2006 Media Releases
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Do we really live in a ‘networked’ world?
Web adaptability specialists meet to make the ‘buzz’ mean business
If buzz-words like an ‘online world’ or ‘networked community’ are to have real meaning, then the world-wide-web must be accessible to everyone who wants digital content and has appropriate devices and telecommunications – from school children to people with disabilities.
At the moment this is not the case, according to Liddy Nevile, Associate Professor in La Trobe University’s Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering.
Large web pages rarely fit on devices with small hand-held screens, let alone phone screens – and many important sites are not accessible to people with adaptive technologies.
‘It’s not a networked community unless everyone can participate’, says Ms Nevile, a point highlighted by a US Federal Court Judge in September when he sustained a discrimination claim, establishing a precedent that retailers must make their websites accessible to the blind.
‘The suit was filed as a class action on behalf of all blind Americans who were being denied access to the web pages of the giant Target retail chain.’
Ms Nevile is organiser of the ‘Web Adaptability Conference’, titled: Are we making the best progress possible?’ The conference will be held on La Trobe University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora from 29 November to 1 December.
Conference and workshop topics focus on making it easier for organisations to manage their web responsibilities. They include making web resources suitably adaptable; auditing websites and resources for adaptability and standards compliance; repairing inaccessible content; discovering accessible content; and matching resources to users’ needs and preferences.
Conference delegates range from educators, researchers and symbolic language resource developers to information managers and technical staff.
A keynote speaker will be Madeleine Rothberg, Director of Research and Development for the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media in the US.
Her work focuses on providing access to multimedia and educational technology for users with disabilities, both through directly accessible solutions such as captions, talking software and audio description, and with improvements in infrastructure through standards.
Ms Nevile says WGBH – the Sesame Street television company in Boston – can make almost anything accessible, and has chosen to work on standards for describing resources and the needs and preferences of people with disabilities.
For the higher education sector, Madeleine Rothberg also works with a consortia of US universities to ensure that the software they are developing for teaching and learning includes the new description standards and applications that match resources to users’ needs and preferences.
‘By sharing the effort of providing accessible resources, universities are expecting to move much closer to being able to offer inclusive education with far less individual effort,’ Ms Nevile says.
Leading accessibility software developer Rob Yonaitis from HiSoftware will be conducting workshops showing how institutions can manage accessibility.
Ms Nevile says the forthcoming ISO standards – which have been co-authored by her, Rothberg and others – can be implemented by a combination of such software and other open source products.
‘Australia has a strong reputation for its contribution to developing accessibility standards for the web – and La Trobe regularly attracts people who lead in global standards development, furthering the work we are doing for this important part of the ICT sector here in Melbourne.’
For further information:
For program details, full list of speakers and other conference information, please see: http://www.ozewai.org/2006/
Contact: Liddy Nevile: Email: L.Nevile@latrobe.edu.au