Tag Archive for: A11y

DPUB Summit 2020

June 1st to 12th, 2020
/in /by

The annual Digital Publishing Summit organized by EDRLab, will, this year, happen online. The two days of conferences, panels, workshops and meetups have been transformed into a set of “à la carte” online interactions. This is a free event, composed of several elements including:

  1. Content published in advance so that participants can “be aware” of the context of each session they are interested in.
  2. Live streaming sessions during the event (15 to 20 sessions, one hour each), with textual interactions between the panelists and the audience.
  3. Recorded sessions for those who missed a live session.
  4. Debrief sessions after the event, i.e. interactive sessions targeting the publication of a position paper about an important topic discussed during one or more sessions.

As usual, we anticipate a number of sessions dedicated to ebook accessibility and we will update this page as this information becomes available

Date

June 1-12, 2020

Venue

Online

Learn More

EDRLab have published details of this year’s summit on their event page

Telling The Story, Better Accessibility Statements with ASPIRE (W)

/in /by

ASPIRE cover slide

In our series of free weekly webinars April 29th saw a session focused on the work of the ASPIRE service which helps publishers and vendors tell the story of the amazing accessibility work they are doing to create a transparent environment for content.

This page contains:

Full Video of the Webinar

Speakers

  • Richard Orme, DAISY Consortium—host and chair
  • Huw Alexander, TextBOX Digital
  • Alistair McNaught, McNaught Consulting

Session Overview

Huw Alexander gave us a brief overview of what this session would cover:

  • Accessibility statements and the Law
  • The Evolution of ASPIRE
  • The ASPIREreview process
  • What makes a Gold Statement
  • The Benefits of Accessibility Statements

An overview of the legal situation in the UK and Europe from Alistair McNaught framed the webinar and gave us context and background for the work they have achieved. (Publishers can get an overview of legal regulations in their own market from our legislation page). Organizations are required to provide an accessibility statement as part of content provision and this includes library services etc.

The ASPIRE project began in the summer of 2018 as a crowdsourced project with a large number of stakeholders. Looking at accessibility statements, the project uncovered many untold stories of good work within our industry. Publishers weren’t telling us about the accessibility of their content and not engaging with their customers about their plans for accessible experiences.

Fast forward a year and the project has developed into a fully fledged cost-effective service which offers an audit and review of publishing accessibility statements together with a set of transparent, positive and clear recommendations for improvement. Scoring and the possibility of  “Gold” level status has meant that we now have a range of wonderful examples of how the anatomy of a statement should look.

Huw and Alistair talked us through a number of examples explaining the key benefits of getting this right. By “telling your story about your content” publishers are fulfilling their legal obligations whilst engaging and supporting customers and readers.

Related Resources

Referenced in the webinar were:

Understanding Accessibility in EPUB with Bookmachine

May 7th, 2020
/in /by

This online presentation is aimed at digital publishing professionals wanting to improve their publishing practices using EPUB in 2020. Run in three parts this online course explains the methods, techniques and recommended software and services to use in adding rich accessibility to EPUBs.

Date

May 7, 14 & 21, 2020

Venue

Online

Learn More

Registration and further course details are available from the Bookmachine event page

Free Webinar: Accessibility at Apple

May 27th, 2020
/in /by

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

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 session will highlight what drives the accessibility product innovations from Apple. It will feature practical examples of how they are utilized by people with varying needs all around the world, and Apple’s goal of breaking through the challenges and barriers of the past.

Date

May 27, 2020

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the May 27th webinar

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page

Free Webinar: Leveraging InDesign for Accessible EPUB Creation

May 20th, 2020
/in /by

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

If InDesign is part of your book production toolchain, then this webinar is for you. In it you will learn a set of tips and tricks for tricking InDesign into giving you cleaner, more accessible reflowable EPUB output. Some are simple typesetting tips to keep print and digital aligned, others are deeper ways to get more semantic HTML.

Date

May 20, 2020

Venue

Online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the May 20th webinar

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page

Making Sense of It All—Ebook Legislation and Policy Where You Are

/in /by

Understanding the legal framework within your own publishing market is crucial if you are going to successfully deliver born accessible content to all of your readers. It gives you the basis around which to develop an accessible publishing policy and business plan for your entire organization and for your interactions with 3rd party suppliers, vendors and partners.

We’ve tried to put together a list of some of the main considerations for a variety of international markets and we welcome updates and information on these and other global markets. There are indeed some international considerations and resources that you need to take into account and we’ve listed these at the beginning so that you can look at these alongside legislation particular to your geographical location. These include:

  • In a global context, the best strategy to increase your international accessibility compliance is to understand and follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and Article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD).
  • Many countries have signed and ratified The Marrakesh Treaty within their markets . This treaty is the first international Copyright Treaty focusing on exceptions.
  • EPUB Accessibility 1.0 Specification
  • ISO 300-71  (2019) extends BS8878  providing a code of practice for creating accessible ICT products and service. This is an international process-oriented standard enabling organisations to embed accessibility considerations into their “business as usual” processes.
  • The W3C provides an overview of international considerations for web accessibility.
  • The Accessible Books Consortium provides lots of useful guidance on behalf of WIPO.

Visit our main Ebook Legislation resource page for information on your own country. In addition to having an understanding of what is required of you, you may also like to have further relevant guidance and information at your fingertips so we’ve also listed a number of resources that have originated in your country. It’s worth looking through all these types of resources as many useful pieces of guidance are available from other areas.

This is a developing resource and we’d be very pleased to hear from you and how we can improve the information provided and if you are aware of any updates that we should include, especially details of legislation in countries that we may not have listed. Please contact us.

Nominations for DAISY Award at DBW 2020 now open

/in /by

Nominations for the Digital Book World 2020 Awards have now begun and we anticipate some exciting nominations for The DAISY Award for Accessibility in Publishing. 

Make sure you’ve submitted your entries by May 29—we want to see as many of you on the list as possible. For information on last year’s finalists and winner see our DBW 2019 Awards article.

This year’s finalists will be announced on August 3rd and the awards ceremony takes place on September 14 at Digital Book World 2020.

Create EPUB Publications from Word with a Simple Tool Anyone Can Use (W)

/in /by

WordToEPUB webinar opening slideIn our series of free weekly webinars April 15th saw a session focused on the WordToEPUB tool recently developed by The DAISY Consortium. WordToEPUB is free, simple and straightforward method of converting structured Word documents to valid and accessible EPUB files.

This page contains:

Full Video of the Webinar

Speakers

  • Dawn Evans, Access Text Network—host and chair
  • Richard Orme, DAISY Consortium
  • Joseph Polizzotto, UC Berkeley
  • Erin Williams, Microsoft
  • Prashant Verma, DAISY Consortium

Session Overview

WordToEPUB has been developed to provide a simple, easy to use tool that can convert accessible word documents into fully accessible EPUB files. Richard Orme began by explaining this process, thanking everyone who contributed to this project for their support. There are many situations in which this new tool is already proving invaluable, going beyond the standard publishing workflow—word documents are produced in many environments, commercial, public, government etc etc. The list of use cases for which WordToEPUB is relevant is long!

There are many use cases that require simple, practical workflows for creating accessible and flexible materials

Erin Williams, from Microsoft, spoke about the support that MS has for this new tool and how it is in harmony with the accessibility checker that MS Word already has built-in. This checker assesses the accessibility of word documents—success at this stage is vital. WordToEPUB can’t invent accessibility features so the the accessibility of the original word document is very important.

The design goals of the WordToEPUB tool include: straightforward and accessible installation, simple usage, different language support, extensible as users need. Richard Orme then demonstrated how these goals have been met with a live demo which you can see on the webinar recording.

Joseph and Prashant both discussed use cases in academic environments and environments with low resources and basic skill levels. WordToEPUB has been quickly adopted by many organizations already, proving that:

With a structured and accessible document, making a great EPUB from Word is now simple and accessible

Related Resources

 

 

Making Content Accessible: How Can Publishers and Libraries Better Satisfy the Obligation?

May 13th, 2020
/in /by

Institutions of higher education (IHEs) have a legal and moral obligation to support the information needs of those in their community. They are required to provide access to information resources that are as close as possible to those resources provided to individuals who do not experience those impairments. But what goes into making an ebook, a textbook, or other course materials fully accessible? This virtual NISO event will bring together stakeholders to discuss current efforts made to ensure that all content is accessible and the challenges still to be overcome.

Speakers include:

  • Violaine Iglesias, CEO & Co-founder, Cadmore Media
  • Jamie Axelrod, Director, Disability Resources, Northern Arizona University
  • Kara Kroes Li, Director of Product Management, EBSCO
  • Rachel Comerford, Senior Director of Content Standards and Accessibility, Macmillan Learning
  • George Kerscher, Chief Innovations Officer, DAISY Consortium
  • Michael Johnson, Director, Content Partnerships, Benetech

Date

May 13, 2020

Venue

Online

Learn More

The NISO Events page for this conference includes registration and ticket details

Free Webinar: Easy Access to Books and Articles Through a Smart Speaker

May 13th, 2020
/in /by

The DAISY Consortium has announced the launch of a series of free weekly webinars on accessible publishing and reading in response to the multiple challenges being faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.

Nearly a quarter of Americans own at least one voice activated smart speaker, and they are increasingly popular in other countries. How can these easy to use devices with their intelligent assistants help with access to reading books and articles? This webinar will explain the accessibility features of Amazon Echo and Google Assistant, and present case studies of their application for people with print impairments. As well as exploring the technical aspects of configuring such services, we will review user feedback and acceptability of the experiences.

Date

May 13th, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the May 13th webinar

For information on the whole DAISY webinar series on offer you can register your interest on the Webinar Information Page