IT Accessibility Review
Volume 1, Number 11
Around the IT/Web Accessible World
Plan of Action on Disability Launched
Kathmandu, Nepal- The National Federation of Disabled- Nepal (NFDN) and the Ministry for Women Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) have jointly launched 10-year National Policy and Plan of Action on Disability- 2006.
The national action plan has been prepared to ensure the fundamental rights, services and equal opportunities to the people living with disabilities and their social inclusion, reports said.
The plan has selected seventeen priority areas to achieve its goals: National coordination, Law formulation, Information and Research, Awareness, Training and Employment, Accessibility, Communication, Transportation, Education Sports Culture and Entertainment, Disability, Health facilities, Rehabilitation Empowerment and Poverty alleviation, Independent organisations, Women and Disability and International and Regional support.
The MoWCSW, NFDN, civil society, organisations working for the people with disabilities and other development stakeholders prepared the national action plan on the basis of international conventions that Nepal is signatory to and National Policy on Disability, reports The Himalayan Times daily.
The document would serve as a directive to formulate the national programmes and also be applicable to the civil society, non-governmental organisations and donor agencies.
Source:
nepalnews.com pb
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2006/sep/sep18/news02.php
18Sep 2006
BCS Improves Accessibility of IT Training for People with Disabilities
By Justin Richards
The BCS is breaking new ground in helping people with disabilities take IT qualifications, and in certifying the external agencies that provide assistance to these users.
Over the past three years, the society has built up a wide network of external agencies that are helping to make training materials and tests for the European computer driving license (ECDL) end-user qualification more accessible.
The BCS has introduced a quality mark to award to ECDL automated test providers that achieve certain standards of accessibility for people with disabilities.
An automated test provider can be awarded up to a maximum of three stars if they meet criteria for supporting people with impaired vision. For example, the BCS looks at whether they provide:
- Additional time to complete the test
- A readability score for the test material
- Compatibility with a screen reader package
"We believe that this quality mark is a unique innovation by an awarding body in the UK," said Derek Mills, technical customer support adviser in the BCS´s ECDL business unit.
The quality mark has been welcomed by automated test providers. One of them is already going through the evaluation process and is close to achieving the maximum three stars, said the BCS.
The society is planning to expand the initiative to include a fourth star, which would denote a language-modified approach for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The society commissioned the Royal National College for the Blind to produce papers in large print, audio and Braille formats for the manual test questions. These can be ordered online at no additional cost to the test centre.
The BCS Qualifications Quality Mark can also be awarded to other organizations that support accessibility initiatives. They will be judged on their technical support, online training materials, and improving the accessibility of the manual test materials. Awards have already been made in each of the three categories and the BCS expects more awards to be made in the near future.
The BCS said it is committed to social inclusivity with regards to its qualifications. It has approached this matter on three fronts: training materials, testing and tutor training.
Although it already works in partnership with a large number of agencies, the BCS is keen to interact with other IT professionals and organizations with expertise in disability matters. It can be contacted via www.bcs.org.
Source:
Computerweekly.com
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/08/29/217935/BCS+improves+accessibility+of+IT+training+for+people+with.htm
UN Agrees Disability Treaty Text
By Geoff Adams-Spink
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted in New York. This is the first human rights treaty of the 21st Century, and the UN hopes it will mark a significant improvement in the treatment of disabled people.
The world´s disabled population is estimated to be 650 million.
Negotiations went past the deadline set by the chairman of the ad-hoc committee, ambassador Don MacKay of New Zealand.
Welcoming the agreement, he said "I want to thank colleagues from the disability community for starting off the process and staying with it all along the way. As disabled colleagues say, nothing about us without us. It [the convention] will force states to develop a different way of thinking about disability issues. Once you get the paradigm shift... and people adopt a ´can do´ rather than a ´can´t do´ approach, a whole lot of other things flow from there."
New rights and freedoms
The treaty is expected to be adopted by the UN General Assembly during its next session, which starts in September.
Those countries that sign up to it will have to enact laws and other measures to improve disability rights and also agree to get rid of legislation, customs and practices that discriminate against disabled people.
The thinking behind the convention is that welfare and charity should be replaced by new rights and freedoms.
Currently only 45 countries have specific legislation that protects disabled people. The convention recognises that a change of attitude is vital if disabled people are to achieve equal status - countries that ratify it will be obliged to combat negative stereotypes and prejudices and to promote an awareness of people´s abilities and contribution to society.
Countries will also have to guarantee that disabled people will have a right to life on an equal basis with others.
Access to public spaces and buildings as well as transport, information and communications will also have to be improved.
US abstention
Most notable among the countries that will not be signing the convention is the United States.
It says that it already has comprehensive laws on disability rights.
But this is not something that concerns Maria Raina, co-ordinator of the international disability caucus which has been part of the negotiations.
"I think the USA is going to sign the convention as it did with other conventions," she told the BBC News website.
"When you sign the convention you are agreeing to the principles even if you don´t have the obligation to apply them."
´Welcome step´
The treaty has been welcomed by the UK´s statutory body, the Disability Rights Commission (DRC).
"The greatest significance will be a ´levelling up´ of provision across the world, and the creation of civil and human rights for disabled people," said DRC chairman Bert Massie.
"Not every country has that now. Following the convention and when it´s ratified by the UN, we will have approval for this enhancement of the rights of disabled people across the world."
Although current estimates are that about 10% of the world´s population has a disability, the World Health Organization estimates that this is likely to increase as a result of medical advances and the ageing process.
Negotiations had been delayed because of two issues: the situation of disabled people in situations of risk, and access to sexual and reproductive health services.
Although the treaty refers to "situations of risk", these were not specified; the wording had been taken to refer to war zones and natural disasters but some people wanted this to include occupation by a foreign power - a clear reference to the situation in the Middle East.
Cultural differences on matters like abortion, contraception, aids prevention and sex education mean that reaching an agreed position was particularly difficult.
Given the economic, social and cultural differences across the world, it will be some years before the minimum standards set out in the convention will be universally applied.
But for campaigners who say that for too long the world´s largest minority has been pushed to the margins of society, it will certainly be seen as a welcome first step.
Source:
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5274354.stm
26 August 2006
A Common Approach to Accessibility for All
To provide equal access and opportunity for everyone, the Web must be accessible. Although technical barriers can be overcome using Web technologies, what is the best approach? To answer this, researchers are developing a common approach to evaluating and creating accessible sites.
"We are developing a harmonised evaluation methodology setting out criteria that will enable Web and software developers to create accessible sites," says Eric Velleman, project coordinator of the IST-funded EU Web Accessibility Benchmarking (WAB) Cluster initiative at the Bartimeus Accessibility Foundation in The Netherlands. "We are working on guidelines, checklists and common interfaces for benchmarking tools, evaluation, repair tools and language."
According to Velleman, the issue of accessibility is becoming increasingly important for everyone, not just people with disabilities.
But how best to design an accessible site? What are the standards and guidelines? How best to evaluate a site?
Together with three other IST projects, WAB is seeking answers to these questions by developing a harmonised European methodology to evaluate and benchmark accessible websites. Velleman points out that in different countries, there are different methodologies or legislation for evaluating websites.
The European Internet Accessibility Observatory (EIAO) project is establishing a prototype for large scale Web accessibility benchmarking. Frequently updated measurements will be available online from a data warehouse to provide a basis for policymaking, research and actions to improve the accessibility to internet content. EIAO reports will allow users to verify the status of accessibility of public websites by country or region. The final results will be available online by mid-2006.
Support EAM wants the European Commission and Member States to consider adopting a Web accessibility quality mark, ´eAccessibility´, for goods and services that comply with standards being developed within the WAB Cluster and accepted internationally by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the industry association launched in 1994 that develops interoperable technologies - such as protocols, specifications, guidelines, software and tools - to lead the Web to its full potential.
BenToWeb (Benchmarking Tools and Methods for the Web) is providing new software modules and methodologies for Web accessibility that are not analysed by existing tools due to their inherent complexity. Project members are working on issues such as colour contrast, low vision, colour deficiency, consistency of navigation elements and language simplicity.
A practical answer to a real need
The three ongoing projects in the WAB cluster ´intersect´ in that they all require a methodology for evaluating the accessibility of websites. Experts are cooperating, validating each other´s work and collaborating on a Unified Web Evaluation Methodology (UWEM).
The UWEM being developed by the WAB Cluster is a practical response to a real need. Many practitioners across Europe have developed their own evaluation techniques, but a more harmonised evaluation will provide a practical and common path towards making the internet accessible to all.
A first release of the harmonised methodology (UWEM 0.5) was presented to the public in October 2005 when users, including people with disabilities, were encouraged to evaluate their sites and provide feedback. The first version was also evaluated by the IST programme´s WAI-TIES project.
Issues identified have been addressed and the next version (UWEM 1.0) is planned for release together with demonstrators for large-scale evaluation and certification in July 2006. It will be online and available for free.
UWEM 1.0 conforms with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines developed by the W3C.
Accessibility does not make for a dull site
Velleman urges people not to jump to the conclusion that an accessible site is a dull site. It is quite the contrary. "You can still make the same intelligent and great looking site while sticking to the code," he says. "You can make snappy, sharp design accessible for people with disabilities."
In addition, search engines ´like´ technical standards. "If you use all kinds of fancy techniques, it could cost you your place in Google," he adds.
"If you have an accessible site that is less voluminous, it loads easier and faster, which means you have less traffic on your server. This is also really important for commercial sites," Velleman explains. "By making its website accessible for people with disabilities and therefore more accessible to everyone, a company can increase its profitability."
He urges interested parties to do a quick check of the quality of the code on their website. Go to. Enter the URL in the W3C´s Markup Validation Service and press validate to see if the code is acceptable. If not, the site is possibly not ready for future versions of browsers, does not work optimally on all platforms or on mobile devices. And, it´s probably more expensive to maintain.
There is a strong business case for building accessible sites. If a website is made accessible according to W3C guidelines, it is easy to read in screen readers, which also makes it easy to read in PDAs and mobile phones. "This is the way of the future," Velleman concludes.
Source:
http://istresults.cordis.lu/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/82339 12 June 2006
Need to Promote Disability Studies
NEW DELHI- Disability studies expert at Jawaharlal Nehru University here, G. N. Karna, has stressed the important role of universities and other institutions of higher learning in promoting teaching of disability studies as an academic discipline.
Presenting a paper at the sixth Annual Disability Studies in Education Conference held at Michigan State University´s College of Education recently, Dr. Karna underlined the need for addressing the problem of disability as a human rights and developmental issue.
Dr. Karna said the recent policy announcement of the Indian Government recognizing the discipline of disability studies and instituting the Rajiv Gandhi chair(s) in universities and colleges was a landmark development.
Source:
http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/27/stories/2006052713090400.htm
27 May 2006
