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Hugo Setzer Urges Publishers to Embrace Accessible Publishing at the NNELS 2020 Summit

Published at February 8, 2020/in News, Uncategorized /by Sarah Hilderley

The following presentation was delivered by Inclusive Publishing’s Sarah Hilderley on behalf of Hugo Setzer, President of the International Publishers Association, at the NNELS Accessibility Summit 2020. Hugo was not able to attend in person and we were delighted to present his important message.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Many thanks to the National Network for Equitable Library Service, for your kind invitation to participate at this second Accessible Publishing Summit to present the views of the International Publishers Association on accessible publishing. This is something IPA fully supports and that is also close to my heart.

We are all here because we know something about accessibility within the book industry. We are also here because we are eager to learn more about it; from different perspectives and different experiences. But really, the main reason why we are here is because we believe in accessible publishing. As a publisher and as President of the International Publishers Association, I have committed myself to the cause. At the IPA, the world’s largest federation of publishers’ associations, we are fully convinced that a disability should not be an impediment for anybody around the world to have access to books. This is why we endorse the Marrakesh Treaty as a legal framework to make a responsible transition toward accessibility. This international treaty is an example of proper copyright legislation because of its precision: it allows specific exceptions to make content accessible to more people, without disincentivizing the creation of new content. Furthermore, at IPA we believe that we can strive for full accessibility by working together with the industry’s key stakeholders. This is what motivates me to participate in events such as this one; and, for this same reason, IPA works closely with the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to provide the operative support and resources for a prompt transition to accessibility. I have the privilege of participating on ABC’s Board of Advisors and have been in at least a dozen countries exhorting publishers to commit to accessible publishing by signing the ABC Charter.

With legal and operational frameworks in place and many key institutions working in favour of accessibility, we need to move on from the groundwork and tackle the actual challenge: increasing the number of accessible works for visually impaired people. According to the ABC and the World Blind Union, 256 million people in the world can only access about 10% of published works. That is the whole population of Canada, 7 times! In five years’ time, I hope we will be able to say that we have, at least, doubled that percentage. Now, I believe we can achieve this. We must seize two big opportunities derived from the changes that we have witnessed in recent years and will continue to observe in this new decade.

The first big opportunity has to do with the digital era we all know we are living in. I will not try to explain everything that is going on. It is so fast- paced, I do not think anybody can really explain what a digital world is. Instead, I will limit myself to some facts related to the publishing industry. According to the annual report Global 50: The world ranking of publishing industry, digital markets are soaring for publishers. “For trade publishers, ebooks and more recently audiobooks, account for a combined share of revenue well in the two digits in the big corporate consumer book publishers”. For instance, digital and digital enabled services comprised 62% of Pearson Plc’s annual revenue in 2019. 2 Pearson is the world’s largest publishing group. And it is a similar story for all other sectors of the industry and for publishing houses of smaller sizes. An increasing demand in the digital market of books is relevant for accessible publishing because the tools to publish in accessible formats are digital. EPUB, Daisy and Protected Digital Talking Books (PDTB) have already allowed publishers to create products accessible for VIPs.

But there is still room to grow. I know myself, as an STM publisher specializing in medical books in my day job outside the IPA, that it is not always easy and that certain titles are more suitable for accessible formats than others, but we move on and work on ways to make it possible. I know that the technologies already in place will develop further to make the big leap to full accessibility easier for publishers. So, in a nutshell, digital technologies to create accessible formats are the first big opportunity.

The second big opportunity has to do with the moral importance which is inherent to accessibility. YS Chi, past President of IPA, stated the following back in 2014: “We really believe that publishing in accessible formats is not optional and not just a moral decision. It is a good business decision overall.” I would like to add to that accessible publishing will become a good business opportunity because it is a moral decision. According to an article from McKinsey and Company, “consumers expect brands to take a stand” because their consumption is determined by ethical principles. Any industry has to understand that it has to adapt to the demands of its consumers, and inclusivity will be a big part of adapting to future generations. The book industry has to be inclusive, diverse and accessible. So, those who did not believe in accessibility on principle, now have a utilitarian argument to take the moral high ground. Meanwhile, for us believers of accessible publishing, I could say, we are on the right track.

Thank you very much.

Aspirational Thinking: Creating ASPIRE

Published at February 6, 2020/in Articles /by Sarah Hilderley

The ASPIRE (Accessible Statements Promoting Improved Reading Experience) project was launched in 2018 as a crowdsourced project to evaluate the quality of accessibility statements in the publishing industry. ASPIRE has since developed into a fully responsive service and in this article, we trace the story of the ASPIRE from its small beginnings to becoming an industry standard driving increased transparency across the industry.

The Origins of ASPIRE

Accessibility

ASPIRE started life as a crowdsourced project supported by librarians, publishers, and ebook vendors. The aim was to create a unique resource that provided a health check on the state of accessibility information in the publishing ecosystem. The ASPIRE working group designed a framework of testing criteria and then crowdsourced the evaluation process across participating UK libraries.

The ASPIRE criteria

The results from the initial ASPIRE project offered an eye-opening insight into the state of accessibility within the publishing community and we shall explore those results in due course.

Legal

The driving force behind the creation of ASPIRE was the impending legal changes in the UK. In September 2018, the UK adopted the EU Directive on Public Sector Web Accessibility into UK law under the guise of the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. This new legislation applied to all publicly funded organisations in the UK, including further and higher education institutions. It introduced two key elements as legal obligations:

Meeting the “accessibility requirement.”
Requiring accessibility statements.

The web accessibility legislation states that (Part 3.9.1.a):

A website of a public sector body will be presumed to be in conformity with the accessibility requirement to the extent that it meets harmonised standards.

Under the regulations, organisations that comply with WCAG 2.1 AA will fulfil their accessibility requirements. This legal change impacts all areas of the digital estate within a university or college. The Government Digital Services (GDS) states that if you pay for or subscribe to content you are “funding” it and therefore you are responsible for it meeting accessibility standards, as well as being responsible for providing an accessibility statement.

The GDS model accessibility statement outlines the key elements relevant to both the supplier and the university/college:

an explanation of those parts of the content that are not accessible and the reasons why.
a description of any accessible alternatives.
contact information.
Links to a complaints/escalation process.

Each of the first three elements is addressed by the ASPIRE review. The fourth is unique to each education provider. As a result, suppliers providing the kind of user focused guidance that would give them a high ASPIRE score are also creating the core of an accessibility statement that a university or college requires to meet their own obligations under the new legislation. By providing up-to-date accessibility statements suppliers are helping librarians and also providing an accurate reflection of their products and services, to their own benefit and to the benefit of their customers.

The ASPIRE Results: Information Silence

The overarching theme of the initial ASPIRE results was missing information within the accessibility statements. On average publishers were missing 87% of the information required and platforms were missing 78%. This missing information is critical to making informed procurement decisions and the effective use of the digital content, and it clearly illustrated that content providers were failing to tell the whole story of their content.

The Holes in the Statements

The three key findings from the ASPIRE data were as follows:

Most suppliers provide far less accessibility information than a university or college requires in order to support their learners efficiently.
Most suppliers are missing a significant marketing opportunity because their digital products almost invariably have accessibility benefits (compared to hard copy print) that could – and should—be marketed.
Even when a supplier has an accessible product and useful accessibility information, the information is often hard to find or is spread across unrelated parts of the website, creating a significant variability in end user experience.

The ASPIRE project highlighted the lack of information made available by content providers, but it should be noted that it does not necessarily reflect the work and resources that are being invested in accessibility. A common response from content providers was that the survey helped them understand that they were not telling the story of the work they had dedicated to implementing inclusive publishing practices. An accessibility statement helps to promote this work and this marketing opportunity is often being overlooked. As Vanessa Boddington of VitalSource stated

The audit helped us refine the information we present to the public. Whilst we had focused on making our content as technically accessible as possible…how would users know how we can help unless we tell them?

In the face of the data, content providers were coming to understand that their message was not being heard.

Renewing ASPIRE

A key takeaway from the initial ASPIRE project was that there was demand for an ongoing service to meet the needs of publishers, platforms and users. An annual crowdsourced approach is unwieldy and ultimately unsustainable. To be truly effective ASPIRE needed to be transformed into a robust, scalable, sustainable and responsive service, to meet the publishing industry’s increased focus on accessibility.

The Development of ASPIRE

The new re-calibrated service, launched in August 2019 under the wing of textBOX, is responsive to the needs of content providers and provides a complete ASPIREreview within 5 business days. With this shift in focus to a fully-fledged accreditation service, ASPIRE can truly reflect the work of content providers and provide a window on their content for librarians and content purchasers. To further encourage accessible practices, we are also donating 10% of all profits from the new ASPIRE service to the UK Literacy Association Donkey Library scheme.

UK Literacy Association Donkey Library

The ASPIRE Process

The ASPIRE service involves the following 4 stages:

ASPIREreview

The accessibility statement is reviewed in-depth by the ASPIRE team.

ASPIREscore

The accessibility statement is scored against each ASPIRE criteria.

ASPIREverified

The accessibility statement is accredited, and the approved review is ranked on the public ASPIRElist.

ASPIREstory

In addition to each ASPIREscore being announced to the market via Twitter, LinkedIn and library listservs, the publisher or platform is also able to submit an ASPIREstory detailing the importance of accessibility within their workflow. This marketing opportunity is a free service.

The Benefits of ASPIRE

The ASPIRE service fosters positive engagement within the publishing community across a range of perspectives:

The Librarian Perspective

ASPIRE helps librarians make informed procurement decisions and frees them from the unnecessary burden of writing accessibility statements as required by law.

The User Perspective

By creating informative accessibility statements, publishers and platforms are engaging with their customer base and highlighting their valuable content and innovative and useful features.

The Provider Perspective

Publishers and platforms invest heavily in accessibility. A thoughtful and comprehensive accessibility statement is an opportunity to tell their story, attract every customer and drive sales.

The Road Ahead

The new ASPIRE service has received a positive response since its launch in September 2019. Kogan Page posted the highest publisher score of 93% and became the first ASPIREverified Gold publisher. In recent months, ProQuest (78%), Cambridge Core (91%), and VitalSource (97%) have all achieved Gold status on the ASPIRElist for platforms. These scores are remarkable when contrasted with the average scores across the industry (14% for publishers and 24% for platforms, see Figures 5 and 6 below) and illustrate the commitment of these companies to accessible content and their users. The ASPIRE mission is to help every publisher and vendor reach a similar level.

Publisher ASPIREscores by %

Platform ASPIREscores by %

Final Thoughts

An accessibility statement tells the story of a publisher’s content or a vendor’s platform. A book would never be published without a cover or a blurb to provide insight to the customer. By overlooking their accessibility statement, companies are failing to advertise their work and tell their story. The ASPIRE service helps guide publishers and platforms and amplifies their message. We help the publishing industry tell their story and open doors for their customers.

Opening Doors, Enabling Access

Learn more about ASPIRE and make your statement today.

This article was kindly submitted by Huw Alexander, textBOX digital (an Inclusive Publishing Partner) and Alistair McNaught, Alistair McNaught Consultancy, the team giving ASPIRE a long term home.

Journey to Accessibility: A Case Study from Sydney University Press

Published at February 3, 2020/in Articles /by Sarah Hilderley

Sydney University Press is a not-for-profit, scholarly publisher of research-based books in several areas across the humanities and social sciences including animal studies, archaeology, Australian literary criticism, Indigenous music, as well as Australian classics. Providing access to as wide an audience as possible to our books is at the core of our mission, and we actually published some of our books in large-print format before ebooks arrived on the scene and we started producing EPUB files.

From the beginning, we were really keen on producing ebooks in-house and we reviewed various platforms and XML workflows. Our search for the best solution took place before the option of exporting an EPUB file from InDesign was available. Eventually, we adopted an XHTML-based digital publishing platform from Infogrid Pacific, which allows us to produce files for print and digital delivery from a single source file. We also aspired to follow best practice in ebook production. Some of the best-practice methods were driven by technology: we had to carefully format and style our manuscripts before uploading them into the platform, which resulted in well-structured content. Also, early on we incorporated the inclusion of alt text into our publishing workflow. At first it was added to each image file at the very end of the production process just before the EPUB file went through quality assurance testing.

As we were creating alt text ourselves, it was causing delays in the ebook release. We reviewed our editorial workflows and decided to, first of all, ask our authors to provide alt text (they are best placed to do it) and, second, embed it in the files earlier in the publishing process, so that all we have to do is to test the EPUB at the end.

We have included the need to provide alternative image descriptions in our author guidelines. In fact, we went a step further recently and now our

authors are contractually obliged to provide alt text as part of the manuscript delivery

and we provide detailed guidelines and examples to facilitate that process.

We thought that we were doing great, but we were, in fact, skipping an important stage—testing the accessibility of our books. We didn’t know how to do it. In 2018 we became involved in the Australian Inclusive Publishing Initiative (AIPI). The aim of this initiative, established in 2016, has been to identify key challenges to the implementation of accessibility standards, share best practice and innovative solutions to ensure the publishing sector meets the needs of Australians who are blind or vision impaired, and comply with the Marrakesh Treaty. Our involvement turned out to be a game changer. Sonali Marathe from the Royal Institute for Blind and Deaf Children tested a couple of our EPUB files and provided us with invaluable feedback. Our EPUB files were technically good, but we were missing a crucial step—adding accessibility metadata! This was easily rectified. We also learned that our EPUB 3 files conformed to the level A success criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 specifications. And that we could do better.

This is when our collaborators from Infogrid Pacific stepped in. They incorporated the ARIA attributes into the XHTML workflow and our EPUB 3 files are now WCAG 2.0 Level AA compliant, which is really exciting. We have also embedded accessibility testing into our workflow, which has been much easier with the recent release of the Ace by DAISY app. In January 2020, Sydney University Press became a signatory of the Accessible Books Consortium’s Charter for Accessible Publishing. We are committed to further improving the accessibility of our books (our PDF files need work, for example) and fine-tuning our publishing workflows so that the implementation of accessibility standards is efficient and effective.

We will also continue to support the work of AIPI and share our accessibility experiences with others. Lucy Greco, Web Accessibility Evangelist from UC Berkeley, was cited in a 2018 article in Learned Publishing as saying,

Accessibility does not happen in a vacuum.

Working together makes things happen.

This article was kindly submitted by Dr Agata Mrva-Montoya, Degree Director for the Master of Publishing program at The University of Sydney.

Understanding Accessibility in EPUB

February 25th, 2020

Published at January 28, 2020/in Upcoming events /by Sarah Hilderley

This Book Machine course, presented by Ken Jones ( Circular Software) is aimed at digital publishing professionals wanting to improve their publishing practices using EPUB in 2020. In particular, Ken will be looking at:

Adding accessibility within InDesign
Extra Recommend tools (Sigil, Brackets, GreenLight)
Epub:types, ARIA Roles & semantics
Image descriptions and alt text
Structure, TOCs, Page Lists, Landmarks and supplemental lists
Language declarations and shifts
Adding Schema.org Metadata
Checking accessibility with ACE
Modern ebook reading software for accessible EPUB content
The brand new format recommended by W3C for Audiobooks.

Date

FeBruary 25, 2020

Venue

London, UK

Learn More

Details of this Book Machine event can be found on their event page

Inheritance Tax: The Real Cost of not Making Content Accessible

Published at January 21, 2020/in Articles /by Sarah Hilderley

At last year’s London Book Fair, I was invited to speak at the Publishers Association Accessibility Action Group’s annual seminar. My aim was to bring the perspective of a large trade publisher to the subject of accessible content production. There, I emphasised both the enormous value in creating books with enhanced accessibility, and also the unique challenges in doing this at-scale when you are responsible for a list of the size that we are. Both our backlist catalogue, and our ongoing frontlist output are at such a scale that we have to make workflow changes very selectively and deliberately.

Rather than restating the content of that talk here, I thought it was worth talking more about the practical benefits of creating this content, beyond the indisputable ethical case. There has been plenty of excellent discussion about the moral imperative, so I won’t add to that here, but I think it’s important to spend some time talking about some other key advantages that creating accessible content brings.

I am also not going to address the argument from a surface-level commercial perspective. There have been claims about the potential unaddressed market, but it’s very hard to estimate what that really means in terms of sales and I am not qualified to make that kind of assessment. However a more easily-argued, but no less grounded commercial benefit is to do with preparing content for the reading surfaces of the future.

I write here not as a representative of my employer, but as somebody who has worked in digital publishing in various forms for over a decade, and with great optimism for the changes I see happening in our attitudes toward quality content. What I intend to argue is that the goals of accessible publishing are, in fact, goals that improve publishing and the publications we create as a whole. Rather than talking about accessible books, I like to refer to ‘semantically-enriched’ content, because this emphasises that the very same work that creates more accessible books also makes them a richer, more valuable store of preserved culture and knowledge, more ready to be transformed into the formats of the future.

When we create accessible ebooks, nothing we are doing is specific to print-impairment. Above all, what all of the tasks involved (tagging, metadata enrichment, logical structuring, described content et al) have in common is that they are adding semantic depth and direction to a work. By creating semantically-enriched content – which is to say, in essence, content that is fully realised, described and presented – we create content of fundamentally greater value, from which any reading system of the future, of any kind, will benefit. Particularly as we develop multivarious forms of artificial intelligence and ponder the uses to which it might be put, it is more important than ever that digital content describes itself, providing cues to its intended shape beyond the surface level of the written word. When we create semantically-enriched content, we are creating digital files that are ready and able to be turned into literally any format or surface we might think of in the future, beyond just ebooks as we currently know them.

On a raw technical level, semantically-enriched content involves creating better markup, with more semantic hooks that reading systems of any kind are able to use to trigger functionality and alter presentation. File formats will change over time, but as long as that semantic data is present, content can be reliably transformed into any format. Failing to add these features now is really just delaying the cost to a later date, as publishers who are now having to rework their backlist from the ‘dark days’ of early ebook conversion are already experiencing.

All of this was emphasised again for me recently by the PA’s fantastic ‘Axe the Reading Tax’ campaign. Ebooks are a crucial method of cultural storage and preservation, and far from being print’s poor cousin, in fact bring substantial benefits that I believe make them an even more important medium of cultural preservation. By making all of our books digitally and semantically rich, we bequeath a more valuable inheritance to future generations and the technologies they will create.

I am going to end this high-minded ramble by returning to the very thing I set out to not talk about: The oft-discussed ethical imperative. By creating semantically-enriched content, we open avenues that help make the human inheritance of literature – from its soaring highs of cultural value and moral power to its soul-enriching entertainment and precious distraction – available to the broadest number of people, and for the longest period of time possible; and by doing this fulfil our cultural mission as publishers to elevate, propagate and enrich the culture in which we operate. As it happens, in this instance, it also makes good commercial sense from anything other than a direly short-termist perspective.

It is incumbent upon each generation to pass on the great cultural inheritance of the written word. Our generation has a unique opportunity to do so in a profound and meaningful way that simply did not exist for those who came before us. It’s not often that those of us on the ‘nuts and bolts’ side of the industry get the opportunity to engage directly with such profound and meaningful goals, but here is one. Make it count.

This article was kindly submitted by Simon Mellins, Ebook Technology Coordinator at Penguin Random House UK. Simon’s slide deck from his presentation at the London Book Fair 2019 is available here.

Inclusive Publishing 2019 Review

Published at January 10, 2020/in Articles /by Sarah Hilderley

It’s been a busy year for Inclusive Publishing and, as we look forward to 2020, Richard Orme, CEO of the DAISY Consortium, reflects on some of the year’s successes for accessible publishing and our industry.

As an industry hub and news portal, InclusivePublishing.org has seen and reported on some major advancements in 2019, culminating in the release of a desktop version of our very popular Ace by DAISY tool, which gives the industry an EPUB accessibility checking tool—invaluable to many in-house workflows. Open source and free, the Ace App allows you to quickly test EPUB files through a familiar graphical user interface and highlight any issues which need to be addressed.

For those publishers who have joined our Inclusive Publishing Partner program they have the additional benefit of the enhanced SMART license (Simple Manual Accessibility Reporting Tool) which can be integrated with Ace, providing manual conformance checks. Other benefits of the program include expert advice and support and quarterly bulletins on the latest developments.

We’ve been pleased to report on some terrific events this year as accessibility becomes a major focus for publishers worldwide:

In March DAISY staff could be found at 3 major international events. The London Book Fair saw the annual Accessibility Action Group seminar focus publisher efforts towards inclusive and accessible publishing. DAISY presented results of our seasonal survey, framing the case studies and giving us some context to the challenges and opportunities for publishers. DAISY were also delighted to present at the LBF BIC Building a Better Business seminar where accessibility is always a highlight.

The CSUN Assistive Technology Conference was a huge success, as usual, and DAISY staff presented on a variety of inclusive publishing themes to packed audiences. Ebookcraft in Toronto had an enormous focus on accessible publishing and we were thrilled that our Ace developers were able to present a three-hour workshop at this very popular event.

In May we supported Global Accessibility Awareness Day with a publisher’s toolkit of ideas for highlighting the event in-house. We plan to give this even greater attention this year and urge our publishing colleagues to start planning asap.

EDRLab ran their annual DPUB Summit in June and DAISY staff played a prominent role in updating delegates on standards and DAISY tools. This is quite a technical event where accessibility is of huge importance.

In September we attended Digital Book World and we were delighted to play a major role at this event where we delivered a session on Born Accessible publishing and were proud to present the DAISY Award for Accessibility to Vital Source. We were also honored to receive an Outstanding Achievement Award for the Ace by DAISY tool.

In October we attended the LIA Accessibility Camp in Milan, presenting on standards developments and the Accessing Higher Ground conference in November was a huge opportunity to hear from a wide variety of publishers about the strides being made towards inclusive publishing practices. In particular, the face-off between various publishers was a terrific session.

The DAISY Consortium maintains and develops EPUBCheck, the conformance validator for the EPUB format and which received several updates, with a major release coming in 2020. EPUBCheck is overseen by the W3C and continues to be funded by generous contributions from across the digital publishing landscape.

We also maintain epubtest.org to conduct and facilitate reviews of reading systems, offering benchmark feedback to developers and consumers on flexible reading support. Working with technology companies of all sizes globally has proved incredibly fruitful, and we have seen a growth in interest from the wider community of developers seeking to maintain and improve their support for readers with print disabilities.

We’ve been very lucky to work with some top-quality contributors this year and our thanks go to all of them for their submissions. From event reports to opinion pieces, we’ve been fortunate to be able to publish some terrific pieces of extremely high quality. We very much hope that all our readers and supporters will take five minutes to update us on their progress by taking this year’s survey. Please make sure that we are aware of all your good work. Our thanks to all those who have completed this already—we look forward to sharing the anonymous results with you all soon.

We look towards 2020 with perhaps more optimism and enthusiasm than previous years. It has been wonderful to see how the industry has responded to our Inclusive Publishing website and newsletter, and we hope that you will all continue to support us—we rely on your input and are very grateful for it. There are some exciting developments we look forward to sharing with you next year, and we will continue to publish both technical and non-technical information to cater for all our readers in this way.

We wish you all a very happy new year and we look forward to working with you in the forthcoming months.

Richard Orme
CEO DAISY Consortium

Bett 2020

January 22nd to 25th, 2020

Published at December 21, 2019/in Upcoming events /by Sarah Hilderley

Bett is the first industry show of the year in the education technology landscape, bringing together over 800 leading companies, 103 exciting new EdTech startups and over 34,000 attendees. People from over 146 countries in the global education community come together to celebrate, find inspiration and discuss the future of education, as well as seeing how technology and innovation enables educators and learners to thrive. Of particular interest to inclusive publishing readers are the sessions presented by Abi James, on behalf of Abilitynet.

Date

January 22-25, 2020

Venue

ExCel, London, UK

Learn More

Visit the Bett website for further information

Include! The NIPI Conference on Inclusive Publishing

March 16th to 17th, 2020

Published at December 21, 2019/in Upcoming events /by Sarah Hilderley

This conference has now been postponed. Further details on the rescheduled event will be promoted as soon as they are available.

The Nordic Initiative Publishing Initiative conference aims to connect key participants from the Nordic world of reading and inclusion with the goal of initiating the joint work on inclusive publishing. If you work in the publishing industry, with distribution or with key library functions, this is a great opportunity to meet the experts and organisations in the forefront of accessibility and universal design, and find out how you can start the movement towards making your own products and services accessible for all.

Date

March 16-17, 2020

Venue

Malmö, Sweden

Learn More

Visit the NIPI website for further information

Reflections from Accessing Higher Ground 2019

Published at December 9, 2019/in Articles /by Sarah Hilderley

AHG Conference banner featuring conference information against a backdrop of a snow covered mountain As we reflect on the Accessing Higher Ground Conference and look ahead to the new year, it’s clear that higher ed will continue to build an increased focus on accessibility. In an all-out effort to avoid falling victim to the triple-digit increase in digital accessibility lawsuits over the last few years, the higher ed community has been largely focused on getting its arms around the ins and outs of IT accessibility, governance, documentation, and remediation. Specifically, there has never been a more important time than now for institutions to place an increased focus around equitable and accessible learning materials.

Nearly one in five college students have some type of disability, but on average only 11 percent of all undergraduate students formally register with a Disability Services Office (DSO). That means most institutions aren’t aware of the more than half of students with some form of disability or accessibility need. We are no longer in the age of a “one-size-fits-all” approach to instruction and learning. In the spirit of “accessibility helps everyone,” more and more campus stakeholders are embracing the universal design and inclusion mentality.

This year’s Accessing Higher Ground (AHG) Conference felt like the first major shift toward putting the student learning experience first. Thanks to conferences like AHG and the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, the higher ed community now has a foundational understanding of what it takes to lead accessibility initiatives on campus. This has allowed us to turn inward⁠ to the heart and soul of our institutions: the student learning experience.

One of the themes for this year’s sessions was focused around the equitable and accessible learning experience. An attendee who wanted to learn more about universal design and inclusion could curate an entire week of sessions around these subjects. From a workshop on the process of inclusive design, to tips on helping instructors and faculty understand the importance of usability, to planning for the variability of learners with universal design for learning (UDL) principles, this year’s sessions covered a wide range of topics.

Another emerging theme from the conference was around “born accessible” EPUB in the higher ed space, driven by two of the world’s biggest accessibility rock stars, George Kerscher and Richard Orme. The publishing industry is beginning the shift from PDFs to more accessible EPUB formats in order to provide the best possible experience for all. George and Richard conducted workshops designed to demystify the world of EPUB, provided how-to sessions on creating and remediating EPUB, and chaired panels of key educational publishers showcasing the accessibility features of their EPUB titles.

In addition to the forward-thinking sessions and discussions, an important piece of the conference went back to the basics of accessibility. As accessibility becomes increasingly more essential within higher ed, sessions and workshops around understanding accessibility laws and associated documentation, successful testing methods, and emerging assistive technologies were helpful for all of those looking to gain a base understanding.

This year RedShelf was thrilled to share a presentation around helping campus stakeholders understand the importance of adopting accessible course materials. In order to create lasting change around accessibility, institutional stakeholders like publisher representatives, faculty, campus store managers, and accessibility offices need to be engaged.

Knowing the importance of stakeholder involvement, one of the biggest initiatives of RedShelf’s accessibility team is educating our campus partners on the importance of adopting EPUB titles every term. Helping our partners understand why an EPUB is more effective than a PDF empowers them to create a groundswell on campus to ensure that everyone from individual faculty to admin offices is making sure course material accessibility needs are being met. While change is oftentimes difficult and institutional processes can be inflexible, we take pride in supporting each campus in their journey from accessible adoption to accessible delivery.

The AHG Conference always feels like an opportunity to put the finishing touches on our yearly quest for accessibility as a requirement, not a feature, and look ahead to our ambitions for the new year. We are all truly accessing higher ground each November by learning, networking, sharing ideas, and seeing old friends and making new ones. I am proud to be aligned with such thoughtful and influential people helping to make the world a better place.

Cheers to a prosperous and accessible 2020!

Our thanks to Erin Lucas for kindly submitting this article. Erin is Senior Director for Digital Accessibility at RedShelf, an Inclusive Publishing Partner.

Inclusive Publishing Seasonal Survey 2019

Published at December 2, 2019/in Articles /by Sarah Hilderley

As we approach the end of 2019, it’s the perfect time for us all to reflect on the progress we have made as an industry in our work towards publications that can be enjoyed by all readers. Our short survey should only take a few minutes to complete and will allow us to share a snapshot of the community in the new year, as well as make progress towards identifying gaps in the current solutions, be they informational, technical, training provision or reference.

The survey can be accessed here—it is intended for publishing organizations. If you are not actively publishing content in digital formats we thank you for visiting, but ask that you do not complete this survey but we do always welcome comments and suggestions though our Contact Form.

We very much value your contribution, and respect your privacy. No identifiable information you submit about yourself or your organization will ever be published or shared in any way.

Thank you once again for your participation. We look forward to sharing a general summary of responses on the Inclusive Publishing website in the new year. In the meantime we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and healthy new year. Here’s to 2020!!

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