[BOAI] Web Accessibility, Institutional Repositories and BS 8878

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from Brian Kelly.  --Peter Suber.]


>From time to time there are discussions on this list on the accessibility of
content hosted in repositories. However such discussions tend to die out, in
part, I feel, due to the difficulties in addressing the accessibility of
PDFs in a scalable way - I suspect few authors add alt text to images in
their word processors, for example and repository managers aren't in a
position to do this.

However although WCAG accessibility guidelines tended to be prescriptive
(images must have alternative text) the BSI's recently published BS 8878 Web
accessibility Code of practice is more pragmatic and achievable, requiring,
for example, providers of Web services to have an accessibility statement.

I recently had a quick look for accessibility statements on repository Web
sites but couldn't find anything related to repository items (the statement
I did find were about the repository Web site interface).

I have written a draft accessibility statement which I am publishing as
something to start a discussion on regarding what repository managers should
be doing in this area.  Note the intention is not to add significant
barriers to providing repository content but to document achievable
practices.

The post is available at:
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/web-accessibility-institutional-r
epositories-and-bs-8878/


Comments welcome.

Thanks

Brian
--------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: B.Kelly at ukoln.ac.uk
Phone: +44 1225 383943
Web site: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly/
Twitter (automated posts): http://twitter.com/ukwebfocus/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/boai-forum/attachments/20110124/41772737/attachment.html