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Accessible Multimedia in Textbooks

Accessible Multimedia in Textbooks. WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) May 3, 2011. About NCAM. Established at WGBH in 1993 as R&D center Founding member of W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Builds on / extends expertise of: The Caption Center

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Accessible Multimedia in Textbooks

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  1. Accessible Multimediain Textbooks WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) May 3, 2011

  2. About NCAM • Established at WGBH in 1993 as R&D center • Founding member of W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) • Builds on / extends expertise of: • The Caption Center • est. 1972; pioneered captioning for users who are deaf or hard of hearing • Descriptive Video Service (DVS) • est. 1990; pioneered descriptions for audiences who are blind or visually impaired

  3. About NCAM 3 • Focus on solutions for existing and emerging media • DTV, Web, mobile, multimedia, convergent media • LMS, DVDs, educational technologies, many others • Serves on federal committees • FCC committees (technology, disability, public safety) • rulemaking committees (Section 508, VPACC, mobile) • Advises technology developers, federal and state agencies • Offers tools for multimedia accessibility • MAGpie, CCforFlash, ccPlayer, CaptionKeeper • Publishes guidelines for creating accessible materials • multimedia, STEM images, Web sites, e-books, iTunes

  4. Industry standards and specifications 4 • W3C working groups (WAI, TTML, HTML5, WCAG, SMIL, others) • IMS Global Learning Consortium and ISO/IEC JTC 1 • DAISY and EPUB • Advanced Television Systems Committee • broadcast and mobile • Society of Motion Pictures Engineers (SMPTE) committees • United Nations G3 Inclusive Communications Technologies • Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) collaboration • cloud-based services

  5. Educational applications and STEM expertise 5 • Access for All distributed learning standards - implements user profiles to customizes search and display of individualized accessible content • Effective Description Practices - collaborative effort with APH, RFB&D, AFB & DAISY to research meaningful use of description in textbooks, DTBs, on-line materials • Accessible Test Items - research and training to inform use of description in high-stakes testing (students with visual and print disabilities)

  6. Educational applications and STEM expertise 6 • STEM expertise from 21 years of describing science-focused programming and associated Web content • Successive NSF and DoED grants • Beyond the Text (multimedia in e-books) • PIVoT, MIT’s online physics curriculum • Personalized Access to NSDL • WGBH’s Teachers’ Domain • DIAGRAM Center: Partner with Benetech and DAISY in R&D of challenges, opportunities, tools for accessible textbooks

  7. Publishers beginning to hear access demands 7 • Some colleges and universities are beginning to include accessibility requirements in their adoption processes • Who is requiring accessibility? - not all schools - students benefit from widespread accessibility • Who defines accessibility? - school, state, student, publisher, technology provider • Schools benefit from having materials use similar access features; lowers the learning curve for staff and students

  8. Image-description authoring/display 8 • Solutions for static images - alternative text (brief; @alt) - long descriptions (detailed; @longdesc, prodnote, figcaption, aria-describedby) • Solutions for multimedia/interactive - captions - descriptions - subtitles, dubbing - player/device control • Authoring tools exist to address many of these solutions; rendering is sometimes problematic (e.g., DIAGRAM findings) • Description of STEM content is challenging

  9. Math in on-line materials today 9 • Math in textbooks (textbooks/Web-based materials) • equations are frequently displayed as images • some contain @alt • some contain @longdesc • Math in DTBs • equations can be conveyed using @alt or prodnote • can simply be read aloud as part of human narration • These approaches can be accessible via assistive technology but don’t always provide unambiguous readback

  10. Math in on-line materials today 10 • MathML can display math as text - MathML authoring via various tools - MathML display via browsers/plug-ins, DTB players, other devices is available - can be accessible to screen readers - in some cases can be spoken without a screen reader - accessibility sometimes requires additional plug-ins

  11. Multimedia description authoring/playback 11 • Learning materials include images and multimedia - video lectures - supplemental materials (e.g., video tutorials) • Flash and Silverlight are used now for embedded textbook/Web presentations • Apple-compatible formats are often used for stand-alone presentations (e.g., iTunes U) • Coming soon: textbooks/Web pages with a video-lecture window running alongside windows showing other information (illustrations, math, other Web pages, etc.)

  12. Multimedia description authoring/playback 12 • Accessible multimedia presentations require... • captions • descriptions • perhaps extended descriptions with data tables • perhaps MathML representation of equations • perhaps SVGs with description of key data • accessible playback/interaction mechanisms • support on desktop/laptop computers as well as handheld devices

  13. Implementation opportunities: coming soon 13 • New methods of creating and presenting accessible images and interactive activities • Flash • HTML5 • ARIA • New features for labeling and describing images, other elements of a textbook or Web page • Other immersive technologies

  14. Multimedia description authoring/playback 14 • All these are being considered or addressed by HTML5 • mechanisms for identifying and operating accessibility features (captions, descriptions, subtitles, etc.) • caption formats (currently undefined) • mechanism for text-to-speech audio descriptions under consideration • mechanism to generate and display additional descriptions via data tables, MathML, SVG, etc.

  15. Implementation opportunities: coming soon 15 • Changes in practices related to image and multimedia creation - authoring/production - packaging within online library/portal - distribution and playback - archiving

  16. Implementation opportunities: coming soon 16 • New features of HTML5 related to multimedia will make it easier to add captions or descriptions • <video>, <audio> elements; no plug-ins required • caption formats • player control • identifying/operating alternative tracks • Also easier to add in-line MathML and SVG into Web pages with HTML5; no namespaces necessary

  17. Identifying resources - Access for All (AfA) 17 • Access for All(AfA) - tagging enhancements so accessible content can be identified and retrieved on demand • AfA is a standard approach (ISO/IEC 24751) to personalize and increase access to content for everyone • AfA provides a means to: • describe digital resources (video, audio, text) with respect to accessibility support • describe a user’s particular needs or preferences • match the needs with the media • WGBH Teachers’ Domain - AfA implementation (80% K-12 schools) • one usage data point - 20% of users selecting captions - probably labs with no speakers or headphones - universal design

  18. Descriptions today 18 • “Regular” descriptions • inserted into the natural pauses in narration or dialog • Extended descriptions • use when a long description is necessary but there is not a sufficient pause in the audio to accommodate it • program dialog and video automatically pause while a long audio description plays • when the description has finished playing, video/dialog resume playback • Math, tables, charts, scientific notation in videos • currently must be read within description

  19. DIY tools: descriptions 19 • DIY description-authoring tools, post-production only • MAGpie • CapScribe • Manual recording/integration is also an option • Extended descriptions present challenges/opportunities • control of original video (automatic pause/resume) • lengthening of duration/timeline • providing appropriate levels of description (verbosity, grade-level vocabulary, etc.) • Description tools currently do not offer support for MathML or SVG; these must be created elsewhere

  20. DIY tools: captions 20 • DIY captioning-authoring tools are relatively common and available for free or low cost - MAGpie - Subtitle Workshop - CapScribe - Adobe’s FLVPlaybackCaptioning component - Participatory Culture Foundation’s Universal Subtitles - others

  21. Contact 21 WGBH National Center for Accessible Media http://ncam.wgbh.org Geoff Freed Geoff_Freed@wgbh.org Madeleine Rothberg Madeleine_Rothberg@wgbh.org

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