FYI Info ADA&IT

[Liz321]

Accessible Information Technology Technical Bulletin: September 2006

The Northeast ADA & IT Center at Cornell University provides training, technical assistance and materials on the ADA and accessible information technology throughout New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This monthly technical bulletin is part of our dissemination efforts and if you do not want to receive this document or would like others from your organization added to our list, please call 1-800-949-4232 or reply to this message. Thank you


Providing Alternate Format Textbooks in Higher Education: The Publisher Look-up Service

The Publisher Look-Up Service, A New Textbook Database Offering From The Association of American Publishers (AAP): This online database provides a new resource to help college and university Disability Support Services (DSS) professionals find the appropriate contacts at publishing houses from whom to request electronic formats of textbooks, and/or scanning permissions, to facilitate the DSS office's provision of alternate format instructional materials to students with print disabilities.

The Publisher Look-Up Service, www.PublisherLookup.org, is a Web site interface that AAP launched in mid-August. Read the AAPs press release announcing this service for more information.


CommonLook: Tool for evaluating the accessibility of PDF files

NetCentric Technologies ( www.net-centric.com) has developed a unique tool, called CommonLook ( www.commonlook.com/pdf). CommonLook makes it possible to visually examine and repair a PDF document's logical structure and to check it against all the federal Government section 508 standards related to 1194.22 (Web-based intranet and internet information and applications). It highlights any compliance problems and helps authors and testers repair them by providing a simple drag-and-drop graphical interface. By simplifying the problem of repairing PDF structure issues, it becomes possible to deal effectively with complex documents containing tables, forms and multi-column documents.


Functional Accessibility Evaluator

Developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, the Functional Accessibility Evaluator is a free, open source tool that analyzes web resources for markup that is consistent with the use of DRES/CITES HTML best practices for development of functionally accessible web resources and resources that support interoperability. The HTML best practices are not a new standard, but rather a statement of techniques for implementation of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and United States Federal Government Section 508 standards that not only improve accessibility for people with disabilities, but also the inter-operability of web resources for everyone so all people benefit by having more options to access and use web resources.

For more information, visit http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu/about.php.


Upcoming EASI Web Conferences

4-part Series: Making Podcasts and Vodcasts accessible
Presenter: Dick Banks
Dates: September 12, 19, 26 and October 3

Webinar: Section 255: Accessible Telecommunications
Presenter: Debra Ruh, Founder and CEO, TecAccess LLC
Date: Sept. 27

4-part Series: Authoring DAISY Documents: You Can Do It!
Presenter: Karen McCall
Dates: October 3, 10, 17, 24

4-part Series: Learning Disabilities and Adaptive Technology
Multiple Presenters
Dates: October 5, 12, 19 and 26

Webinar: Evaluating the Accessibility and Usability of Web-based Student Services at Community Colleges
Presenters: William Erickson, Camille Lee and Sharon Trerise, Employment and Disability Institute, Cornell University
Date: October 18

For more information and to register, visit http://easi.cc/clinic.htm.


WebAIM article: "Appropriate Use of Alternative Text"
Excerpted from WebAIM.org

Its clear that there is still some confusion and divergent recommendations over what constitutes appropriate alternative text for images on the web, even among accessibility experts. Alternative text for images is the first principle of web accessibility. Despite this, there seem to be examples of improper alt text all over the web, even on sites that claim to be very accessible. WebAIM has written an article offering some best practices in creating alternative text.

This article presents the basics of alternative text and showcases many examples of proper implementation. These recommendations come from an understanding of accessibility standards and screen-reader users.

Read the WebAIM ariticle "Appropriate Use of Alternative Text" at http://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/.


Northeast ADA&IT Center
201 ILR Extension Building
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853

1-800-949-4232 (TTY and voice)
NY, NJ, PR, USVI

www.northeastada.org
northeastada@cornell.edu