Existing Standards etc.

This work should provide us with a good start for the technical features, Please take a look https://wiki.benetech.org/display/a11ymetadata/Properties

• DAISY and EPUB

• European Commission Standardisation Mandate 376 http://www.mandate376.eu

• IMS Access for All v.3 http://imsglobal.org/accessibility/index.html

Key points: Access For All accessibility promotes an inclusive user experience by enabling the matching of the characteristics of resources to the needs and preferences of individual users. In circumstances where resources might not be suitable for all users, it enables the discovery of other appropriate resources.

Access For All is an approach to accessibility that emphasizes personalization by providing support for systems of transformable, flexible resources that each meet different needs.

Access For All accessibility is often just-in-time accessibility and, significantly, supports cumulative accessibility of resources as third parties create and associate alternatives to original resources.

Together, the many resources in a system contain the features or educational materials that every student needs, but no single resource has to be 100% accessible to all learners. Most resources will likely be accessible to most students, but by creating Access For All metadata about each resource, it is easier to determine which resources might need to be adapted to meet particular students' needs.

Access For All includes a standard way to describe a user's needs and preferences. These preferences are not meant to convey information such as medical history. Instead, they include information about how the user can interact best with a computer. The user's need for specific kinds of content, display features, or control mechanisms are recorded. This information can then be used to select or request appropriate adapted content, configure a visual display for easy reading, or locate resources that match the user's control requirements.

• Overview of some standards http://training.icoper.org/moodle/course/view.php?id=32&username=guest

Categories, tagging, descriptors

Scope

• Exclude assistive technology that you can use outside school and that in their case isn't the subject of research because it is not specific enough for learning (e.g. .AAC on p.42).

Avoid 'medical tags

• Tagging using ‘medical labels’ is something that would go against much research in the area, the developing policy at national, European and international levels for inclusive education as well as a UD approach. Perhaps the focus of a ‘tag’ should be on the type of support it provides e.g – text to speech devices; visual enhancing equipment etc.
• The three classes of Abbott (in http://bit.ly/12QKR7A) on assistive technology (p 13): 1) technology used to train or rehearse; 2) technology used to assist learning; 3) technology used to enable learning.
• Focus on giving help to those who seem to need it instead of looking at clinical diagnosis, it is a more helpful strategy in planning interventions (p 15: last paragraph). So think rather in terms of functional ability (e.g. reading difficulties) rather than disability status. On the other hand you then have the problem of an enormous variation of problems in one category (p21 the limitations of different categories).

List suggested by UNI-C (April 2012)

• Visual impairment • Speech and Language impairment • Auditory impairment • Deaf/Blind • Autism • Developmental disabilities (mental retardation) • Multiple disabilities • Orthopedic impairment • Specific learning disabilities • Emotional/behavior disorder • Traumatic brain injury • Multi-sensory impairment • Serious health impairments

Descriptors used by Ida Brandao website that gathers free software for special needs http://freewarenee.weebly.com/

• Symbol writing
• Speech synthesizer and voice recognition
• Braille
• Sign language (namely video material)
• Visual discrimination – visual memory – visual space relations
• Screen readers
• Access to computer

American guide on assistive technology for education http://www.wati.org/content/supports/free/pdf/Ch5-WritingMotorAspects.pdf

Thematic key words (European Agency) http://www.european-agency.org/publications/ereports/thematic-key-words-for-inclusive-and-special-needs-education/THEMATIC-KEY-WORDS.pdf

The University of Leuven guidelines Covers accessibility of documents like Word, powerpoint, PDF and multimedia (in Dutch): http://www.kuleuven.be/diversiteit/digitaletoegankelijkheid/documenttoegankelijkheid

Two approaches to consider

1. Identifying resources that are known to have been developed using a Universal Design (UD) approach;
2. Identifying resources that have not been developed using a Universal Design approach but that have application and use in supporting learners with different special needs