specifically at VoiceOver, Math and Data, Speak Screen, Inverting Colors and Safari Reader but there are many others also, supporting a wide range of use-cases.
This webinar was an exciting delve into some of what Apple can offer and it is worth exploring the remote learning resources and other features that Sarah mentioned.