Slides for a workshop session on "Building an Accessible Digital Institution" facilitated by Brian Kelly, Innovation Advocate, Cetis at the Cetis conference held at the University of Bolton on 17-18 June 2014. See http://www.slideshare.net/Thebriankelly/building-an-accessible-digital-institution

1. Building an Accessible Digital Institution
Brian Kelly
Innovation Advocate
Cetis
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
Contact Details
Email: ukwebfocus@gmail.com
Twitter: @briankelly
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
Slides and further information available at
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/cetis-2014-accessibility/
Cetis 2014 conference, 17-18 June 2014

2. About Me
Brian Kelly:
• Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton
• Was UK Web Focus at UKOLN, University of Bath
• Professional interests include web accessibility, web
standards, social media, web preservation, …
Selection of Web Accessibility publications:
• Developing A Holistic Approach For E-Learning Accessibility,
Kelly, B., Phipps, L. and Swift, E., 2004
• Holistic Approaches to E-Learning Accessibility, Phipps, L. and
Kelly, B., 2006
• Accessibility 2.0: People, Policies and Processes, Kelly, B.
et al, 2007
• A Challenge to Web Accessibility Metrics and Guidelines:
Putting People and Processes First, Cooper, M. et al, 2012
Introduction
2

3. About This Session Subject to change
3
Introduction
Time Title Who
Building an Accessible Digital Institution:
What Can We Do Today?
09.15 Introduction BK
09.30 The Context BK
09.45 Group Discussion All
10.40 Review All
10.45 Coffee break
Looking to the Future
11.45 Introduction BK
11.50 Reflections and Directions AH
12.20 Further thoughts All
12.40 Conclusions BK
12.45 Finish
Opportunities for additional
presentations

4. About You
Briefly describe:
• Your name, institution and responsibilities
• Your interests in accessibility
• What you hope to gain from this session
4
Introduction

5. The WAI Perspective
• xx
5
WebAccessibility

6. How
WCAG’s four core principles
6
WebAccessibility

7. WebAccessibility
University Accessibility Policy
University accessibility policies are often linked to from all
corporate pages (e.g. at http://www.foo.ac.uk/accessibility)
7

8. WebAccessibility
University Accessibility Policy
University accessibility policies are often linked to from all
corporate pages (e.g. at http://www.foo.ac.uk/accessibility)
8

9. University Accessibility Policy
University accessibility policies are often linked to from all
corporate pages (e.g at http://www.foo.ac.uk/accessibility)
9
WebAccessibility

10. In addition:
• Conformance is binary:
no notion of reasonable measures
• Is “just-in-case accessibility” always desirable?
• See limitations in “Forcing Standardization or
Accommodating Diversity? A Framework for Applying
the WCAG in the Real World”
WCAG’s Limitations
But WCAG approach has limitations:
• Is dependent on browsers which conform with UAAG
(what to do with legacy browsers?)
• Is dependent on authoring tools
which conform with ATAG
• Needs to be applied to all
formats (not just HTML)
10
WCAGLimitations

11. Content Must Be Understandable?
One of WCAG’s key principles:
“Information and the operation of user interface must be
understandable”
11
Which is the cancerous cell?
WCAGLimitations

12. Content Must Be Understandable?
One of WCAG’s key principles:
“Content and controls must be understandable”
12
What does this convey?
Man against snow, Austrian Tirol 1974,
reproduced with permission of the
photographer: Professor Paul Hill
WebAccessibility

13. Content Must Be Understandable?
One of WCAG’s key principles:
“Content and controls must be understandable”
13
What does this convey?
Man against snow, Austrian Tirol 1974,
reproduced with permission of the
photographer: Professor Paul Hill
What does it man to “understand”
a surrealist painting?
The Great Masturbator, S. Dali
WCAGLimitations

14. Teaching and Learning Challenges
Furthermore:
• Assumes accessibility is a function of the digital resource
• We have argued “web accessibility is not an intrinsic
characteristic of a digital resource but is determined by
complex political, social and other contextual factors, as
well as technical aspects which are the focus of WAI
standardisation activities”
14
Kelly, Phipps and others (2004-2007):
• Importance is accessibility of
learning objectives, not learning
resource
• May be several alternatives,
including real-world alternative
• “Blended accessibility for blended
learning”
ContextualApproaches

15. Challenges in E-Learning
What policies and processes do we need for:
• VLEs
• MOOCs
• Provision of and access to learning resources
• Advertising courses
• Course administration
• Assessment
• …
15
Challenges

16. MOOCs: What Is To Be Done?
Policies and practices for accessibility of MOOCs is
needed.
What should be done?
• WCAG statement: all resources on this MOOC
conform with WCAG AA
• WCAG aspiration: we will try to ensure that all
resources on this MOOC conform with WCAG AA
• Something else: But what?
16
Challenges

17. What Is Being Done?
Hyperlinked Library MOOC
17
Challenges

18. What Is Being Done?
Hyperlinked Library MOOC
18

19. MOOC Resources
MOOC resources:
• Produced in-house, following in-house
production guidelines
• Found online and used based on selection
criteria
19
Challenges

20. BS 8878
BS 8878:
• A British Standard
Code of Practice
• A framework that
allows definition of
the process
undertaken by
organisations to
build or procure an
optimally accessible
web site
20
What is to be done?
• WCAG conformance statement
• WCAG aspiration
• Evaluate benefits which use of BS 8878 could provide?

21. BS 878 In 88 Seconds
Summary by
Jonathan Hassell:
see blog post and
transcript
21https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ4MRCyMTRQ
BS8878

22. BS 8878
BS 8878:
• a framework that
allows definition of
the process
undertaken by
organisations to
build or procure an
optimally accessible
web site
22
What is to be done?
• WCAG conformance statement
• WCAG aspiration
• Evaluate benefits which use of BS 8878 could provide?
For you to decide!

23. Further Information
Video & slides of
talk on "BS 8878 &
the Holistic
Approaches to Web
Accessibility",
CETIS Accessibility
SIG, Feb 2011
23
I said:
… still requires “conformance with WCAG 1.0”!
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/cetis-accessibility-sig-2011-02/
NB: auto captions
emerged over time. To
what extend might
developments in the
future help?

24. Group Activity
Some questions:
• Is BS 8878
relevant?
• How can it be
used?
• How should we go
about using BS
8878?
24

25. Questions?
Any questions, comments, …?
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26. This presentation, “Building an Accessible Digital Institution” by
Brian Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 Licence
Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation.
Quotations may have other licence conditions.
Images may have other licence conditions. Where possible links are
provided to the source of images so that licence conditions can be
found.
26
Slides and further information available at
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/cetis-2014-accessibility/
Licence and Additional Resources