DIAGRAM is pleased to announce The EPIQ conference on behalf of DIAGRAM community member Sina Bahram who gushed about it. “I’ve been part of EPIQ for 8 years, and I have rarely seen a nicer, more fun-loving, brilliant, and all-around amazing group of people that gather every year for this important conference. It’s one of the most fun and rewarding things I do all year.”
EPIQ is an international professional development workshop for educators to learn the foundational skills necessary to teach students computer science using the fully accessible Quorum programming language. The conference takes place July 15th – 23rd, 2018 in Austin Texas at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired where Jim Allen, another DIAGRAM Community member, is the Alt. Media Specialist.
Early bird registration is $350 and available until March 31st. Registration includes Access to all EPIQ programming tracks as well as breakfast and lunch catered by local vendors for the duration of the event. You can register at https://goo.gl/Wexoxg.
If you have any questions you can email the EPIQ organizers at EPIQ@QORF.org.
Breaking news! As of January 30, 2018, the WCAG 2.1 specification is now considered an official W3C candidate recommendation. Why is this news important? WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the guiding light for accessibility and has long been referenced by lawmakers when lawsuits arise around digital content accessibility; it also happens to be the foundation behind EPUB (electronic publications) accessibility. The prior release of WCAG 2.0 was in 2007, and a lot has changed in the standards and accessibility worlds since then. WCAG 2.1 incorporates these shifts with additional guidance to better address the needs of users with low vision and cognitive disabilities and users of touch and mobile interfaces, such as tablets and smartphones, and paves the way for future advances in digital accessibility. If everything goes according to plan, we hope to announce WCAG 2.1 as an official W3C recommendation sometime this summer, so stay tuned.
The Developers Working Group held its first meeting of 2018 on January 29th. One of the main topics of discussion centered on the potential impact of automated simplification of complex words and phrases for students with cognitive disabilities. The group also discussed potential additions to our accessible code repository such as the data visualization strategies, including creating accessible maps and charts, produced by DIAGRAM community member Doug Schepers. Follow-up meetings are being scheduled with several working group members to complete these samples and include them in our code repository. Look for blog updates to learn more about when these examples will be available.
The Math in EPUB group has been working diligently to figure out how to best display digital math in EPUB files. Currently, math is often displayed using MathML, a computer language representation of math that can be visually displayed on a webpage or inside an EPUB book. MathML has the potential to be accessible so a student can explore the equation with their computer or ebook reader to better comprehend the math equation. However, not all ereaders and reading systems can support MathML.
In December, 2017, the Math in EPUB group proposed adding a short text description in addition to MathML to digital files with math images so when a reading system or ereader is unable to support the MathML, a student using a screen reader would still have access to the alt-text and be able to understand the math image being displayed.
Unfortunately, internal testing revealed that this solution did not work in all cases, forcing the group back to the drawing board. Co-chair Neil Soiffer was able to create a more robust method for embedding the MathML inside the EPUB which looks even more promising than the original approach. We are now conducting internal testing and will be reaching out to our publishing partners for additional input. We hope to soon announce a feasible work-around to this problem of displaying math in EPUBs accessibly.
The Outreach Working Group has started the year off with tons of energy! Since their reintroduction at the beginning of January 2018, they have identified key stakeholder groups and begun to document the top tools and resources available to the seven groups, which are:
- Parents
- Students
- Educators
- Researchers
- Technologists
- Policy and standards implementers
- Publishers
The group has also implemented a new reporting system for each of the DIAGRAM working groups to assess progress made toward deliverables and align stakeholder populations with the deliverables. The Outreach Working Group and the DIAGRAM team are still identifying the best way to share the results of this reporting, and we welcome your suggestions. Send feedback to Amayaw[at]benetech[dot]org. Finally, the busy Outreach Working Group has identified the need to develop canned talking points to help everyone share the work of the DIAGRAM Center. The group plans to address this last deliverable later this year.
It’s that time of year again, when many of us head to sunny San Diego for the California State University Northridge (CSUN) Assistive Technology Conference. We have compiled a list of sessions that may be of interest to our community, including ones that Benetech’s DIAGRAM team will be co-presenting. Please feel free to suggest additional sessions for the list. For those of you attending the CSUN conference, we hope you will join us on Thursday, March 22 from 5:30 – 7:00 PM for our annual Office Hours event. It’s always a great time to catch up with old friends, meet new members of the community, and enjoy tasty snacks and drinks. We have reserved a suite at the Hyatt for the event and will send an email with the room number after check in. If you, or someone you know, would like to attend but aren’t on our mailing list, contact me at amayaw[at]Benetech[org].
CSUN Sessions of Potential Interest:
Sessions being co-presented by Benetech’s DIAGRAM team
Wednesday, March 21
10:00 am, La Jolla A, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Charles LaPierre and Lisa Wadors
2:20 pm, Balboa C, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Sue-Ann Ma, Neil Soiffer, Sam Dooley, John McGowan and Daniel Marquès
PowerPoint slides available for download here
Thursday, March 22nd
10:00 am, La Jolla A, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Charles LaPierre and Robin Seaman
Thursday, March 22, 11:00 am, Balboa AB 2d Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Jim Allen and Lisa Wadors
Friday, March 23rd
8:00 am, Balboa C, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Sue-Ann Ma, Ender Tekin and Katsuhito Yamaguchi
PowerPoint slides available for download here
1:20 pm, La Jolla A, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Sue-Ann Ma, Lucy Greco, Øystein Moseng, and Volker Sorge
Sessions given by DIAGRAM community members on related topics:
Wednesday, March 21st
9:00 am, La Jolla A, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Rick Johnson, George Kerscher and Judy Brewer
9:00 am, Balboa AB, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Josh Miele and Ting Siu
11:00 am, La Jolla A, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Rick Johnson, George Kerscher, Elaine Ober and Sharon Krevor-Weisbaum
11:00 am, Gaslamp AB, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Ting Siu and Chloe Rose
11:00 am, Gaslamp CD, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Jason White, Eric Hansen and Carlos Cavalie
1:20 pm, Gaslamp CD, 2d Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Jesse Greenberg, Emily Moore, Taliesin Smith and Michael Kauzmann
Thursday, March 22nd
8:00 am, La Jolla A, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Elaine Ober, Amy Salmon and Brian Hochhalter
9:00 am, Balboa AB 2d Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Amy Mason
10:00 am, Balboa AB, 2d Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Mark Hakkinen and Carlos Cavalie
11:00 am, Gaslamp AB, 2d Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by John Gardner and Volker Sorge
1:20 pm, Gaslamp CD, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Joseph Polizzotto
1:20 pm, La Jolla A, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by: George Kerscher, Amy Salmon, Elaine Ober, Rick Johnson and Brian Hochhalter
3:20 pm, Gaslamp CD, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Ted Gies
4:20 pm, Mission Beach C, 3rd Floor, Between Harbor and Seaport Towers
Presented by Steve Noble, Neil Soiffer, Sam Dooley, Dan Brown and Edgar Lozano
Friday, March 23rd
8:00 am, La Jolla B, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Ed Summers
9:00 am, Balboa C, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Madeleine Rothberg and Anna Brooks
9:00 am, Gaslamp AB, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Steve Landau, Josh Miele and Stephanie Herlich
10:00 am, Gaslamp CD, 2nd floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Larry Goldberg, Jeffrey Wieland and Mary Bellard
1:20 pm, Balboa AB, 2nd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Jason White, Erich Hansen, Carlos Cavalie and Cary Supalo
2:20 pm, Torrey Hills AB, 3rd Floor, Seaport Tower
Presented by Mark Hakinnen, Irfan Ali and Cary Supalo
Here we are, at the end of 2017 and the second year of the DIAGRAM Center + award. Naturally, we find ourselves reflecting on what an incredible year it’s been and wanting to celebrate some of the achievements and impact the DIAGRAM community has driven in the last year alone.
- We helped define the first-ever Accessibility Specification for EPUB books, so publishers have an accessibility standard to meet when publishing digital books.
- We drove the acceptance of the new accessibility metadata standard in schema.org, providing a way for search engines to identify content that is accessible.
- We hosted the DIAGRAM Accessible Interactives Code Sprint, in partnership with Macmillan Learning at the 2017 CSUN (California State University Northridge) Assistive Technology Conference. Several great prototypes came out of that work, including interactive accessible infomaps and advances on accessible simulations.
- We released a new version of the Poet Image Description Training Tool and already several major publishers and publishing service providers have used it for training their teams so their books can be more accessible.
- We prototyped in partnership with Neil Soiffer the Benetech Math Editor, a unique UDL tool for all students, including those with disabilities, to do and show their math work online. The feedback from students and teachers has been tremendous and we have big plans to move it forward in 2018.
- We issued the first annual DIAGRAM Report, providing a technology lookahead for students with disabilities and their parents and educators. The Report incorporated the insights from many of you in the community.
- The team at the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media completed accessible versions of content from PEEP and the Big Wide World, a science program for early learners. In addition, they developed methodologies for testing the effect of accessibility accommodations on the engagement of those learners.
A highlight of the year was of course the community coming together in person for the DIAGRAM Strategic Planning Meeting, held over two days in the Washington, DC area. In that meeting we underscored our commitment to identify and address the needs of students with disabilities beyond those associated with print disabilities. We welcomed the deeper participation of community members working on innovations for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, students with cognitive or intellectual disabilities, and students with other learning disabilities. Since that meeting, we’ve also put into gear plans to create and explore more technologies for students with a range of disabilities. You’ll notice this theme running through this December edition of the newsletter and beyond, as we share more about new projects and partnerships (including an exciting new one with Clayton Lewis)! In the meantime, thank you to everyone for your continued participation in the DIAGRAM community. We are truly humbled and grateful to be working with so many amazing people who are making a difference every day in the lives of students with disabilities. We wish you happy holidays and a terrific new year!
Warmly,
All of us on the DIAGRAM team at Benetech
I’m delighted to have the opportunity to work at the DIAGRAM Center for six months in 2018! I’ll be developing pilot partnerships with other research groups and helping to design and carry out user studies of new tools, among other activities.
A bit about my background: At IBM Research and then at the University of Colorado, I’ve worked in human-centered computing, with an emphasis on evaluating user interfaces, for many years. In the last dozen years I’ve focused on technology and disability, including design for people with cognitive disabilities (with the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities), using cloud technology to support automatic configuration of information presentation as a consultant to NIDRR (now NIDILRR: National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research), and developing new information representations for inclusive design.
It’s very exciting to join the DIAGRAM Center team and to meet those members I’ve not already met. I’m also looking forward to working with many of the partners around the country. Here’s wishing us all a very productive 2018!
Have you ever wished that there was an easy way for you to not only know if your digital content is accessible, but also how to fix the parts that aren’t? Or maybe you’ve wished that there was a simple and fast way to know if the digital content you wanted to read was accessible? A DIAGRAM community member summed it up when he stated: “I’ve been waiting for this since 1990.” Well, guess what, the wait is finally over! Benetech and DAISY have teamed up once again to bring you a suite of services to make creating and finding Born Accessible content easier than ever before. DAISY has developed Ace, an open source accessibility checking tool, that performs a variety of automated checks to evaluate conformance to the EPUB Accessibility Specification and the rules defined in WCAG, ARIA, and HTML. It produces a list for the manual checks that need to be performed, as well as data visualizations to aid the process. The tool is currently in the last stages of beta development with full release slated for the end of January, 2018.
Benetech has leveraged the work DAISY did and created a consulting program that just finished a successful pilot. Through this program, Benetech works with publishers and reviews their EPUB files, advising them on their accessibility compliance, offering consolation when accessibility isn’t compliant, offering ways to fix said accessibility issues, and then publicly certifying the files as being accessible. We like to think of it as giving them the Benetech Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval!
The pilot program concluded this past October and involved us reviewing forty files from ten publishing partners. It was truly a fascinating experience to do a deep dive into publishers’ files and engage with them about their accessibility strategy. In addition, it was extremely satisfying to see how they incorporated our suggestions into their content and created truly born accessible materials.
Now that we have completed a successful pilot, we are ready to dive into an in-depth review process and accredit publishers as being accessible once they’ve proven their process consistently produces fully conforming files. Starting in January, we will meet with more publishers and pitch this program. We’ve already reached out to our international DAISY friends to see who might be interested in joining us in this endeavor, and we have commitments from the RNIB, Dedicon in the Netherlands, and Vision Australia. If you would like to be a part the program please contact Charles LaPierre, Benetech’s Technical Lead for Born Accessible at CharlesL[at]Benetech[dot] org, or Robin Seaman, Benetech’s Director of Content Acquisition at RobinS[at]Benetech[dot]org. Look for an upcoming blog post with a close-captioned recording of the webinar Robin and Charles recently did work that provided an in-depth review of the pilot and the results.
Last month, the DIAGRAM Center unveiled our new Benetech Math Editor (still in alpha) to the community. The DIAGRAM team also shared our initial excitement about the potential of this new online tool, especially in light of positive feedback received through early end-user testing.
While we believe most DIAGRAM newsletters are happily read by those on our distribution list and further shared on occasion, our prior post about the Math Editor elicited an unprecedented amount of inbound emails and support. The exceptional interest from active DIAGRAM members and new friends has materialized through a number of individuals who have reached out and offered to help test our product, participate in upcoming beta tests, or just to say “I am very excited about your product.” We really appreciate the amazing support from the community and look forward to sharing our developments in the new year – our next release includes significant accessibility and usability enhancements for AT users. Until then, happy holidays to all and special thanks to all the technical folks who have made this project possible (Neil Soiffer, Arno Gourdoul, Jason Schwab and Sina Bahram)!
Invigorated with the success of the first DIAGRAM Report, we are now excitedly beginning work on the 2018 one. It will build on what was done in 2017 and will also explore technologies not previously featured. This is where you, our community, has an important role. We want to make sure your technology needs and interests and those of your students, children, friends, etc. are represented. As such, we invite you to help us determine which technologies we should focus on in 2018 by taking a short survey. This is your chance to influence the DIAGRAM Center’s work.
Once we have a list of the top priority areas we will connect with experts and research how these technologies might affect students with disabilities. If you are interested in being more involved or have feedback, please contact the report authors, Charles LaPierre at CharlesL[at]Benetech[dot]org or Lisa Wadors at LisaW[at]Benetech[dot]org.
Huge news from the standards world: ARIA 1.1 has become a W3C recommended standard! This means that there is finally a clear solution on how to create extended descriptions for things like images, tables and diagrams on websites, making internet use more accessible than ever. And that’s not all. There is also another new recommended standard, the Digital Publishing Module, to expose the semantically marked-up parts of a book previously hidden to the end user. For those not immersed in the standards world, the big deal about this is that it means a reader using assistive technology will be able to identify where they are in the book and can easily navigate between various sections. It’s hard to believe this wasn’t possible before, so this really is a huge win for everyone. To make sure it has the greatest possible impact, DIAGRAM will be working with the Publishing Community Group to ensure that the next version of EPUB will by default use these latest ARIA and HTML recommendations. A big congratulations and thank you to everyone involved in making this happen!