WAI Education & Outreach Meeting, October 29, 1998
Last updated: November 5, 1998
Scribe: Sheela Sethuraman
Posted by: Judy Brewer,
WAI EOWG Chair
Present:
Judy Brewer
Sheela Sethuraman
Kitch Barnicle (for the first half hour)
Marja-Riitta Koivunen
Harvey Bingham
William. Loughboro
Updates and outreach notices:
Kitch: Oct 30 deadline for a conference at uk
JB: Anything coming up soon?
Kitch: Papers nov 23rd..www8
JB: CSUN.. still looking for papers. Since format has changed.
Kitch: Nov 8th for tutorials and workshops
JB: Jutta, something on tutorials.
William: WAI meeting-piggy back on CSUN?
JB: 2 1/2 days. May do different formats.
++Action item: JB following up with Jutta about a workshop.
JB: Conference of State Information Officers. JB presented there.
Went well. They had been key in operating system accessibility issues.
JB: New York New Media Association , Silicon Alley. Also presented
there.
Events List
Kitch: Automatic method where folks can update the conferences with the
help of a form. Until that process is in place, you can send conference
information directly to Kitch.
JB: IG update-Request listing for other countries.
++ Action item about conferences for JB
Kitch: Uses a list of lists to get information on conferences.
JB: Pull more information directly to Kitch’s list since it is more
detailed?
Kitch: Still looking at web based conferences. Can someone
look at assistive technologies?
Marja: Can have automatic robots go out and search for information?
Kitch: Good idea. Can look at it.
Have not gotten information on what the people are submitting.
Judy: Input form for changes and updates and another for ‘hi..i am
so and so and this is what I am going to be presenting’.
SMIL accessibility
feature description
JB: Technical review pending on SMIL accessibility feature description.
Has anyone had a chance to look at it? Do you like the format?
Intended audience is a little bit of guess work. Initially thinking
about reporters and how this might help highlight issues that help them
cover. But reporters don’t take the time to read the narratives.
They need something more concise. Folks in companies using it as a learning
document.
Marja: What about for future issues? When thinking about
what needs to be added?
JB: Idea is to have stable documents. If HTML 4.0 changed
for example, then the document would change.
Marja: Pointing out possible issues for the future, like ability
to change style, etc.
JB: This is not meant to be a detailed guidelines document.
Need to get as many clear answers as we can in this description document.
HTML 4.0 and CSS2 access description features are being published as
notes by W3C. Not positive but it does look it can be updated.
Marja: Not looking so much at updating the document, but a future
section where we have information on where we are headed next.
JB: Good idea. Particularly with SMIL Since it is in the
first version. Things like audio description of a video image-inconclusive
on how to do that with SMIL.
JB: Any comments on format of the document?
Harvey: Would like to see in the very early paragraph, a description
of what SMIL is trying to achieve.
SMIL references seem to point to HTML 4.0. Need to fix some links.
JB: Need help in thinking about who the audience should be?
William: SMIL would probably be a little different.
JB: That’s a good point. Links to the next topic on Distance
Learning.
Maybe this document should have a paragraph somewhere in the front
that says ‘accessible multimedia is relevant in educational settings as
well as entertainment’.
JB: Trying to get a few things in EO wrapped up prior to Advisory meeting.
MathML
JB: Anybody in the call has particular interest in MathML?
Harvey?: Just unpacking MathML system takes 100 MB. Tedious.
They have a monster table of 4000 pictures that mathematicians like.
JB: But the document is accessible though, right?
Harvey?: Cannot remember 4000 names.
JB: I will look into it.
Distance Learning
JB: On a panel and keynoting tomorrow. Need information about that.
Issues related to web resources, libraries and system information.
In addition, there are technical stuff. Interactive stuff, multimedia
issues, etc. Accessibility in educational settings.
JB: Number of distance learning associations. Kind of interested in
guidance. The event I will be at will help identify some of the associations.
SS: ALT text missing in some Distance Learning projects.
JB: Texas Government(?) beginning to look at these issues.
William or Harvey: Texas is a big center for Distance Learning.
JB: Another area of WAI stuff. Authoring tools guidelines
are interested in getting version of public working draft out. Look
at Authoring tools guidelines for curriculum development and address some
of the issues raised in distance learning.
Marja: Would be nice to have some notes in the UA guidelines
and Authoring tools guidelines.
JB: Good idea but not sure where the notes should reside. Do
people understand the concept of notes in W3C?
If anybody is on line go to the www.w3c.org/TR and the notes section.
A brief write-up. A statement about thinking about things.
Dave Raggett has got one of voice browsers.
JB: Already a SMIL document. Marja might want to read that.
Along those lines, our accessibility notes would fit right in.
William: Who is likely to access those notes?
JB: Not someone from distance learning.
Not sure if notes is the place for distance learning related issues
but this is a place to start.
User information
and involvement resources
JB:. Last meeting decided that we were ready to start this work.
There would be hopefully a curriculum slide set along the lines of
what Chuck and Jeff are developing. People need to know what the
issues are what is happening around the world related to accessibility.
Kind of like a welcoming door. The reference section developed by
Mike. P is good to look at.
What are some of the ways to present the information. Pack everything
in a reference site.
SS: How different should it be from what we have been working on?
Can we link it to other work.
William: Reference page has a huge set of links. Need to re work
it.
JB: Projects and research section and resources section corresponds
to part of what you will be doing. Defining relevance for different
communities. Must be 40 projects world wide related to web accessibility.
We would definitely point to what we have been working on. In the
intro page can point to guideline curriculum section.
William: Is there a way when things can be linked both ways so that
when a link becomes obsolete, can we be brought back to this page again.
JB: What ought be happening with this page is clean up and maintenance.
One suggestion is to do some of the maintenance here and Sheela if you
can own the ‘resource chunk’ then you will be responsible for it.
Identify projects doing similar work.
William: Coordination group involvement?
JB: I think coordination group can review it. But this should
be internal.
William: Coordination group is the only one that knows what is
happening all over.
JB: Don’t think so. Daniel and I track all the WAI working and
interest groups.
Would you (William) be willing to provide updated links in the white
paper area.
William: Yes.
JB: This page should have top three and link to another page with 50.
Stuff like conferences too that we can link to.
SS: Peter had expressed an interest in this work.
JB: Why don’t you (Sheela) follow up with Peter off line?
SS: Will do. Also like the idea of people taking ownership for
pieces.
William: Will look at some other sections and see if there is
a match with his interests.
JB: I will clean up parts of it. Some portions need to be re categorized.
++Action item- JB will look at first three sections and the conference
thing(part of user.
++Action item-William will look at white paper and research area.
++Action item- Sheela looking at resources.
JB: Except the blindness community, no other community is as activist
on Web accessibility. But deaf community, physically disabled community,
cognitively disabled are also likely to get affected. How do
we involve them?
SS: No perceived relevance and hence no motivation. I am interested
in working on it.
JB: Don’t diminish the effect on blind community but highlight the
relevance for others.
Policy issues
William: Words like legal and policy should be firmer(?).
JB: Swissnet like from minutes is to a policy discussion page.
Harvey: Need to have a section that this is not ADA..but Australia
and Canada, etc.
JB: Let me update on EITAAC. A few people came to this meeting came
in saying this is going to be a breeze, but changed their mind after a
day or so. Need to work hard on definitions.
There are 3 sub committees formed. Definitions, families and
functions. I will put a brief update on the IG update.
Mike.P, Greg and his alternate is a technical person from Trace, Judy
and her alternate is Chuck.L because of his involvement with the Canadian
Govt.
William: How much of this has to do with Sec 508?
JB: Lots of changes made to it. There are a lot of additions.
Details will be posted.
William: Is there a chance that it will work?
JB: 508 only way to have gotten Microsoft’s attention about Microsoft’s
Windows.
Sub committee meetings are public.
Harvey: Appreciate your doing this EITAAC work.
Upcoming Meetings
JB: Upcoming meetings. People are happy that we are switching to
Fridays so that conflicts can be avoided. Part of the attendance
problem could be because the agenda gets out a little late for review.
Fridays should change that. Also want to ping people who have not
attended for a while. There are some who want to join.
Action item- will follow up on DOJ discussions.
Harvey, when you come back if you can dive into tables that would be
great. Daniel and I are planning to focus on authoring tool manufacturers
in Kyoto. But need a version of the tools guidelines out. So
those on the call should look at the guidelines to get going.