If Your Digital Content Isn’t Accessible, You Could Be Leaving Behind Up to a Billion Users – Speaking Volumes – Features and fragments from the University of Tennessee Libraries

“Do you create digital content? Whether you’re sharing an opinion, offering a service, or selling a product — if your digital content isn’t accessible to all, you’re simply creating barriers to your own work.

A billion people worldwide have some type of disability. Yet, a 2023 study of a million homepages found that 96.3% failed to meet at least one of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

As we celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 18, 2023, UT Libraries wants to provide resources to help you learn more about improving the accessibility of your website, software, mobile app, or other digital product….”

[2303.14334] The Semantic Reader Project: Augmenting Scholarly Documents through AI-Powered Interactive Reading Interfaces

Abstract:  Scholarly publications are key to the transfer of knowledge from scholars to others. However, research papers are information-dense, and as the volume of the scientific literature grows, the need for new technology to support the reading process grows. In contrast to the process of finding papers, which has been transformed by Internet technology, the experience of reading research papers has changed little in decades. The PDF format for sharing research papers is widely used due to its portability, but it has significant downsides including: static content, poor accessibility for low-vision readers, and difficulty reading on mobile devices. This paper explores the question “Can recent advances in AI and HCI power intelligent, interactive, and accessible reading interfaces — even for legacy PDFs?” We describe the Semantic Reader Project, a collaborative effort across multiple institutions to explore automatic creation of dynamic reading interfaces for research papers. Through this project, we’ve developed ten research prototype interfaces and conducted usability studies with more than 300 participants and real-world users showing improved reading experiences for scholars. We’ve also released a production reading interface for research papers that will incorporate the best features as they mature. We structure this paper around challenges scholars and the public face when reading research papers — Discovery, Efficiency, Comprehension, Synthesis, and Accessibility — and present an overview of our progress and remaining open challenges.

 

How do we make accessible research papers a reality? – arXiv blog

“When researchers with disabilities, such as blindness or dyslexia, cannot access the research papers in their field, can we really call it “open” science?

On April 17th, arXiv will be hosting a half-day online forum for everyone invested in making research outputs accessible to every researcher, regardless of disability. The forum will center the experiences of academic researchers who face barriers to accessing and reading papers, and will be useful for people across the authoring and publishing ecosystem. We hope you will join us. Together, we can chart a path towards fully accessible research papers, and leave with practical next steps for our own organizations….”

Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table – Charles Watkinson – The Scholarly Kitchen

“In developing services, our philosophy is “first of a kind, not one of a kind.” A good example is the Fulcrum publishing platform, developed with support from the Mellon Foundation and now self-sustaining. Fulcrum shares an open-source backend with the Deep Blue data repository. That means every type of output is a first-class publication: A Fulcrum-hosted monograph with integrated multimedia gets the same stewardship commitment that Deep Blue applies to health sciences research data. And the creator of a research dataset gets the same rich metrics (e.g., citations, altmetrics, downloads) that we would deliver to a monograph author….

I think we’re at the “so now what” stage of open access (OA). With a critical mass of freely-available, reusable literature and data, what tangible benefits can publishers offer society? And how should publishers format and distribute the outputs of open scholarship to turn free access into valuable access? With this question in mind, we’re doing several things at Michigan: expanding discovery networks (e.g., creating best practices for research data through the Data Curation Network, delivering OA books to public libraries via the Palace project, highlighting quality certification via the DOAB PRISM service), making sure our platforms and content are accessible (staying current with Benetech Certified Global Accessible audits, making monographs available as audiobooks through the Google Text-to-Speech program) and scoping open source integrations with partners that complement Fulcrum’s functionality (working with Mellon and the Big Collection initiative to integrate Fulcrum, Manifold, and Humanities Commons, and integrating Fulcrum repository functionality into the Janeway journals platform). 

We’re also focused on how to measure and communicate the greater reach and engagement OA enables. We’re working with Curtin University to refine a publicly-accessible Books Analytics Dashboard and partnering with Jisc and Lyrasis to expand US participation in IRUS repository statistics. The IP Registry is developing a product with us to identify the institutional use of OA books, and we’re supporting the OAeBU project to build a trusted framework for publishers to exchange OA usage metrics. We recorded at least 12 million Total Item Requests in 2022 for Michigan Publishing publications. But that’s a meaningless number unless put in context.

 

Authors should never be required to pay to publish open works. Let’s try and avoid perpetuating or creating a new inequity of access. The Fund to Mission program, supported by our parent institution and more than 100 libraries, enables this for U-M Press. We also partner with a consortium of over 50 liberal arts colleges to run Lever Press as a truly diamond open-access book publisher. The capacity to do such work is building. I particularly credit Lyrasis Open Programs, the BTAA Big Collection academy-led publishing program, the American Council of Learned Societies Publishing Initiatives, the S2O community of practice, and the Open Access Books Network….

I worry that larger publishers with better resources to handle complexities like transformative agreements are sucking away the resources to support open-access books and journals. Small, independent publishers (barely for-profit, if commercial) face similar challenges to university presses. We must ensure that funder and library policies don’t accidentally erase the bibliodiversity that independent and institutional presses have brought to their regions and disciplines for decades. I am particularly excited by the potential that Path to Open (JSTOR) and the 

Guest Post – Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing: Recommendations for Digital Accessibility Best Practices – The Scholarly Kitchen

“For publishers, it is also important to be up to date with the following:

PDF/UA (PDF/Universal Accessibility), formally known as ISO 14289-1:2014 (Document management applications — Electronic document file format enhancement for accessibility), is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for accessible PDF technology. PDF/UA complements WCAG 2.0 and should be used to make PDF files that also conform with WCAG 2.0.
EPUB Accessibility 1.0 Specifications: The EPUB Accessibility 1.0 EPUB Accessibility 1.1: Conformance and Discoverability Requirements for EPUB publications specification specifies content conformance requirements for verifying the accessibility of EPUB publications, as well as accessibility metadata requirements for the discoverability of EPUB publications.
The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled (MVT). “The treaty allows for copyright exceptions to facilitate the creation of accessible versions of books and other copyrighted works for visually impaired persons. It sets a norm for countries ratifying the treaty to have a domestic copyright exception covering these activities and allowing for the import and export of such materials.”…”

Guest Post – Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing: Fostering Empathy – The Scholarly Kitchen

“This three-part series aims to discuss the topic of advancing accessibility within scholarly communication with the focus on digital accessibility. The contributors, members of the SSP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee, draw attention to the challenges related to addressing accessibility in publishing and communication workflows. They provide examples of exclusion resulting from lack of accessibility of digital content, list key points for getting buy-in from key stakeholders to implement and grow accessibility programs, and offer recommendations for inclusive practices.

“The “Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing” blog series consists of three parts:

Part 1: Fostering Empathy
Part 2: Building Support
Part 3: Recommendations for Digital Accessibility Best Practices…”

Guest Post – Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing: Fostering Empathy – The Scholarly Kitchen

“This three-part series aims to discuss the topic of advancing accessibility within scholarly communication with the focus on digital accessibility. The contributors, members of the SSP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee, draw attention to the challenges related to addressing accessibility in publishing and communication workflows. They provide examples of exclusion resulting from lack of accessibility of digital content, list key points for getting buy-in from key stakeholders to implement and grow accessibility programs, and offer recommendations for inclusive practices.

“The “Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing” blog series consists of three parts:

Part 1: Fostering Empathy
Part 2: Building Support
Part 3: Recommendations for Digital Accessibility Best Practices…”

Guest Post – Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing: Fostering Empathy – The Scholarly Kitchen

“This three-part series aims to discuss the topic of advancing accessibility within scholarly communication with the focus on digital accessibility. The contributors, members of the SSP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee, draw attention to the challenges related to addressing accessibility in publishing and communication workflows. They provide examples of exclusion resulting from lack of accessibility of digital content, list key points for getting buy-in from key stakeholders to implement and grow accessibility programs, and offer recommendations for inclusive practices.

“The “Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing” blog series consists of three parts:

Part 1: Fostering Empathy
Part 2: Building Support
Part 3: Recommendations for Digital Accessibility Best Practices…”

Guest Post – Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing: Fostering Empathy – The Scholarly Kitchen

“This three-part series aims to discuss the topic of advancing accessibility within scholarly communication with the focus on digital accessibility. The contributors, members of the SSP Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee, draw attention to the challenges related to addressing accessibility in publishing and communication workflows. They provide examples of exclusion resulting from lack of accessibility of digital content, list key points for getting buy-in from key stakeholders to implement and grow accessibility programs, and offer recommendations for inclusive practices.

“The “Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing” blog series consists of three parts:

Part 1: Fostering Empathy
Part 2: Building Support
Part 3: Recommendations for Digital Accessibility Best Practices…”

Explore how Europeana Subtitled increased access to audiovisual heritage | Europeana Pro

“Europeana Subtitled gathered seven major national broadcasters and audiovisual archives from seven European countries to provide high-quality audiovisual materials to Europeana. The project combined AI technology and audiovisual cultural heritage to produce high-quality closed captions and English subtitles for local video content, and created a platform to allow organisations to run crowdsourcing campaigns to revise captions using state of the art editing tools. 

Europeana Subtitled also supported cultural heritage professionals with the use of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and machine translation (MT) technologies in the cultural sector through an online training suite consisting of video tutorials, documentation and guidelines, and worked with teachers and museum educators to create learning resources with audiovisual content. 

Finally, the project engaged audiences through crowdsourcing events and editorial activities on the Europeana website, in particular, through the ‘Broadcasting Europe’ page and ‘Mass-media and propaganda’ online exhibition….

The Subtitled content is publicly available and videos can be enjoyed directly on the Europeana website, while you can also access freely reusable content with more than 3,000 records in the Public Domain….”

CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides

On 2 February 2023, the Creative Commons Open Education Platform community held Lightning Talks, where presenters shared innovative ideas and technologies in the field of Open Education. Each speaker brought unique expertise to the table, sparking conversations and inspiring new ideas. You can watch the replay below. The Lightning Talk Presenters: Reimagining Open Education as … Read More “CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides”
The post CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides appeared first on Creative Commons.

CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides

On 2 February 2023, the Creative Commons Open Education Platform community held Lightning Talks, where presenters shared innovative ideas and technologies in the field of Open Education. Each speaker brought unique expertise to the table, sparking conversations and inspiring new ideas. You can watch the replay below. The Lightning Talk Presenters: Reimagining Open Education as … Read More “CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides”
The post CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides appeared first on Creative Commons.

Yale University Art Gallery digitizes its publications – Yale Daily News

“A digitization effort of more than 50 years of the Yale University Art Gallery’s scholarly publications is gradually nearing completion.

The Online Access project was conceived during the start of the pandemic in an effort to increase the accessibility of the art gallery’s publications even while its doors were closed. This has involved two years of electronically uploading each of the gallery’s prior exhibit catalogs and accompanying them with alt text to ensure an immersive experience for all its potential users….”

From open access to openly accessible | Research Information

“At the recent Atypon Community meeting in Washington DC, accessibility was a topic on many customers’ minds. 

This is a real shift: five years ago, very few publishers or societies were talking about accessibility. In the past, publishers’ accessibility requirements were typically driven by requests from institutions and libraries with accessibility written into their missions and their service requirements. Conversations with Atypon would often come when a publisher or society had received a voluntary product accessibility template (VPAT) and needed to know whether they were compliant. Now, with a growing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), combined with new incoming legislation and policy requirements, publishers and societies are starting to realise they need to get serious about accessibility. New requirements all content providers will need to take note of include:

The EU Directive 2019/882 (the European Accessibility Act). Coming into in effect July 2025, the Directive promotes “full and effective equal participation by improving access to mainstream products and services that, through their initial design or subsequent adaptation, address the particular needs of persons with disabilities.” Our expectation is this type of legislation will be quickly followed in the US. 

The OSTP Nelson Memo (‘Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research’). Although primarily about delivering greater availability of US government-funded research through open access, the memorandum indicates that agency plans must outline “online access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications in formats that allow for machine-readability and enabling broad accessibility through assistive devices.” It therefore places a focus not only on the availability of resources, but the ability for all to access and benefit from these….”