Challenges, Choices, Change

Accessibility for Large Publishers

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

is the premier global Health, Science, and Technology publisher.

is headquartered in Amsterdam. publishes thousands of books each year. publishes over 2,000 journals. created the web-based products ScienceDirect and

Scopus. employs over 7,000 people in 24 countries.

2

Elsevier…

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

Introduction

• Tripp Narup, Global digital archive manager

• 4,200+ alternate file requests per year

• 18-year veteran

• What was I thinking?! [I was wearing a bright red bowtie.)

Violates WCAG 1.4.1: Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

Book Technology

• 1450: Gutenberg

• 1817: Am. Sign Language

• 1824: Braille

• 1858: Am. Printing House for the Blind

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Technology (cont’d)

• 1976: Ray Kurzweil’s “Reading Machine”

• 1977: Editwriter

• 1984: Macintosh

• 1989: JAWS screen reader

• First omni-character optical character recognition device

• Much faster than Braille

• OCR still in wide use today

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Current Technology

• 1998: Revised Section 508

• 1999: WCAG 1.0

• 1999: California AB 422

• 2004: NIMAS

• 2007: first Kindle

• 2007: first iPhone

• 2007: NVDA

• 2008: WCAG 2.0

• 2009: AccessText Network

• 2014: Netflix provides captions for all films

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Publishers

Why Isn’t Everything Accessible?

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Publishers are…

• Big! Ouch!

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

Publishers….

• Are NOT dinosaurs!

The 10 e's of publishingElectronicExcessiveEasyExpansiveEnigmaticExperimentalExperientialEphemeralEmpathyEternal

Source: Youngsuk (YS) Chi

http://www.elsevier.com/connect/the-10-es-of-publishings-future

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Publishers are…

• Complicated!

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Alt Text

What Does It Take?

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Alt Text involves…

• Author contracts

• Authoring systems

• Development

• Book Production

• Vendors

• EW

• DTD

• Specs, guidelines

• Platforms

• Sales

Legal

ITUCDEditorial

OperationsArt & Design

Global

Supplier Mgm

tCont

ent

Stan

dard

s

Electronic Production

ePUB

Product Owners

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Accessibility 2014

The Plan and Current Practices

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Requirements by Channel

• Web• Alt text• Closed captions• Keyboard navigation• Table structures• Works with screen readers

• ePUB/eBook• Alt text• Table structures

• PDF• Alt text• Bookmarks• Correct tab and reading order• Table markup

• Multimedia• Closed captions• Transcripts• Controls from keyboard

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

Elsevier Accessibility Plans

• Operations• Requirements based on WCAG 2.0• Operations Project Plan announced 07-March-2014

• DTD changes

• Systems changes

• Specification changes

• UCD• Platform evaluations

• Identify accessibility shortfalls

• Platform remediation• Specific changes required

• Operations• Adjust plan, systems, & specs as needed

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Timeline

• 1st Quarter• Finalize Requirements, Project Plan, Implementation Plan

• 2nd Quarter• Prep for DTD and spec changes• Platform assessment

• 3rd Quarter• Roll out DTD & spec changes• End-to-end testing• Platform improvements

• 4th Quarter• Roll out new accessibility features with each new platform release

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

Current Accessibility at Elsevier

• Reed-Elsevier Accessibility Policy went live January 2014

• ePUB 3 as of March 2014

• Two-hour turnaround on alternate file requests

• Founding member of AccessText

• LearningAlly collaboration

• Tagged PDFs

• Ted’s Collaboration Group

• SD Articles in HTML are screen reader friendly• Pages are well-structured• Math is in MathML• Skip navigation link on pages• Pages are keyboard operable• Pages have titles• Links are clearly named

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

Wrap up

• Challenge• Meet WCAG 2.0 requirements

• Alt text

• Closed captions

• More structural accessibility in release cycles

• Choices• Bake accessibility into all specs, procedures and systems• Supported by DTD, stored in XML

• Change• New platform features• Increased accessibility• Your content, your way• Greater organizational awareness of accessibility issues

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

The coolest thing in St. Louis…

“…an attitude which regards both the normal and the handicapped as parts of a great social whole, dependent upon each other in all that protects, strengthens and liberates.”

Helen Keller

October 20, 1942

CSUN: Challenges, Choices, Change |

Questions?