Tag Archive for: #eprdctn

Announcement: EPUB 3.3, EPUB Reading Systems 3.3 and EPUB Accessibility 1.1 Move to Candidate Recommendation

The W3C has announced that the following documents are now W3C Candidate Recommendation Snapshots:

EPUB 3 defines a distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents. The EPUB format provides a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file container.

The full W3C announcement explains this important development in more details and provides information for implementation and feedback.

Our article What Does EPUB 3.3 Mean For Accessibility explores the new version of the standard and you may also be interested in the recent TechForum webinar The Year of Testing Dangerously where Wendy Reid (Kobo) and Dave Cramer (Hachette), co-chairs of the W3C working group, discuss the new specs in more detail.

Publishing, Accessibility, W3C Standards—Where Are We and How Did We Get Here? (W)

cover slide for Publishing, accessibility, W3C standards

In our series of free weekly webinars May 6th saw a session focused on publishing technology at the W3C, the EPUB eco-system, and baking in accessibility within digital content. Behind the scenes of any technology you will find that a significant amount of effort invested over many years has shaped where we are today. This webinar reflected on the EPUB 3 journey to become the most popular and most accessible digital publishing standard in the world.

This page contains:

Full Video of the Webinar

Speakers

  • Richard Orme, The DAISY Consortium—host and chair
  • Bill Kasdorf, Publishing Technology Partners
  • Luc Audrain, Inclusive Publishing Consultant (just retired from Hachette)
  • George Kerscher, The DAISY Consortium

Session Overview

Bill Kasdorf opened this webinar with an overview of book production workflows—the evolution of publishing technology has  enabled “accessibility to be more accessible than ever”. Today, every step of the workflow is digital and assistive technology benefits from the interoperability and open standards that are in play for digital files, systems and devices. Web technology is the fundamental basis for EPUB 3, giving publishers the opportunity to produce born accessible EPUB 3 as a standard output from their workflows. But Bill stressed that whilst this is possible:

You have to use the tech properly!

EPUB 3 doesn’t guarantee accessibility, rather it offers “accessibilityability”.

Luc Audrain walked us through a history of EPUB 3 which is now hosted within the Publishing@W3C organization who’s focus is on creating a global EPUB 3 ecosystem. The revision of the EPUB 3 spec and upgrade of EPUBCheck were the initial focus and now it is time to create the best EPUB 3 ecosystem for born accessible content, with tools such as EPUBCheck, Ace by DAISY and the EPUB 1.0 Accessibility specification.

George Kerscher spoke about integrating accessibility into all aspects of publishing and reading:

Accessibility is not a frosting spread on a cake; it must be baked in.

Authoring and publishing production software can integrate Ace by DAISY, the SMART tool and the DAISY Knowledge Base into their working practices and these have been built from DAISY’s years of experience and participation in digital publishing initiatives.

Alongside these tools and best practices, publishers need to take advantage of conformance and discovery metadata if they are to communicate the good work they are doing. The forthcoming User Experience Guide for accessibility metadata will help libraries and print disabled readers to buy born accessible EPUB 3 content and to have access at the same time, in the same format and at the same price as all other readers.

If you are interested in the future of EPUB and publishing standards then the second part of this webinar is worth registering for. The future of accessible publishing and standards – where are we going? will take place on June 3rd, 2020

Related Resources

Links mentioned in the webinar:

Free Webinar: Leveraging InDesign for Accessible EPUB Creation

May 20th, 2020

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

Free Webinar: Publishing, Accessibility, W3C Standards—Where Are We and How Did We Get Here?

May 6th, 2020

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.

Behind the scenes of any technology you can find a significant amount of effort invested over many years has shaped where we are today. This session will reflect on the EPUB 3 journey to become the most popular and most accessible digital publishing standard in the world.

Date

May 6th, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the May 6th webinar

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

Free Webinar: Making Math Accessible, One Step at a Time

April 22nd, 2020

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.

Learn how to support students with learning disabilities by developing number sense, showing work, and teaching concepts in multi-modal formats. Highlighting examples in tools such as Mathshare, Desmos, and PhET, we will present contextualized research on how to support students with learning disabilities in learning math.

Date

April 22, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the April 22nd webinar 

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

Free Webinar: Publishers Faceoff to Prove the Accessibility of their EPUBs

April 8th, 2020

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.

Publishers are being required to demonstrate their accessibility claims. It is no longer acceptable to simply say that your products are accessible without proving it. With the rise of EPUB 3 as the dominant format in publishing, we can now demand Born Accessible materials from all publishers. This webinar will provide a platform for disability experts from the DSO and accessible publishing community to dive deep into EPUB 3 digital textbooks from the top selling publishers in Higher education.

Date

April 8, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the April 8th webinar

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

Free Webinar: Helping Higher Ed Students with Access to Accessible Course Material During the COVID-19 Crisis

April 1st, 2020

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.

This first webinar will explore some of the innovative considerations the industry is making to support students at this challenging time. Learn how students and instructors in nonprofit, semester-based colleges and universities can use digital reading systems to access the materials that they need to continue learning through the remainder of the term. The session will highlight initiatives available in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland.

Date

April 1, 2020 at 3pm UTC

Venue

Live online via Zoom or via the DAISY YouTube channel afterwards

Learn More

Sign up for the April 1st webinar 

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

ebookcraft 2019

March 18th to 19th, 2019

ebookcraft is a two-day conference dedicated to ebook production—if you’re looking for a mix of practical tips and forward-thinking inspiration, you won’t want to miss it.The main conference day for ebookcraft 2019 will be held on Tuesday, March 19 with workshops on Monday, March 18. for the #eprdctn crowd for whom this conference is designed.

Early bird pricing is available until January 25, 2019 and newsletter updates are also available. Check back here for program highlights for the inclusive publishing community, as they are released by the organizers.

Date

March 18-19, 2019

Venue

Toronto, Canada

Learn More

To access registration and conference details visit the ebookcraft website.

Ebooks for Designers – Webinar

August 15th, 2018

Kevin Callahan of BNGO Books (www.BNGObooks.com) is an ebook developer, writer and speaker based in New York City. He will be delivering this one hour webinar for The Graphic Arts Guild. Members and non-members are welcome to register

Almost every print book is adapted as an ebook. Some publishers have robust workflows to convert their InDesign or Quark layouts to EPUB3 files, but many don’t. They rely on vendors and freelancers to create their ebooks. This session introduces ebook basics: what they are, how to create them, and how to adapt print designs to digital use. Get some tips on using your skills to create beautiful, user-friendly, and accessible ebooks that honor the print design and serve digital purposes.

Date

August 15, 2018

Venue

Online Webinar

Learn More

To register and learn more about this session visit the event page on the Graphic Arts Guild website