cen workshop agreement cwa 15778 - Higher Education Academy

CEN
WORKSHOP
CWA 15778
February 2008
AGREEMENT
ICS 35.240.30
English version
Document Processing for Accessibility
This CEN Workshop Agreement has been drafted and approved by a Workshop of representatives of interested parties, the constitution of
which is indicated in the foreword of this Workshop Agreement.
The formal process followed by the Workshop in the development of this Workshop Agreement has been endorsed by the National
Members of CEN but neither the National Members of CEN nor the CEN Management Centre can be held accountable for the technical
content of this CEN Workshop Agreement or possible conflicts with standards or legislation.
This CEN Workshop Agreement can in no way be held as being an official standard developed by CEN and its Members.
This CEN Workshop Agreement is publicly available as a reference document from the CEN Members National Standard Bodies.
CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION
EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG
Management Centre: rue de Stassart, 36
B-1050 Brussels
© 2008 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved worldwide for CEN national Members.
Ref. No.:CWA 15778:2008 D/E/F

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Contents
Page
Foreword .............................................................................................................................................................4
1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................5
1.1 Scope ......................................................................................................................................................5
1.2 Purpose ..................................................................................................................................................5
1.3 Formal liaisons ......................................................................................................................................6
1.4 Target audience .....................................................................................................................................6
1.5 Opening new markets ...........................................................................................................................7
2 Standards for document processing for accessibility ......................................................................8
2.1 Problem Statement................................................................................................................................8
2.2 Standards and structures .....................................................................................................................9
2.3 Current situation..................................................................................................................................10
2.4 Current state of the art........................................................................................................................11
2.5 Current problems.................................................................................................................................14
2.6 Influencing factors in Document Processing for Accessibility ......................................................15
3 Formats for document processing ....................................................................................................18
3.1 Printed paper........................................................................................................................................18
3.2 Printed Braille ......................................................................................................................................19
3.3 Audio.....................................................................................................................................................20
3.4 ASCII Text.............................................................................................................................................21
3.5 HTML documents.................................................................................................................................21
3.6 XML .......................................................................................................................................................22
3.7 Multi-type composite formats ............................................................................................................24
4 Considerations for structuring documents ......................................................................................27
4.1 Define and use document style guidelines.......................................................................................27
4.2 Define and use structure guidelines..................................................................................................27
4.3 Edit / add structure where needed.....................................................................................................28
4.4 Edit DRM settings................................................................................................................................28
4.5 Adaptation ............................................................................................................................................28
5 Conversion processes ........................................................................................................................29
5.1 Convert Multimedia Material to structured Multimedia Material.....................................................29
5.2 Convert structured Multimedia Material to XML...............................................................................30
5.3 Convert Multimedia Material to XML..................................................................................................30
5.4 Convert traditional print to XML.........................................................................................................30
5.5 Convert DTP to XML............................................................................................................................31
5.6 Convert XML to Print...........................................................................................................................31
5.7 Convert XML to Braille ........................................................................................................................31
5.8 Convert XML to Large Print ................................................................................................................32
5.9 Convert XML to HTML .........................................................................................................................32
5.10 Convert XML to structured Multimedia Material...............................................................................32
5.11 Convert DTP to Multimedia Material..................................................................................................33
5.12 Convert Audio to structured Audio ...................................................................................................33
5.13 Convert XML to XML ...........................................................................................................................33
6 Scenarios introducing accessibility within publishing workflows.................................................35
6.1 Scenario 1 - Delivering XML files.......................................................................................................36
6.2 Scenario 2 - Accessibility enhancement in general.........................................................................38
6.3 Scenario 3 - Increasing web accessibility.........................................................................................40
6.4 Scenario 4 - Accessibility policy........................................................................................................42
6.5 Scenario 5 - Spoken documents for everyone .................................................................................43
6.6 Scenario 6 - Accessible and protected PDFs ...................................................................................45
2

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.7 Scenario 7 - Working hand in hand ...................................................................................................47
6.8 Scenario 8 - Accessible design..........................................................................................................49
6.9 Scenario 9 - Accessibility on a large scale .......................................................................................51
6.10 Scenario 10 - What authors can do....................................................................................................52
6.11 Scenario 11 - Repair and adaptation .................................................................................................54
6.12 Common scenario requirements .......................................................................................................56
6.13 Specific scenario requirements .........................................................................................................56
7 Application-oriented scenario implementation ................................................................................56
7.1 Harry Potter and the RNIB ..................................................................................................................56
7.2 Magazine and Newspaper distribution in the Netherlands .............................................................57
7.3 Time Warner and Dolphin Audio Publishing ....................................................................................58
7.4 Educational publishing in Austria .....................................................................................................59
7.5 Best practice for distributing accessible content............................................................................61
8 Identified gaps and areas for further research.................................................................................66
8.1 Descriptions & Requirements ............................................................................................................66
8.2 Process & Content Modelling.............................................................................................................66
8.3 Introducing and using metadata for accessibility purposes ..........................................................67
8.4 Standards and personalisation of content .......................................................................................68
8.5 Licensing and technical protection measures .................................................................................69
9 Conclusion and future work ...............................................................................................................70
Appendix A – Relevant standards ..................................................................................................................72
Appendix B – Relevant European organisations ..........................................................................................79
Appendix C – Sustainability: network of interested parties for ongoing support and further
development.........................................................................................................................................82
Appendix D – Abbreviations List ....................................................................................................................88
3

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Foreword
The decision for this CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) was taken by the DPA Workshop at its kick-off meeting on 13
May 2005.
This CWA provides a first elaboration on how the accessibility of publishing content can be enhanced by altering existing
publishing workflows and introducing accessibility considerations where appropriate. For reaching this goal, in each step
where accessibility is introduced, relevant formats and conversions are detailed out, as well new workflow items
described.
The document has been developed through the collaboration of a number of contributing partners such as publishers,
blind organizations and universities. The names of the individuals and their affiliations that have expressed support for
this CWA are available from the CEN/ISSS Secretariat.
The final draft of this CWA was put on CEN’s web site for a 60 days period of external comments between 06 July and 10
September 2007.
The formal process followed by the Workshop in the development of the CEN Workshop Agreement has been endorsed
by the National Members of CEN but neither the National Members of CEN nor the CEN Management Centre can be
held accountable for the technical content of the CEN Workshop Agreement or possible conflict with standards or
legislation. This CEN Workshop Agreement can in no way be held as being an official standard developed by CEN and
its members.
The final review/endorsement round for this CWA was successfully closed on 2007-09-18.The final text of this CWA was
submitted to CEN for publication on 2007-11-30.
This CEN Workshop Agreement is publicly available as a reference document from the National Members of CEN:
AENOR, AFNOR, ASRO, BDS, BSI, CSNI, CYS, DIN, DS, ELOT, EVS, IBN, IPQ, IST, LVS, LST, MSA, MSZT, NEN,
NSAI, ON, PKN, SEE, SIS, SIST, SFS, SN, SNV, SUTN and UNI.
Comments or suggestions from the users of the CEN Workshop Agreement are welcome and should be addressed to
the CEN Management Centre.
4

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
1 Introduction
1.1 Scope
Given the widespread adoption of ICT within the publishing industries, there is a general interest in the creation and
provision of well-formatted digital documents. For those people who are dependent on accessible information, this
interest is of central importance, and it is this convergence of interests that stimulated the creation of this Workshop. The
WS/DPA has examined some of the ways in which this convergence is helping to build consensus and create new
strategies and technologies for the provision of information in formats that are more accessible for everyone.
In the real world, publishers rely on accessibility experts and consider accessible information only at the end of the
content production chain. This requires considerable amount of efforts to make information accessible for everyone and it
is a very hard problem to tackle. This workshop introduces accessibility as a design element in the content production
and provides guidelines and best practices how more accessible documents can be produced. Another important issue is
that the user requirements for accessible information are not well defined. In this work, we therefore base the elaboration
on publishing use cases and scenarios that have been derived together with publishers in order to analyse at least partly
the user requirements. Additionally those scenarios provide specific examples of accessible information provision as an
entry point to publishing stakeholders.
Sustaining the provision of useful services and meaningful accessible content can be considered vital to the growth of
the Information Society as a whole. When designing, specifying and building applications and infrastructures to store
accessible content, several apparently unrelated issues arise. How do we describe the knowledge and capabilities we
possess and capture the repository of resources we can use to implement these capabilities? How do we describe the
questions and problems of end users and content providers? How do we marry both within manageable and consistent
frameworks? How do we re-apply this knowledge and combine these resources with new insights to solve new
problems? How can we accelerate the processes described above and provide solutions to enable accessible
information processing?
The DPA Workshop (CEN Workshop on Document Processing for Accessibility) brought together some of the key players
working in the fields of publishing and accessibility. The topics addressed ranged from generic document and knowledge
structures, through all aspects of accessible document processing, to Digital Rights Management and copyright issues.
Perhaps the most striking aspect was the level of convergence between the needs of accessibility communities and
those of content creators and providers. Indeed, with the introduction of accessibility from scratch, the information needs
of all consumers are better served, particularly as content providers seek innovative solutions for re-aggregating their
content for new marketplaces.
1.2 Purpose
The DPA Workshop as detailed in its business plan has the following objectives:
To bring together all the players in the information provision and e-publishing chain in order to
achieve the critical mass significantly to enhance the provision of accessible information at a
European level.
To provide guidelines needed on integrating accessibility approaches and workflows within the
document management and publishing process rather than as just a specialised additional service.
To raise awareness and stimulate the adoption at local, regional, national and European levels of the
emerging formats and standards for the provision of accessible information and to find ways of
ensuring that technological protection measures do not inadvertently impede legitimate access to
information by people with print impairments
Based on those objectives this document:
describes the outcomes from the DPA Workshop activities
provides an elaboration of relevant standards and their possible use in the publishing sector
examines the different formats required for accessible information provision
5

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
provides a systematic overview of relevant conversion processes and related structured information
activities
examines possible scenarios of use within the publishing sector
provides real-life case studies and instances of best practice
identifies areas for further research and systematisation
1.3 Formal liaisons
The Workshop has been initiated and supported by the EUAIN Project. The EUAIN network is a co-ordination action 1 cofunded
by the INFSO DG of the European Commission within the RTD activities of the Thematic Priority Information
Society Technologies of the 6th Framework Programme. The EUAIN project, co-ordinated by DEDICON Amsterdam,
aims to promote e-Inclusion as a core horizontal building block in the establishment of the Information Society by
creating a network to bring together the different actors in the content creation and publishing industries around a
common set of objectives relating to the provision of accessible information. Accessibility for print impaired people can be
an increasingly integrated component of the document management and publishing process and should not be a
specialised or additional service.
The DPA Workshop has established the following liaisons with relevant activities to its work programme. Liaisons
established:
AIIM PDF Access Working Group
CEN/ISSS Data Protection & Privacy Workshop
CEN/ISSS Learning Technologies Workshop
CEN/ISSS Dublin Core Metadata Workshop
COST 219 TER
EDeAN European Design for All e-Accessibility Network
ETSI TC/HF ETSI Technical committee Human Factors
ICTSB/DATSCG Design for All and Assistive Technologies Standardisation Co-ordination Group
OASIS TCs concerning ODF and DITA
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
DAISY (NISO z39.86)
ISO/IEC JTC 1 Special Working Group on Accessibility
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 2 Software and Systems Documentation
1.4 Target audience
This CWA addresses accessibility in the publishing value chain and examines ways to introduce and enhance
accessibility of publishing content inside publishing workflows. The intended audience includes actors and stakeholders
within the publishing value chain (publishers, authors, content producers and distributors, publishing system developers
and vendors) and the content accessibility area (specialised libraries, accessibility consultants, and accessible system
developers and vendors)
The CWA aims to provide a first elaboration on how the accessibility of publishing content can be enhanced by altering
existing publishing workflows and introducing accessibility considerations where appropriate. For reaching this goal, in
1 Contract number 511497, DG INFSO, EC, FP6. See http://www.euain.org
6

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
each step where accessibility is introduced, relevant formats and conversions are detailed out, as well new workflow
items described.
The primary target group of this CWA are actors in the publishing value chain. The document is structured in a form that
enables publishers to get quick insights on what they need to do in order to produce accessible content. For that reason
several specific scenarios are provided that, although not exhaustive, can serve as an entry point for publishers in their
accessible content implementations.
1.5 Opening new markets
Accessible information is not a special type of information aimed at a specific group of a certain population. Accessible
information is information that can be accessed by anyone, with or without a disability, aimed at a general market where
anyone interested is a possible customer. Structured information is the first step in the accessible information process. A
document whose internal structure can be defined and its elements isolated and classified, without losing sight of the
overall structure of the information, is a document that can be navigated.
Most adaptive technology allows the user to access a document, and to read it following the "outer" structure of the
original. But if the same information has also an "inner" structure that allows the adaptive device to distinguish between a
phrase and a measure, between a paragraph and a sentence, highlighting particular annotations, then the level of
accessibility (and therefore usability) of the whole document will be greatly enhanced, allowing the user to move through
it in the same way as those without impairments do when looking at a printed document, and following the same integral
logic.
In an ideal world, all documents made available in electronic formats should contain that internal structure that benefits
everyone. Highly-structured documents are becoming more and more popular due to reasons that very seldom pertain to
making it accessible to persons with disabilities. The move to XML related formats and associated standards for
metadata have provided an impetus for far greater document structuring than before. Whatever the reasons behind those
decisions are, the use of highly-structured information is of great benefit to anybody accessing them for any purpose.
In recent years, the market for accessibility and assistive technologies has started to gain recognition. It is clear that the
integration of accessibility notions into mainstream technologies would provide previously unavailable opportunities in the
provision of accessible multimedia information systems. It would open up modern information services and provide them
to all types and levels of users, in both the software and the hardware domain. Additionally, new consumption and
production devices and environments can be addressed from such platforms and this would provide very useful
information provision opportunities indeed, such as information on mobile devices with additional speech assistance.
It is equally clear that we remain at the very beginning of the move to incorporate accessibility within mainstream content
processing environments.
7

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
2 Standards for document processing for accessibility
2.1 Problem Statement
Accessible solutions are required for anyone who requires assistance in using the mainstream solution. This
could be because a user is blind, visually impaired, or impaired in some other way, and the term printimpaired
is often used in this context. Accessible solutions range from small assistive applications, (such as
screen magnifiers) to full scale operating systems and screen reading environments. The traditional problem
with accessible solutions is that they are normally implemented as an afterthought or a piggy-back solution.
This results in solutions that are not fully integrated (or not well integrated) with the mainstream solutions.
These independent applications are then at a disadvantage whenever software versions or operating systems
are updated. In order to make this integration process easier, and provide more intuitive designs for the future,
it is essential that “design for all” and accessible design methodologies are widespread. Standard, policy and
legislation also helps ensure that accessible designers have a solid standard to meet to ensure futureproofing
2 .
Notions of “accessibility” are normally equated with the adaptation and conversion of digital content, where this content
can be made available. On a European level, and indeed often on a national level, much of the existing expertise on
creating accessible adaptations of digital content is of a highly distributed nature. Within specialist organisations
supporting print impaired people; or within university research laboratories; or indeed within publishing houses, many
automated tools have been designed and implemented at least partially to execute the necessary adaptation procedures.
However, each automated tool has its own, highly specific, field of application. Furthermore, the knowledge required to
build these very specific tools is equally distributed, so that there is currently very little re-use of either tools or knowledge.
The content provider’s perspective on digitisation is further complicated by security issues. In the modern environment
driven by the internet for content dissemination, security is a vital issue for publishers. DRM is a complex problem for all
content holders. Every publisher’s content, client base and requirements are different, which often results in a
personalised set of requirements for each case. As a result, agreements on accessibility are often negotiated on a caseby-case
basis. Naturally, publishers have to be confident that any digital format is being delivered through secure
gateways to only the people who are intended to receive it.
Accessibility can also be viewed from a wider angle. Being able to see content in whatever modality; perceive its context;
and attach a useful meaning to it requires that the user be able to access this content, its context and relevant software
application in a way that meets that particular user's consumption preferences. These preferences may become
requirements over time - we all get older. Being able to attach useful meanings to content is what lies at the very basis of
the preservation and education of thought. Attaching useful meanings to content underpins the basis of culture,
commerce and civilisation. Being able to access software and the content and the potential for understanding it
unleashes, requires us to be able to gain access to software and not be hindered by huge costs, complexity, lack of
support and additional barriers.
Given the differences between the traditional approach to accessibility and the wider view outlined above, we are in
something of a transitional phase at this time. From the software producer, business community and the Open Source
System community we see a move towards the inclusion of accessibility features into systems, tools and the
programming languages themselves as system wide core functionalities (examples being KDE 3 , GNOME 4 , and Java
Accessibility 5 . From the accessibility community we see a move towards more advanced and abstract descriptions of the
procedures involved in moving from 'common' content towards content that is processed to be granted accessible
certification. A good example of such a move is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 6 and 2.0 7 , which provide
2 See, for example, the work of EIDD-Design For All Europe, http://www.design-for-all.org
3 KDE Accessibility Project, http://accessibility.kde.org/
4 GNOME Accessibility Project, http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/GNOME-Accessibility.html
5 JAVA Accessibility, http://java.suncom/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/access/
6 http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
8

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
detailed guidelines on how to (re)structure and enhance websites and their content to ensure a sufficient level of
accessibility.
The transitional stage described above involves relatively slow change when compared with general exhilarating
technological developments. However, this relatively slow pace also creates an opportunity to take a step back and
observe all the individual processes that touch upon the notion of accessibility. This allows us to explicate similarities and
possible complementarities, a process of convergent gradualism if you like. The opportunity then arises to synchronise
various efforts in the accessibility arena and offer them to end users and business as a ‘package’. Such a package
contains scientific knowledge about accessibility, as well as technological knowledge about how to implement such
notions. This package also contains detailed descriptions of the requirements of the end users, producers and
distributors of content, as well as tools aiming towards market segments that rely on these requirements. Such an
approach that aims to unify 'common' content, system, service and tool provision and the more 'specialised' content,
system, service and tool provision, can be called Accessible Information Processing (AIP).
2.2 Standards and structures
Structured information is the first big step towards high-quality accessible information. A document whose internal
structure can be defined and its elements isolated and classified, without losing sight of the overall structure of the
document, is a document that can be navigated.
As noted above, most adaptive technology allows the user to access a document, and to read it following the "outer"
structure of the original. If that structure is left to a range of visual cues, like bold capital letters for the title of a chapter
and bold italics for the heading of a subchapter, the adaptive device will surely flatten that visual structure, leaving a
document with no structure at all. But if the same document has also an "inner" structure that makes possible for the
adaptive device to distinguish between a paragraph and a footnote, between a chapter and a subchapter, then the level
of accessibility of the whole document will be greatly enhanced, allowing the user to move through it in the same way
those without disabilities do when looking at the printed document, following the same "logic".
In an ideal world, any document made available in electronic format should contain that inside structure that benefits to
everyone. Highly-structured documents are becoming more and more popular due to reasons that very seldom have to
do with making it accessible to persons with disabilities.
Some of the largest publishers are converting their old electronic texts into full XML documents so that it will allow them
to look for certain bits of text that they can re-use in further editions, as well as to help them to avoid double-production of
the same text. Whatever the reasons behind those decisions are, the use of highly-structured information is of great
benefit to anybody accessing them for whatever purpose. And equally important is to structure the following information
standards as this allows for:
Consistency in the description of structural elements
Understanding and predictability of structures
Interaction with other standards
Technical compliance with different devices
Interchangeability of materials
Flexibility and evolution.
Standards are needed for many reasons, but probably the most relevant one is that they help manufacturers to make
their products accessible in a detailed, coherent way. The existence of standards though does not imply that accessibility
will be implemented in the same way or with the same results in all products. The existence of a number of standards for
producing the same product (a document) may occasionally lead to two different levels of accessibility for the same
"accessible" final product. Even within the same standard it sometimes happen that some features are considered
essential while others may be considered expendable – as a result of this, the application of the same standard with
different views about what is needed and what is not to make a document accessible may provide a wide range of
accessibility levels for the same product, making it fully accessible for some users and just slightly accessible for others.
7 http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20
9

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
It is therefore important to decide beforehand the level of accessibility to apply to a certain document according to
different variables, such as:
The depth of the structure that the document allows/needs to make it sufficiently navigable
The level of navigability actually needed by the potential users
The resources available to make a document accessible
It may also happen that different standards are developed for the same purpose and though they deliver the same level
of accessibility they are not compatible. This usually leads to confusion for manufacturers and service providers while it
also "divides" users between the different existing standards (we all remember the Beta vs. VHS example). We can
distinguish between formal (or de jure) standards and de facto standards. The former are those who have been
"formalised" by standards organisations, while the latter are technical solutions that have been adopted informally by
users due to its usefulness and/or reliability. Among these de facto standards, we also have two categories – proprietary
standards (those developed by a commercial company) and open standards (outside vendor’s control, freely developed
and updated by independent programmers).
A list of relevant standards for accessible information processing has been collated and is included in Appendix A. It
quickly becomes clear that no single standard or set of standards can help fully to implement accessible information
processing within mainstream workflows. We rely on the existence and the promotion of accessibility standards to prove
that accessibility can be built from the first stage of production: that Design For All can be applied to emerging standards
so that all the features needed to grant accessibility to the final product are built into the system right from the beginning,
instead of the traditional approach of adding those features later. There are many different standardisation agencies
around the world, but what is considered to be fully accessible in the United Kingdom may not be seen as accessible in
the same degree in Australia.
2.3 Current situation
A publisher can create a product that can be marketed for everyone, that includes accessibility features right from the
first stages of the creative process and that looks just like its non-accessible version. This does not apply to all types of
information (printed information, for instance), but it certainly applies to electronic publishing, audio publishing, the movie
industry, etc. Printed information relies too heavily on its visual appearance and cannot be distributed "as is" to people
with a print disability, but printed information is usually the last presentational output stage. Many other formats
containing the same information are likely to have been created. Those files are sometimes documented, structured,
catalogued and stored for future use, and those files can be created in a way in which the text and images they contain,
the structure they rely on, may be of use for people with disabilities.
One clear example of how accessible information need not necessarily look different or be marketed differently is the
PDF format as demonstrated by Adobe PDF version 8 onwards. 8 A PDF document can be created and distributed either
tagged or untagged. The former will allow print impaired people to read the document; the latter will be of use only to
those who can see it. They both look the same, and they are equally expensive or inexpensive to create. Likewise, web
pages can be designed in a way that can be accessed by assistive technology or not. They have the same look and, for
a programmer who knows which elements to use, making an accessible webpage is not a much bigger task than making
an inaccessible one.
Therefore, what would make information providers decide to create their documents in a way that can be accessible to
everyone? It could be to open up their market to anybody interested in the product they sell; or to comply with the
legislation 9 that requires that particular information is made public in a format that is accessible to all possible; or simply
to reach a much wider audience.
The publishing value chain may change significantly if publishers begin to ascribe greater value the electronic files they
use for printing. Tagged and structured electronic files not only have an intrinsic value (in the e-publishing sector) but
may also be used to create other formats that people with or without disabilities may use or prefer to paper. For example,
8 Adobe Reader from http://www.adobe.com and associated authoring/processing tools from
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/
9 Sullivan, J., (2007) Study on Copyright Limitations and Exceptions for the Visually Impaired, SCCR/15/7,
WIPO, Geneva.
10

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
the cost of producing a structured talking book using these files together with good quality synthetic speech is minimal
and would increase their potential market.
The "accessibility features" needed to make an electronic document usable for people with print disabilities are not
"exclusive features". This expression has a two-fold meaning – a fully structured XML document will not exclude people
without disabilities from using it just because it is structured and in a readable format. Besides, we do not need to create
an exclusive document to be used only with special equipment (except when copyright exceptions may apply).
What is sometimes considered "accessible" is simply "usable" – structures, navigation, are features that make a
document simply easier to use and more friendly to ANY user. When we add to a printed book a CD-ROM with the text or
the audio (or both) we are not making it available only to people with disabilities - we are also helping students to carry
the full text of the book anywhere in any portable device, and we are also giving them the opportunity to cite parts of the
book in their papers without typing them. We are allowing buyers of the book to listen to it while driving home after work,
as well as giving a blind person the possibility of hearing its contents.
In some cases, electronic documents offer much more possibilities and a better reading experience than the printed
edition. Books full of references to other books and authors, with words that can be found in a glossary or notes that are
explained at the end of the book, are better used and enjoyed when they are published in an electronic format. When
properly edited, entries can be created to any chapter, subchapter or any other significant part of the structure from the
table of contents; an entry to the words in the glossary every time those words are used in the book; or links to the
bibliography every time another author is mentioned. All this can be accomplished with a simple mouse click or by
pressing the space bar. This enhances the value of certain books, and it is a format that has already been used by some
publishers of reference material. These are not books for people with print disabilities, but they are (in most cases)
perfectly accessible.
2.4 Current state of the art
Document processing and accessibility both have a very wide focus, it has therefore been decided to structure the
elaboration of standards in this workshop according to the value chain in publishing, namely content creation, content
production and content distribution. Following this workflow the elaboration will be structured in a comprehensive way as
each step in the publishing process will be examined. A general publishing chain can be defined in simple terms as
“economic activities that facilitate the creation, production, circulation, delivery and consumption of information-based
products” 10
In Figure 1 the above elements are visualised to exhibit the intention of how the elaboration is going to be demonstrated.
The content processing chain requires on one side actors that create content, a framework and infrastructure for content
production, storage and management, and at the end user side, consumption and delivery interfaces. In each of these
building blocks of the content processing chain, several actors interact in order to create, produce and consume content.
Those interactions form processing workflows along publishing channels and products, leading to single or multiple
channel publishing. Dealing with each content processing building block requires modelling content, user and their
interactions in a way that implicit steps and knowledge become explicit. Then, in each of these steps, accessibility
requirements and enhancements need to be analysed in order to introduce accessibility right in the beginning rather than
at the end of the content processing chain. This is exactly the methodology followed in the current CWA: in each of those
workflow steps identified, actors and processes are analysed and accessibility requirements elaborated, links to useful
and related standards made explicit, and possible content accessibility enhancement steps described in more detail. For
feasibility reasons we limit the potential workflows in order to present at least in those cases a thorough analysis.
10 South Africa Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (1998), Final Report: The cultural
industries growth strategy (CIGS): The South African publishing industry report
11

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 1 - Generic Publishing Process
2.4.1 Current practices in accessible publishing
2.4.1.1 Document Conversion
Much of the current practice in document conversion centres on the use of Word Processor files and conversion to
formats such as Adobe PDF. There are various methods for achieving this by use of plug-in type software 11 for a host
application or larger scale document conversion services 12 . There are methods which can improve the accessibility and
meta enhanced aspects of these formats, but in order to be successful there is a responsibility on the author to oversee
and ensure the quality of this process.
Other methods are using desktop publishing applications such as Adobe InDesign 13 or QuarkXpress 14 but the latter
cannot generate accessible PDF documents.
There is a lot of industry wide interest in using XML for publishing. There are many practical advantages to using XML
based languages, these include the dynamic reusability and repurposing of content and the development of XML-centric
workflows by publishers which promises the potential to create structured content that can be outputted in accessible
formats required by people with disabilities 15 .
In certain countries this is due, in part, to changes in legislation where accessible content is a requirement 16 but also to a
growing recognition on the part of the publishing industry of the changes in the ways end users will access content due to
technological advances 17 and the need for users to be able to access published content in the medium of their choice.
11 http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=1161
12 http://createpdf.adobe.com/
13 http://www.adobe.com/de/products/indesign/
14 http://www.quark.com/
15 http://www.webaim.org/intro/
16 http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2004/inclusion_whitepaper.htm
17 http://www.audible.co.uk/
12

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
While the referenced examples relate primarily to Web accessibility, the issues encountered by users and subsequent
methodologies used to overcome barriers to access, are relevant to the publishing industry 18.
2.4.1.2 Trusted Intermediaries
Trusted intermediaries establish a personalised relationship between content holders and specialist organisations
whereby publishers and agencies serving blind and partially sighted people work together in a secure and trusting
environment to increase the quantity and timeliness of titles available in an accessible format. Within trusted intermediary
frameworks, DRM is an enabler of controlled access. A number of different security methods are being developed or are
already in use for making content available in this way.
As far as security is concerned, the higher the level the more likely publishers are to allow content to be made available
in accessible digital formats. At present, the security systems used are simple, they use basic encryption technologies
with key exchange mechanisms. The potential for the release of content is considerable – although there are few
recorded instances of such occurring. Once decrypted, content is available to anyone, authorised or not. The ability to
attach content to particular devices, or better to provide access only to authorised users, requires a level of DRM
sophistication that is not yet generally in place in services catering to the needs of visually impaired people 19 . Current
examples of such practices include countries like France 20 and Austria 21.
2.4.1.3 Enterprise content management (ECM)
ECM plays an important role because this will likely be the basis for future workflows in publishing environments as the
tools and processes converge. In mid 2002, 20% of EU media and publishing enterprises with a website had content
management systems in place, though only 3% had supply chain CMS 22 . As illustrated in Figure 1 the content production
process consists of many different steps and there are also different actors involved in those processes. ECM plays an
important role in being the central element of these processes since all the data can be captured, managed, stored,
preserved, and delivered within the organisation and thus support the publishing process. It is obvious that integrating
the accessibility requirements is an important issue related to ECM and publishing environments. Accessibility
considerations should be taken into account during the whole publishing process rather than at the end as an add-on
feature and so correspond with the design for all principles 23 .
2.4.1.4 Electronic Publishing
The landscape of electronic publishing is constantly evolving but as technology changes ever faster there is an ever
increasing need for publishers to be able to archive their content, easily retrieve it and export it in a wide variety of
necessary output formats. This is a complex and multi layered process and as with any workflow there are certain points
in the digital publishing chain that require specific knowledge and processing methodologies in order to manage them
18 http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=4&TopicID=222&DocumentID=1224
19 http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=169
20 du Bourguet, Guillaume; Guillon, Benoit; Burger, Dominique (2003): Helene: a collaborative server to
create and securely deliver documents for the blind. Proceedings AAATE 2003
21 Miesenberger, K.; Ruemer, R.: Schulbuch Barrierefrei (Accessible School Books) - Co-operation Between
Publishers and Service Providers in Austria. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on
Computers Helping People with Special Needs(ICCHP '06 ), Linz, Springer, pp32-39
22 OECD report on scientific publishing, DSTI/ICCP/IE(2004)11/FINAL
23 Darzentas, J., Miesenberger, K.: Design for All in Information Technology: a Universal Concern (Keynote),
in: Andersen, K., V., Debenham, J., Wagner, R. (eds.): Database and Expert Systems Applications, 16th
Internaitonal Conference, DEXA 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2005, Proceedings, Springer LCNS
3588, Berlin/Heidelberg 2005, pp. 406 – 420
13

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
successfully. These include archiving data and legacy document usage 24 , data exchange, intellectual property rights and
Digital Rights Management 25 , and finding the best practice models that work for the widest range of publishers 26 .
Though each publisher may have specific needs that differ in the broadest sense, there are common issues for all. These
include, but are not limited to, the need for logical document structure that not only makes sense to readers but also
makes it possible to retrieve, index and update a document by using metadata to identify the various parts of an
electronic document. Processes such as these are essential in order to modify the document format or extract relevant
parts of a document for insertion in another. Much technical work has therefore to be done to create methodologies and
mechanisms to realise and develop these processes.
2.4.1.5 XML-Publishing
There is a transition underway from the limited tag set and functionality of SGML to XML based tools and procedures and
there are various XML based standards, specifications and initiatives for the printing and publishing industry 27 , one of the
most powerful being DITA 28 .
DITA is an XML-based specification for modular and extensible topic-based information. DITA provides a model for
defining and processing new information types as specialisations of existing types. DITA populates the model with an
extensible hierarchy of standard types. DITA encourages re-use by reference either of topics or of fragments of topics.
DITA topics:
can be assembled in different combinations for many deliverables or output formats;
are optimised for navigation and search;
are well suited for concurrent authoring and content management.
DITA is customisable, which allows for the introduction of specific semantics for specific purposes without increasing the
size of other DTDs, and which allows the inheritance of shared design and behaviour and interchangeability with
unspecialised content 29 .
2.5 Current problems
Although initiatives and projects for incorporating accessibility in publishing are ongoing 30 , the current situation relating to
the publishing process is the following:
There is a lack of knowledge of accessibility related standards and formats within the publishing
industry. Experiences in the work with publishers also show, that there are different understandings
of “what is structure” between publishers and the accessible content producing communities.
There is also a lack of knowledge of publishing workflows and standards within specialist accessible
content producing communities. This lack of understanding makes it hard for consulters and experts
to give comprehensive suggestions to publishers.
24 http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january00/01hodge.html
25 http://www.publishers.org/press/pdf/DRMWhitePaper.pdf
26 http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/im-gi/references/pub/epub-topic_e.asp
27 http://publishing.xml.org/standards/index.shtml#ice
28 http://dita.xml.org/
29 http://xml.coverpages.org/DITA-OASIS-CFP.html
30 BMSG-533048/0001-V/10/2004: Project funded by the Austrian government, for making educational
material accessible using TEI-XML (creation), produce those in formats like large print Braille, PDF and HTML
(production) and distribute them electronically in a variety of formats and taking into account DRM (Digital
Rights Management)
14

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
There is a perception that the provision of digital files in alternative formats will compromise technical
protection measures. In the digital world, where copyright infringements cost companies millions of
Euro each year 31 , publishers are understandably afraid, to lose the control over the usage and
distribution of their content.
There is a perception that the provision of accessible format materials is expensive and timeconsuming.
This perception might also be a result of the fact that there is less knowledge on
Accessible Information Processing outside of the accessible content producing communities.
There is a lack of knowledge of the scale of the accessible format market. Its is hard for publishers to
estimate the monetary cost-benefit ratio, since there are less comprehensive statistics and market
estimations for accessible content products. One should also take into account, that accessible
content is also usable for mainstream users and this means also an increase of the target market.
There is no agreement on a single unified accessible format which meets the stakeholders
requirements. The file formats used by publishing companies is very specific to the requirements in
the publishing environment. But when it comes to produce an accessible document of the same
content , the requirements of the formats are entirely different to those in the publishing field. The
problem is to unify all the requirements under one common file format.
2.6 Influencing factors in Document Processing for Accessibility
This section describes the different factors that affect on one hand the publishing process and on the other hand the
results of the process – the Documents and the way they can be accessed.
2.6.1 Structure of digital source file
By speaking of structure we have to distinguish between the implicit structure of a document (structure that is only
visually recognisable) and the explicit structure of a document (semantic structure or structure that is describing the
document on a META-Level). Examples for implicit structures are the visual formatting of a text document through line
breaks etc. Examples for explicit structures are the usage of structure elements to describe the content e.g. in HTML this
would mean to use for a Heading or in a Microsoft Word document this would mean to use the “Heading 1”-Format
option to mark a text as heading. If a document has such an explicit structure this makes it possible to transform the
information without loosing the structure of the document. Structure is also the basic requirement and an fundamental
prerequisite for accessible content.
But since publishing is a very diverse process there are many different formats involved. For example, one author might
hand his script to the publisher in Microsoft Word format while another author might do the same but uses a TeX-based
format. Within one file format, for example Microsoft Word, there is also wide range of possibilities for structuring the
document 32 (e.g. by using Headings, Lists, etc.). In Desktop Publishing Tools (DTP), the structure is usually only made
visible through visual formatting of the content. Other file formats do not or only minimally support content structuring (e.g.
plain text format). It can therefore be said that there is not one typical method of making content accessible but that each
case must be looked at individually.
2.6.2 Different accessibility requirements of target user groups
The different target groups (blind 33 , visually impaired 34 , 35
or cognitive 36 ) have different needs in terms of how they
access the information. These requirements differ even within the groups. For example, one visually impaired person
31
http://www.ipi.org/ipi%5CIPIPublications.nsf/PublicationLookupFullText/E274F77ADF58BD08862571F8001BA
6BF
32 http://www.webaim.org/techniques/word/
33 http://www.webaim.org/articles/visual/blind.php
34 http://www.webaim.org/articles/visual/lowvision.php
35 http://www.webaim.org/articles/visual/colorblind.php
15

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
needs the material in a large print form, while another visually impaired person with a form of colour blindness might
need the information with a different foreground-background colour setting. Besides that, the requirements for a deaf
person are again totally different from those of the groups mentioned before. This variety of needs for different types of
output creates a challenge for the producer of accessible information.
So it is important, particularly for the content authoring process, to consider the diverse range of user’s needs to ensure
that they are met in the content authoring process. In order to better understand how the publishing industry can meet
the accessibility needs of their users, a consultation took place between the members and the stakeholders of the
workshop. Based on the results of this consultation, the next chapter elaborates on possible scenarios for publishers
introducing accessibility in their workflow.
2.6.3 Different types of content
Different modalities (text, image, video and audio) have different characteristics, purposes and uses. Every type of
content raises also different issues in terms of accessibility. Images need a descriptive text to be accessible 37 and video
or audio sequences should have a textual transcript 38 .
When modalities are wrapped in particular aggregations or bundles, as they must be in publishing workflows (such as
PDF containing text and images) we hit a huge increase in complexity and confusion because there are so many
different aggregations, no universal agreement about terms used and what they mean in each aggregation. This CWA
begins the process of simplifying this specific source of confusion by establishing a number of common scenarios usable
to support accessibility of different types of modality and aggregation.
2.6.4 Different publishing domains
Publishing processes in each domain (general, educational, scientific, etc.) have their own requirements. Some
segments may be consumer-driven and some more producer-driven. For scientific content, stability and content review
are important (as in scientific journals) and particular domains can present strong notational requirements that need tricky
notational representation issues such as representing mathematics in device-independent formats.
Many general domains may require only content distribution with little consumer feedback – this is useful in that it
provides easy ways for publishers to control the processes and apply resources but it is difficult in that any feedback from
customers about what is needed is less direct.
The educational domain requires more flexibility so as to be able to meet the requirements of specific contexts and in
many institutions adaptation for particular learners needs to be carried out. In many parts education also is rapidly
shifting from a central distribution (i.e. lecture or book) mode to one where learner participation and learner authoring
needs to be provided for. This can create a serious challenge for publishing.
Also the content itself varies among the different domains. A novel usually has a very flat structure while a biology book
for 10 th graders has a lot of figures, tables and other elements.
2.6.5 Target audience of content
Cultural and religious issues notwithstanding, it is probably desirable that public content (governmental content, news,
etc.) is accessible to the broadest range of people and audiences possible. Commercial content on the other hand may
target particular niches markets (e.g. Product brochure of a machine manufacturer). Still, there are commercial
advantages in expanding the range of a product to the widest market possible. The hidden demand for a product or
feature or some particular content may be wider than the producer would anticipate (e.g. visually impaired, blind and/or
dyslexic persons can benefit also from the production of structured audio books). A distinct advantage of creating
accessible content is the enhanced usability for many other users who may not have a disability. In general we can say
that accessibility interest and usability in general are two converging issues 39 .
36 http://www.webaim.org/articles/cognitive/
37 http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#gl-provide-equivalents
38 http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?79
39 http://joshuakaufman.org/articles/pdf/Accessible_and_Usable_Web_Design-Kaufman.pdf
16

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
2.6.6 Digital Rights Management (DRM), usage restrictions and licence agreements
Blind, partially sighted and other print disabled people read electronic material by modifying the way in which it is
presented, without modifying the content. They may do this through magnification, transformation into synthetic audio, or
the use of a temporary, or "refreshable" Braille display. In some instances the software with which to make these
changes is incorporated in mainstream packages, but the most flexible and adaptable solutions are achieved via
dedicated "screen reader" software. The term "assistive technology" is used in this document to refer to this form of
access.
Digital rights management schemes, or the technological protection measures within them, can react to assistive
technology as if it was an illicit operation. Thus, the DRM systems applied to e-Books and e-documents can prevent
access by people who use assistive technology to read the screen or to control the computer 40 .
We see that usage restrictions and licence agreements can present a particular challenge for accessibility because
making content accessible for some particular context or user may require adaptation of the content which in turn may
require access to parts of the content or even modification of the content using tools other than those it is provided with.
These agreements may be good for producers and intermediate suppliers (such as educational establishments) but
unless crafted very carefully may not serve the needs of actual consumers well.
40 http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=170
17

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
3 Formats for document processing
In order to systematically describe the processes needed for accessible information processing a three layer generic
system architecture is used to categorise the formats. The formats used can be divided into three categories: input
formats, interchange formats and output formats. Some of the formats belong to more than one category.
Input formats refer to any format that is used to add information to the start of a process. In some cases this involves
getting analog formats such as paper formats digitised in order to convert those to more accessible formats for computer
use. In other cases, the input layer will be the output from another process and may be a purely machine readable format.
For accessible information processing the following formats are often used for input to processes:
Printed paper
Printed Braille
ASCII Text
HTML
XML
Multi-type composite formats
Interchange and storage formats (sometimes referred to as representation formats) are extremely important. They are
the formats in a system upon which the main logic or intelligence acts. For accessible information processing it is
essential that this stage of the system is well designed. As systems and technologies become more advanced, these
formats will likely reduce to purely XML formats of well specified international standardized multi-type composite formats.
For the purpose of this document, the following formats have been identified as interchange formats:
ASCII Text
HTML
XML
Multi-type composite formats
Output formats describe the result returned from a completed process. These can be any of the available formats as
they can deliver a format to an end user (be it an actor or another process).
Printed paper
Printed Braille
Audio
ASCII Text
HTML
XML
Multi-type composite formats
3.1 Printed paper
Printed paper is an essential part to document production. It is the traditional end product of production processes, and
can often be the input stage of a Digitisation process. Printed Paper is still the main format in our society for authors,
magazine publishers etc. to make their content available to the public.
Printed paper is an essential part of document production. It is the traditional end product of the production processes,
and can often be the input stage of a digitisation process. How useful it is in terms of generating alternative versions from
a printed paper material depends largely on the quality of the material.
18

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
3.1.1 Clear print
Many publishers are recognising the market need for (slightly larger format) books using 12 or 14 point text in medium or
bold.
The resulting text is easier to read for the growing number of people who have difficulty reading smaller sized print. This
is increasingly becoming a viable alternative.
3.1.2 Large Print (16 point or over)
Large Print is a format based on Printed Paper. A Large Print document can be either a scaled copy of the original or, if
the electronic source document exists and is available in a word processor format (Microsoft Word, OpenOffice,
StarOffice,...), it is possible to scale the font size and, if necessary, change the colour of the font and background colour
as well as the font itself to satisfy the reader’s needs and print the document in this special setup.
Many readers need larger print than conventional publications have. The font used should be clear and simple, medium
or bold and with good line spacing. For large print documents, the process of conversion depends on the complexity of
the original document and also on the quality requirements for the output document. For simple text documents such as
novels designed to be read in a linear form, production of large print versions can be quite easy: once the original
document’s content is available in a word processing software, characters are increased to a predetermined font size.
The software usually ensures that the text flows on to new pages depending on the page format chosen. The document's
page numbers may be modified (adapted book's page numbers do not match the original page numbers any more). The
page numbering may not be important for a novel but is likely to be relevant in a non-fiction or reference work. In this
case the original page numbering is often marked in the text. Complex documents require more care in their conversion
to large print. Documents containing cross references need to be thoroughly checked because of the changes made to
page numbers 41 . Table of contents and indexes must be regenerated. Production of large print books may involve some
of the techniques of prepress production normal to publishing.
3.2 Printed Braille
Braille has been in use by blind and visually impaired people since it was invented by Louis Braille in 1821. It exists as a
code based on a series of 6 raised dots (scientific Braille uses 8 dots).
Printed Braille is produced by physically pressing dots into paper so that the points can be read by the fingers of the blind
reader. This is a mechanical process converting the digital file into the analog version. Documents can be produced on a
machine like a typewriter which produces single pages or on a printing machine driven by a computer feeding it a Braille
file converted from a text file. Braille is usually printed on larger pages than conventional books in order to allow enough
characters on a line to make reading efficient. The paper is thicker (200 gram/m2 or more) to retain the dots through
many readings. The result is that documents in Braille are much bigger than the conventional print version. With
precision equipment Braille can be printed at both sides of a paper (Interpoint technique) which halves more or less the
amount of paper needed (but not its volume!). For example, a Braille version of the Bible takes up the same shelf space
as 24 box files. There are methods of reproducing printed Braille using the pages as moulds for thin sheets of special
plastic (thermoplast technique), but the current practice is to keep the digital file and print off copies when they are
required.
It is possible to convert existing Braille back to a digital Braille file by scanning, but this requires expensive machinery
and there are only a couple of institutions regularly involved in this practice. It is being used to recover and archive rare
documents such as music Braille where there is no easy route to a printed original which can be scanned. It is a
therefore a finite process and will be less relevant in the future.
Printed Braille output refers to any hard copy which represents Braille. It is the only and universal medium for blind
people to read books without the use of modern information technologies 42 . Despite the new alternatives which came
with Information and Communication technologies it is still very relevant to Accessible Information Processing. This is
especially so when it comes to complex types of content e.g. math, music. This will be described in the following
paragraphs.
41 Unless they are softcoded.
42 One should, however, been aware that only 10 % of the blind population can read Braille. This is due to the
fact that elderly persons (who form the majority of blind people) cannot distinguish the dots anymore.
19

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
3.2.1 Braille Music
Braille music is a system of converting music notation to be represented in Braille code so that music can be read by
visually impaired musicians. Almost all standard print music notations can also be written in Braille music notation. Braille
music notation is an independent and well-developed notation system with its own conventions and syntax. This is
constantly being expanded by a small group of transcribers around the world who communicate with each other to
secure agreement as new instrumentation and musical figures are transcribed for the first time. It is therefore a genuinely
universal notation standard.
Visually impaired musicians' gain the same benefits by becoming musically literate through learning to read Braille music
as do sighted musicians who learn to read printed music. It is therefore an important format in the AIP.
3.2.2 Mathematics in Braille
The need to convey mathematics linearly - without the use of special typesetting and, often, with a limited character set
as well - is a common one. Linearising mathematical formulas is necessary for Braille. Contrary to music, there is no
universal system in place for the linearization or for the codes used. Furthermore, some systems rely on six-dot Braille,
others on 8 dots.
Sometimes the use of spoken mathematics is promoted. Here again there are no universal rules on how to pronounce
(complex) formulas.
Mathematical Braille is largely country or region dependent. Therefore producers should bear in mind the location of the
users they are producing for. Some of the better known codes are:
The US Nemeth code 43 , 44
The German Marburg code 45
The UK Braille Mathematics Notation 46
W3C's MathML 47
In many circumstances the use of Latex for mathematics has been promoted. Latex is a typesetting system based on a
combination of text and codes (somewhat similar to XML, but exclusively layout based). Latex has its own system for
linearising mathematics which can be very useful for higher education purposes and screen reading but not for printing
on paper as it is extremely verbose.
A complete overview of mathematics handling and conversion between "standards" has been made in the European
Lambda project 48 .
3.3 Audio
Audio files have been an integral part of specialist formats for some time. Originally metallic tape and vinyl were used to
distribute spoken materials to print impaired users. These analogue formats have mostly been replaced by digital formats
such as WAV, MP3 and other MPEG formats.
43 More information on http://www.brailleauthority.org/Math-science.htm
44 A. Nemeth. The Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science Notation 1972 Revision. American
Printing House for the Blind, 1972.
45 H. Epheser, D. Pograniczna, and K. Britz, Internationale Mathematikschrift für Blinde, Deutsche
Blindenstudienanstalt, Marburg (Lahn) 1992.
46 http://www.bauk.org.uk/docs/bmn.pdf
47 http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/
48 http://www.lambdaproject.org
20

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
In modern workflows and supply chains, these are mostly packaged with some kind of multimedia framework such as
SMIL 49 or MPEG 50 but audio can still be used in some very specific processes.
Audio books are by far the most popular medium for the distribution of alternative format publication. Not only are the
specialist libraries around the world producing far more audio than all the other formats put together but commercial
audio is becoming an increasingly important part of the output of many major publishing houses.
Most of the currently commercially available audio books are read by a professional narrator. Often these are actors but
some authors read their own books which might make them more commercially attractive.
Most of the currently commercially available audio books are distributed in uncompressed audio format (PCM).
Commercial production using expensive narrators and professional studios meant that adding even a rudimentary
structure was only a marginal cost. Most productions have at least chapter identifiers and many have chosen to add
structure to a finer level, but always using the basic "one level tracks structure" of audio CDs.
Existing audio CDs can hold a maximum of 80 minutes per disc 51 which results either in a large number of discs for most
of the large books, or in abridged versions of those same works, which is an unacceptable solution for print disabled
users wanting to access the full content of a certain book.
Mp3 versions of books can be produced from a human narration or automatically through computer generated synthetic
speech. The range of existing synthetic speech engines is very wide. Many languages are available though the most
common languages tend to have the best speech quality because of the level of investment in development which
reflects the potential market. A further advantage is that these files are considerably smaller than uncompressed audio,
which allows producers to fit up to 10-15 times the standard duration of uncompressed audio CDs on one data CD
(depending on the desired audio quality).
3.4 ASCII Text
ASCII refers to an internationally recognised text standard. In terms of Accessible Information Processing it is used to
represent either a text file or codes which represent information in Braille. It is becoming increasingly obsolete as supply
chains move towards XML formats, but ASCII remains the base element of much of the information archived by national
specialist providers.
3.5 HTML documents
HTML is a very common output format. As a mark-up language, structure is given a high importance, so when correctly
formatted, an HTML document can be searched and browsed in a very logical manner, and headings, paragraphs, links,
lists, and so on can be used for full easy navigation. One of the advantages of HTML is that the files can be read on any
web browser in any platform. A key disadvantage of HTML is that it is not possible to edit the content while reading it in a
browser, as we can do when reading documents in text-processors. This may sometimes be necessary and can be
compared to adding notes in a traditional book. 52
It does allow for the user, however, to open the source file of the
document and add information if they know how to do so.
A bigger disadvantage is that the layout of the information is mixed in the same HTML document with the information
itself and its structure, which may be a handicap when accessing the content.
49 SMIL: Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/
50 MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group, http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/
51 This is due to the initial purpose of audio CDs’: high quality recording of music. On audio CDs no trade off
between quality and length of recording can be made.
52 Editing of HTML based texts on the web can be done through WIKI technology, a system for collaborative
working on one single document, mostly known from the wikipedia encyclopedia pages but applicable to other
documents too (cf. EUAIN wiki below).
21

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
The Internet is becoming for many the dominant information location and retrieval source. Accessibility of websites and
search engines (based mostly on HTML) is therefore essential to the needs of visually impaired people. Different
guidelines exist on how to structure correctly HTML files, as well as guidelines on how to make them fully accessible. 53
3.6 XML
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a
wide variety of applications. XML is a simplified subset of Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML). Its primary
purpose is to facilitate the sharing or the re-use of data across different areas of application. Formally defined languages
based on XML allow diverse software to reliably understand information formatted and passed in these languages.
Based on these standardised languages it is also possible to write converters to transform the information into other
formats.
The format is important for accessible information processing as it provides interchange formats for converting
information to accessible information. XML is the name of the general family of several describing languages. Two
implementations of XML (technically called DTDs or Schemas) are the TEI standard and the already mentioned DAISY
standard.
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a mark-up language for describing data regardless of its external appearance.
XML is also focussing mainly on the structure of the content. In a different process numerous different transformation
style guidelines can be applied to one XML document to present the information in the most suitable way. In the context
of accessible information, XML has two main advantages over other formats – the first is that the elements of books like
chapters, paragraphs, headings, can be perfectly represented by XML's structural elements; the second advantage is
that, being a layout-agnostic language, different transformation style guidelines may be applied to the same content to fit
different user’s needs and preferences.
This format is therefore of great importance for accessible information processing as it provides interchange formats for
converting information to accessible outputs. 54
3.6.1 XHTML
XHTML is in principle a reformulation of the older HTML 4 specification. The formal specification of XHTML can be read
here http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/, but in the context of accessible materials a number of points could be made to help
understanding the concept. XHTML is an application of XML. This means that even though XHTML has the semantics of
HTML, it has the syntax and the very strict rules of XML. There are both advantages and disadvantages compared to
HTML:
Among the advantages are that there are a number of tools that are specifically made for working with XML, called XMLparsers.
These are built into software that use or read XHTML documents, and they make the processing of the
document both easier and more accurate. Ironically, this creates a disadvantage for the user. Since XHTML documents
must be valid (e.g. conform to the very strict rules of XML) they are difficult to create and edit by hand and as a
consequence most XHTML documents are machine-generated.
Software that requires valid XHTML documents include Digital Talking Book players and some e-text readers. It must be
noted however, that most Internet browsers – such as Internet Explorer 6 and 7 - are very tolerant and can render
XHTML documents even if they are not valid.
3.6.2 TEI XML
TEI is a specific implementation of the XML standard.
53 HTML standard. ISO/IEC 15445:2002 Information technology - Document description and processing
languages - HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTML 4.01 Specification (HyperText Markup Language),
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
54 XML standard Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fourth Edition) 29 September 2006.
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/
22

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Guidelines are an international and interdisciplinary standard that enables libraries,
museums, publishers, and individual scholars to represent a variety of literary and linguistic texts for online research,
teaching, and preservation. 55
3.6.3 Daisy XML
The term “DAISY” covers a variety of standards and specifications that are maintained and supported by the DAISY
Consortium (www.daisy.org). DAISY is an acronym that means “Digital Accessible Information System”. The term
covers at least 3 different standards and specifications:
DAISY 2.02: A specification that defines the DAISY Digital Talking Book (DTB) format. DAISY 2.02 is by far the most
widespread and popular of the DAISY formats and has gained support from both producers of digital talking books as
well as producers of players and production software. When people talk about “a DAISY book” they are probably
referring to DAISY 2.02.
DAISY 2.02 is based on XHTML and SMIL (Synchronised Multimedia Integration Language – also an application of XML).
A number of different audio formats can be used in a DAISY 2.02 book – the most common one used being MP3. A
DAISY 2.02 book can contain the full text of a printed work as well as pictures and other multimedia content, or it can be
an audio only book.
The heart of a DAISY 2.02 book is the NCC file (Navigation Control Centre) that both presents itself to the user as the
Table of Content and works as the reading software’s main system file. The NCC is always present in a DAISY 2.02 book
even if it is without text.
DAISY 2.02 books can be read using either a hardware player or a computer with software for this purpose. DAISY 2.02
is platform independent. A number of commercially available production tools for producing DAISY 2.02 books are
presented on the DAISY Consortium website. 56
Daisy/NISO Standard 2005 (aka DAISY 3/ Z39.86): This standard covers a complex of sub-specifications and Document
Type Definitions (DTDs) that together constitute a Digital Talking Book. Compared to DAISY 2.02 this standard is very
advanced and can be used to represent any book in text and audio format.
The sub-systems in a DAISY 3 book include:
The manifest, that contains a complete list of all the files that make up the DTB
The Spine, that defines the reading order of the DTB
Tours, that defines alternative reading orders of the DTB
The heart of the DAISY 3 book is the NCX file that functions in much the same manner as the NCC file does in a DAISY
2.02 book. Unlike the NCC, the NCX represents the structure of the book in a true hierarchy.
Many of the features of DAISY 3 are drawn from Open eBook Publication Structure Version 1.2. DAISY 3 is a
fairly new standard and books are not yet widely distributed by DTB producers. Some producers use DAISY 3
as a production and interchange format where the great richness in detail makes it ideal for XML/XSLT
transformations to other formats, mainly DAISY 2.02 for distribution. 57
DTBook: The text component of a Z39.86 book consists of one ore more DTBook files. The DTBook
specification has, however, found widespread use outside the framework of the Digital Talking Book. DTBook
is an element set that represents European/American book tradition in an XML context. The element set
consists of 79 elements, but can be extended with e.g. math, poetry etc. DTBook is specially suited as an
55 Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange (2002). http://www.tei-c.org/P4X/
56The full specification can be seen here: http://www.daisy.org/z3986/specifications/daisy_202.html
57 The standard can be seen here: http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-86-2005.html
23

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
interchange format and is widely used as such. Using XML tools like XSLT, a DTBook file can be transformed
into PDF, RTF (Word), XHTML, HTML and virtually any other text format. 58
NIMAS (National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard): A standard that was developed 2002-2004
by the National File Format Technical Panel. NIMAS is a sub-set of Z39.86.
“NIMAS is a technical standard used by publishers to produce source files (in XML) that may be used to develop
multiple specialised formats (such as Braille or audio books) for students with print disabilities.
The source files are prepared using Extensible Markup Language (XML) to mark up the structure of the original content
and provide a means for presenting the content in a variety of ways and styles. For example, once a NIMAS fileset has
been produced for printed materials, the XML and image source files may be used to create Braille, large print, HTML
versions, DAISY talking books using human voice or text-to-speech, audio files derived from text-to-speech
transformations, and more.
The separation of content from presentation is an important feature of the NIMAS approach. In most cases, a human will
need to enhance the source files to provide additional features needed by diverse learners.
The various specialised formats created from NIMAS file sets may then be used to support a very diverse
group of learners who qualify as students with print disabilities. It is important to note that most elementary
and secondary educational publishers do not own all of the electronic rights to their textbooks and related
core print materials and a copyright exemption allows them to deliver the electronic content of a textbook and
the related core print materials to the NIMAC, a national repository which began operations on 12/3/06, as
long as the publishers possess the print rights. NIMAS applies to instructional materials published on or after
7/19/06. “ 59
3.6.4 MathML
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is an application of XML for describing mathematical notation and capturing
both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulas within other XML documents. It is a
recommendation of the W3C math working group.
3.7 Multi-type composite formats
Those formats are especially important to the publishing industry, because they are widely used and part of the
publishing process, In general we consider here:
Educational multimedia documents
Educational publishing may require a greater degree of flexibility than other forms of publishing
because of the direct engagement with the persons using the publication. Typically it is more
interactive (as it must engage the learner’s attention in a more demanding context). Education often
involves direct learner participation, authoring, and other processes such as assessment. Content
and processes must match the learner’s particular context and requirements as closely as possible
because the closer the match the better the learning outcome. This is very demanding. Given the
huge variety and individual nature of assistive technology and personal adaptations (such as
cognitive adaptations) it is unrealistic to expect that content producers can tailor content for each
circumstance or even that they can have the accessibility knowledge necessary to do so.
Scientific, technical and medical documents (STM)
The global market for English-language STM (scientific, technical and medical) journals is about $5
billion. The industry employs 90,000 people globally, of which 40% or 36,000 are employed in the EU.
Another 20– 30,000 full time employees are indirectly supported 60 One of the main typesetting
58 A comprehensive set of guidelines for applying DTBook mark-up is available from the Daisy Consortium.
(http://www.daisy.org/z3986/guidelines/sg-daisy3/structguide.htm). Other sources: Theory behind the DTBook DTD
(http://www.daisy.org/publications/docs/theory_dtbook/theory_dtbook.html)
59 From the NIMAS web site (http://nimas.cast.org/about/nimas/index.html):
60 http://www.stm-assoc.org/storage/Scientific_Publishing_in_Transition_White_Paper.pdf
24

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
3.7.1 PDF
systems used is TeX, and the main document mark-up language and document preparation system
is LaTex. It is widely used by mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, engineers, and scholars in
academia and the commercial world, and by others as a primary or intermediate format (e.g.
translating DocBook and other XML-based formats to PDF) because of the quality of typesetting
achievable by TeX. It offers programmable desktop publishing features and extensive facilities for
automating most aspects of typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and crossreferencing,
tables and figures, page layout and bibliographies 61 .
In the past, Adobe PDF files could be very inaccessible, especially to people using screen readers. When the PDF is
made by attaching an image of a page to another it is still completely inaccessible as screen readers have no text to read.
This began to change with Acrobat 5, when Adobe introduced the ability to tag PDF files for accessibility. Although PDF
tags could not be manipulated as easily as HTML tags, they made the content more accessible to some users with
screen readers. Adobe Reader 7 continues to improve the user's access to PDF files offering the possibility to customise
preferences extensively. Additionally, Adobe has included a DRM (Digital Rights Management) mechanism into Acrobat
Reader, but there are also several other DRM plug-ins that work with Acrobat Reader.
Due to the major characteristic of PDF, the fact that it is rendered the same no matter on which viewer or operating
system it is viewed on, PDF has become the most popular format used by publishers and increasingly among other
content creators. With PDF the difference between an accessible and an inaccessible document depends on proper
usage of the programmes used to create PDF files. Much more education and training in creating accessible PDF is still
needed.
3.7.2 QuarkXpress® file format
Quark®, provides a layout software, called QuarkXpress®, that used for writing, editing, and typography with colour and
pictures to produce rich final outputs for print and Web 62 . It is used by more than three million users worldwide. The
software is used mainly for creative design and page layout. QuarkXpress Version 7, provides a Voluntary Product
Accessibility Template 63 (VPAT) that details the accessibility features of Quark's product in order to help customers to
determine its compliance with Section 508.
With QuarkXPress users can import and export XML Documents. With Quark Digital Media Server content can be stored
in a central database. It then can be used in multiple forms according to the principles of multi-channel publishing. Quark
XTensions software, which are plugins, can automate functions and eliminate repetitive steps with palettes, commands,
tools, and menus. Tests with QuarkXPress 6.5 Passport (international Edition) showed that QuarkXPress was not able to
import the TEI-DTD. To tag the text of the book, a new, flat DTD had to be written. With the new DTD the mapping from
layout formats to XML tags was possible. The content then is exported into a XML file. This is the basic version for the
accessibility work.
3.7.3 In Design file format
Adobe® markets InDesign® to produce professional page layouts 64 . Riche and complex documents and outputs for
multiple media. Adobe InDesign CS3 software version, supports accessible cross-media publication, allowing export of
InDesign documents into PDF, XHTML, and XML. Users can add tags and alternative text attributes to InDesign
documents that support the production of accessible content in these exported formats. 65
InDesign from Adobe Inc. is a desktop publishing application (DTP) which can work with XML files. It is possible to import
XML into InDesign and then prepare the document for output e.g. printed book. This feature is an important step toward
61 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX
62 http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/
63 http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/pdf/VoluntaryProductAccessibilityTemplate.pdf
64 http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/
65 http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/indesign/
25

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
multi-channel and cross-media publishing. Tests with Adobe InDesign CS2 showed that it is possible to tag the text of the
layout document. Further investigations are done to efficiently map layout to the structure. InDesign supports the
mapping of text-formats to XML-Tags but the structure had to be added afterwards. The mapping feature can be used, if
the text is in a proper layout. Otherwise the user has to mark the specific text area (e.g. one chapter) and then to assert
the XML tag to the text.
3.7.4 Digital Talking Book (DTB) documents
For many years, "talking books" have been made available to print-disabled readers on analog media such as
phonograph records and audiocassettes. These media served their users well in providing human-speech recordings of
a wide array of print material in increasingly robust and cost-effective formats. However, analog media are limited in
several respects when compared to a printed book. Firstly, they are by their nature linear presentations, which leave
much to be desired when reading reference works, textbooks, magazines, and other materials that are often accessed
randomly. In contrast, digital media offer readers the ability to move around in a book or magazine as freely as (and more
efficiently than) a sighted reader flips through a print book. Secondly, analog recordings do not allow users to interact
with the book by placing bookmarks or highlighting material. A DTB offers this capability, storing the bookmarks and
highlights separate from, but associated with, the DTB itself. Thirdly, talking book users have since long complained that
they do not have access to the spelling of the words they hear. As will be explained below, some DTBs will include a file
containing the full text of the work, synchronised with the audio presentation, thereby allowing readers to locate specific
words and hear them spelled. Finally, analog audio offers readers only one version of the document. If, for example, a
book contains footnotes, they are either read where referenced, which burdens the casual reader with unwanted
interruptions, or grouped at a location out of the flow of the text, making them difficult for interested readers to access. A
DTB allows the user to easily skip over or read footnotes. The Digital Talking Book offers the print-disabled user a
significantly enhanced reading experience -- one that is much closer to that of the sighted reader using a print book.
The DTB goes far beyond the limits imposed on analog audio books because it can include not just the audio rendition of
the work, but the full textual content and images as well. Because the textual content file is synchronised with the audio
file, a DTB offers multiple sensory inputs to readers, a great benefit to, for example, learning-disabled readers or people
with dyslexia. Some visually impaired readers may choose to listen to most of the book, but find that inspecting the
images provides information not available in the narrative flow. Others may opt to skip the audio presentation altogether
and instead view the text file via screen-enlarging software. Braille readers may prefer to read some parts or the entire
document via a refreshable Braille display device connected to their DTB player and accessing the textual content file.
Digital Talking Books are not tied to a single distribution medium. CD-ROMs will be used first but DTBs are portable to
any digital distribution medium capable of handling the large files associated with digital audio recordings. Regardless of
how a DTB is distributed, however, it will normally be in the context of a digital rights management system.
One implementation of DTBs is based on the Daisy Standard (DAISY 2.02 / ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005). Daisy books are
described above in the sections 3.6.3.
This standard for creating digital content in structured multimedia is developed and maintained by the DAISY Consortium.
Using XML text files and MP3 audio files, the DAISY format can create a range of text only, fully synchronised text and
audio and audio-only books that are fully accessible and navigable for blind and visually impaired users as well as people
with other disabilities such as dyslexia. It allows up to 6 levels of structure (chapter, subchapter, paragraph, and so on) as
opposed to the one-level structure of commercial audio CDs, which makes it suitable for complex books like educational
materials.
The DAISY standard has been adopted as the standard to be used by publishers in the United States of America to
comply with the Instructional Materials Accessibility Act (2002). In Europe DAISY is also used by a wide range of
alternative media publishers to create accessible material.
26

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
4 Considerations for structuring documents
Structured information is the first step in the accessible information process. A document whose internal structure can be
defined and its elements isolated and classified, without losing sight of the overall structure of the information, is a
document that can be navigated.
Most adaptive technology allows the user to access a document, and to read it following the "outer" structure of the
original. But if the same information has also an "inner" structure that allows the adaptive device to distinguish between a
phrase and a measure, between a paragraph and a sentence, highlighting particular annotations, then the level of
accessibility (and therefore usability) of the whole document will be greatly enhanced, allowing the user to move through
it in the same way as those without impairments do when looking at a printed document, and following the same integral
logic. In an ideal world, all documents made available in electronic formats should contain this internal structure that
benefits everyone. Highly-structured documents are becoming more and more popular due to reasons that very seldom
pertain to making them accessible to people with disabilities.
The move to XML related formats and associated standards for metadata have provided an impetus for far greater
document structuring than before. Whatever the reasons behind those decisions are, the use of highly-structured
information is of great benefit to anybody accessing them for any purpose. In recent years, the market for accessibility
and assistive technologies has started to gain recognition. It is clear that the integration of accessibility notions into
mainstream technologies would provide previously unavailable opportunities in the provision of accessible multimedia
information systems. It would open up modern information services and provide them to all types and levels of users, in
both the software and the hardware domain. Additionally, new consumption and production devices and environments
can be ad- dressed from such platforms and this would provide very useful information provision opportunities indeed,
such as information on mobile devices with additional speech assistance.
Structuring content is essential for the subsequent processing and transformation of it into accessible content.
Document style sheets and guidelines need to be followed though out the content creation process, so to
enable successful conversions into accessible content and eliminate costly post-editing tasks. For that reason,
careful consideration of styles and usage agreements with stakeholders are of special importance. The next
sections present the steps that need to be introduced in publishing workflows to enable accessible content
production. These workflow steps listed below are also part of the scenarios introducing accessibility within publishing
workflows (section 0) and given here for allowing the reader to refer back when reading this section.
4.1 Define and use document style guidelines
This activity basically defines style guidelines that will be used by all actors in the accessible content processing value
chain. Introducing style guidelines requires an agreement between all actors in the publishing chain. These style
guidelines can be used to tag specific content and map it into a specific conversion. The consistent use of style
guidelines through the whole publishing chain enables efficient processing and automatic structuring of content and thus
enhances significantly the accessibility of it. Actually it is not necessary for all actors use the same style guidelines but
only if the mappings between the used style guidelines exist (which is not always the case!) and are well known.
There are several style guidelines available, very commonly used are those based on the Chicago Manual of Style 66
4.2 Define and use structure guidelines
In this specific activity guidelines that define structure are agreed between the relevant actors. Structural guidelines are
more abstract than style guidelines. They actually define how structure is tagged in the content. In the case of MS Word,
structural guidelines will need to define how different headings are tagged. By consistently following the structural
guidelines, automatic conversion can be achieved. Structure also deals with tagging of sections that contain graphics,
images, drawings, other rich media, math, music etc. Structural guidelines also enable navigation on the structural
elements and by doing so ease information retrieval and content consumption. A good point to start and examples on
how to handle images or drawings can also be found in the structure guidelines for DAISY at
http://www.daisy.org/z3986/structure/
66 http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
27

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
4.3 Edit / add structure where needed
This activity deals with editing or adding structural elements, where either those were lost in the conversion process, or
have not been tagged in the beginning because of inconsistent use of style guidelines. If it is a post-processing operation
then it requires a lot of manual effort. Therefore, those tasks should be kept to a minimum.
In order to edit or add structure in this task, guidelines on how to add structure by hand need to be developed and used
consistently as well. A list of relevant guidelines has been compiled by the EUAIN project and can be found in the
literature 67
4.4 Edit DRM settings
Unless very carefully handled, DRM has the potential to disable adaptation of content to make it accessible in another
context. For example, a format may include text that is locked into the format, cannot be copied and is not accessible
with assistive technology such as a screen-reader. The text may be only accessible as a bitmapped image, meaning that
it cannot be simplified or rendered in some other format. Whatever the format and tool the content is produced with, it is
unlikely that the designer will have considered and provided for all the contexts in which it may be used. For best results
the separate modalities within material need to be available for other software and hardware tools that are able to make
the material accessible for unforeseen contexts to use. This usually means leaving the text unlocked 68 . This topic is for
expansion in further work.
4.5 Adaptation
Adaptation for a context typically will involve matching the content to the context and making changes to meet that
context. This is much easier if the content exists in a form that can be taken apart (disaggregated), supplemented with
other content (such as subtitling a video) then put together again. The reason for this is that because adaptations are
often needed for only parts of the material and not for all of it. It may be that a visually-impaired person cannot use the
diagrams in the content, for example, so that it is necessary to include alternatives for the diagrams in the content.
In all cases it will be necessary to examine both the context AND the material to see if they match. If, in the production
chain, this process takes place close to the user it is more likely that the materials will match the user’s needs. In some
cases, such as described in scenario 11, the user’s requirements will be directly available. In others it will be necessary
to incorporate many alternatives within the content (so that the learner can select the modalities she can use) but still to
allow for the content to be adapted as late as possible to meet unanticipated user needs.
When the user’s requirements are not directly available, as in a pre-sale publication process, it is useful to test the
material against such checkpoints as are provided in sets of guidelines elsewhere in this document. For web content the
Web Accessibility Initiative Web Content Accessibility Guidelines can form a useful base to do this and a number of
automated tools that can assist with this process are available. It is important to remember that doing this is using virtual
or average requirements and will not meet all circumstances but does help.
67 http://wiki.euain.org/doku.php?id=wiki:guidelines_for_accessible_information_processing
68 This topic was studied in the European SEDODEL project
(http://canada.esat.kuleuven.be/docarchwebsite/show.jsp?page=projects&id=SEDODEL) but due to rapid
changes in DRM technology, the work should be continuously updated.
28

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
5 Conversion processes
This list of conversion processes is not exhaustive but it should cover the most important conversions in the accessible
content processing workflows. The conversions listed below are also part of the scenarios introducing accessibility within
publishing workflows (section 0) and given here for allowing the reader to refer back when reading this section.
5.1 Convert Multimedia Material to structured Multimedia Material
By multimedia material we mean all content that consists of different media types. Multimedia content can be a Microsoft
Word document that consists of text and images but it can also be a video sequence. In most of the following scenarios
the term Multimedia Material is used for PDF files.
Accessible PDF can be seen in some cases as an output format which is passed to the reader. Sometimes it might be an
interchange format from which further transformations into other formats are performed.
If the accessible PDF is intended as output format, creating accessible tagged PDF files will produce PDF files
accessible to standard screen readers which support tagged PDF (like JAWS and Window Eyes).
This circumvents the need for end users to learn how to use Adobe's embedded speech synthesiser.
However, it is not always easy to make PDF files directly accessible to screen readers. Documents with complex layouts
can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to convert into an accessible PDF file, due to the fact that the content does
not linearise correctly. It can also be very challenging to make documents with extensive charts or with embedded videos
accessible.
Converting PDF into accessible PDF may include the following steps (a detailed description of these steps can be found
on the EUAIN Training Resource Centre 69 ):
Apply OCR to Image only PDF
Converting Existing PDF Files into Tagged PDF Files
Change Tag Type
Add Alternate Text to Images
Create New Tag
Delete Tag
Reorder Tags
Reordering Tags Using the Order Tab
Artefacts
Adding Tags to Untagged PDF Files
Add Tags to Documents Feature
Add All Tags Manually
TouchUp Reading Order Feature
Adding Tags Using TouchUp Reading Order
69 http://wiki.euain.org/doku.php?id=wiki:processes:conversions:html_to_xml
29

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
5.2 Convert structured Multimedia Material to XML
By structured Multimedia Material we mean multimedia content that has information on its structure included. This can be
a fully navigable audio document, a Microsoft Word document that makes correct usage of heading etc or a fully
accessible video document with subtitling. In most of the scenarios we mean accessible PDFs when speaking of
structured Multimedia Material.
When Multimedia Material is structured it makes it possible to transform the Material into various output formats. In case
of PDFs it is, if possible generally more cost effective to start from the original word processing documents. Quite often
the original file used to create the PDF is unavailable. In that case you can create a XML file using Acrobat, but the file
will probably be more complex and will require more post processing and restructuring work to make it accessible.
If you have images, only the alternate description will be saved, but not the image, and there are no tables in the HTML
file, even if the table was an appropriately-tagged data table in the original PDF file. More information can be found on
the EUAIN Training Resource Centre.
5.3 Convert Multimedia Material to XML
PDF is widely recognised as a de facto standard for electronic end user documents. Public services, banks, insurance
companies and others that distribute electronic documents to end users utilise the advantages of a format that is easily
printed by the user and has a fixed unchangeable layout. It is also widely recognised that PDF is unsuitable for anything
else than visual presentation. Information in a PDF-document is deliberately made un-flexible and is not easily retrieved.
In spite of these facts, one of the most common tasks for national providers of accessible information is the conversion of
PDF to an accessible format. At the same time, this particular conversion is both costly and time-consuming.
There are two different approaches to extract information from a PDF-document. Since PDF can be compared to a highquality
TIFF picture – the same picture that is the result of a scanning process – it is possible to use the same OCR
processes with PDF-documents as the processes used with scanned paper-documents – and the results are comparable.
Most of the OCR-software providers on the market are recommending this method. The other approach is to try to extract
the text-information that is present in a PDF-document. This is done by software that reads both the text content and the
visual information in a PDF-document and translates this information to the common attributes of a text document –
paragraphs, headings, etc.
The result of both processes can then be exported into an XML file which is the basis for further accessible information
processing. Both of these methods require extensive use of human resources and are not easily automated. Especially
rendering of visual components such as columns, tables, page-headers, unusual fonts, etc. have proved very difficult to
automate. Considering the large amount of human resources employed in this type of conversion, it could be concluded
that research efforts used on improving these methods would be very well spent. It should be noted that conversions to
accessible formats earlier in the production chain – when the conversion process is still easily automated – would have
similar results.
5.4 Convert traditional print to XML
This activity refers to the transformation of printed-paper into an electronic interchange format. Usually this is completed
through scanning of printed pages.
The result is a set of image files (one file per page unless the multiple page TIFF format is used). These image files can
then be saved or be processed through optical character recognition (OCR) software. This software recognises the text
in the images and transforms the images into a text file. Either by specific software or by hand this text can be converted
into a structured XML file.
This output will refer to structured content which is either being fed into an XML reader which accesses the content and
the structural data which surrounds that content or the XML is being fed into the next stage of an XML production stream
for further conversion.
This process describes the first stage of a digitisation project where an analog format is being taken in and converted into
a format (XML), which allows further conversion, storage or processing.
30

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
5.5 Convert DTP to XML
This, primarily multimedia, input will refer to a complex package of media files, which are held together by one governing
structure. Well known DTP packages currently are QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign. These documents also have the
most complex formats, which can be used in accessible information processing, and the ability to process these formats
forms the key to integrating accessibility with mainstream workflows and processes.
In the case of Accessible Output from a Multimedia package, guidelines are often needed for describing images and
other multimedia formats which cannot be directly translated into a suitable format.
XML output will refer to structured content which is either being fed into an XML reader which accesses the content and
the metadata which surrounds that content or the XML is being fed into the next stage of an XML production stream for
further conversion.
This process is likely to be taking some (or all) of the content in a multimedia package and processing it into a more
generic format (XML) for conversion into further formats. More information can be found on the EUAIN Training Resource
Centre 70 .
5.6 Convert XML to Print
XML to printed paper conversion processes (specific to accessible information processing) would refer to any process,
which uses XML data to prepare content for accessible use based on a paper format.
Primarily XML input will refer to part of an XML production stream where XML is used as the core interchange format.
This being the case, it is likely that there will be some pre-processing, as content is rarely created by hand straight into
XML. From XML, content can be converted to almost any format so it is a very good starting point in accessible
information processes.
The transformation itself is usually done automatically by software. It uses specific transformation templates (XSLT) to
convert the XML data into a readable format. The transformation templates contain information on font sizes, colours,
and also layout information.
Printed-paper output refers to any hard copy, which represents the information. It is probably coming out of a printer or a
photocopier. In terms of accessible information processing printed-paper output can be a clear print output without
sophisticated lay outing of the text. This makes the text easier to read.
This conversion process is likely to be one output branch of an XML production process that uses XML as its central
archiving and interchange format. This would be the output node for one particular format.
5.7 Convert XML to Braille
A common conversion process in accessible information processing is that of a generic XML format to a specialist format
with specific niche user requirements. As many specialist organisations move towards an XML based production process,
this process will become commonplace.
Printed Braille output refers to any hard copy, which represents Braille. Braille can be created through various means.
These means will probably involve a Braille Embosser or any other Braille printer. One should be aware that Braille
printer files are machine dependent.
The transformation itself is usually done automatically by software. It uses a specific transformation style guideline to
convert the XML data into the format, which is fed into the Braille printer. The style guideline must do the pre-formatting
for Braille output. This includes layout information like adding line-breaks and other Braille print specific information. One
of the trickier transformations is the generation of language dependent contractions.
This conversion process is likely to be one output branch of an XML production process that uses XML as its central
archiving and interchange format. This would be the output node for one particular format.
70 http://wiki.euain.org/doku.php?id=wiki:processes:conversions:multimedia_to_xml
31

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
5.8 Convert XML to Large Print
XML to printed paper conversion processes (specific to accessible information processing) would refer to any process
that uses XML data to prepare content for accessible use based on a paper format. This probably refers to large print
representations.
Primarily XML input will refer to part of an XML production stream where XML is used as the core interchange format.
This being the case, it is likely that there will be some pre-processing, as content is rarely created by hand straight into
XML. From XML content can be converted to almost any format, so it is a very good starting point in accessible
information processes.
The transformation itself is usually done automatically by software. It uses a specific transformation style guideline to
convert the XML data into a readable format. The style guideline contains information on font sizes, colours, and also
layout information. High-precision XML to print transformation generally will be done through the use of XSLT or XSL:FO
style guidelines (cf. also below: XML->PDF transformation).
Printed-paper output refers to any hard copy, which represents the information. It is probably coming out of a printer or a
photocopier. In terms of accessible information processing printed-paper output is likely to be a large print representation.
This is likely to be one output branch of an XML production process that uses XML as its central archiving and
interchange format. This would be the output node for one particular format.
5.9 Convert XML to HTML
XML to HTML conversion processes (specific to accessible information processing) would refer to any process, which
uses XML data to prepare content for the use within web environments be it a web site or just for offline reading within a
web browser.
Since both the input format and the output format can contain high amounts of structural data or structured information,
we can assume that these processes are quite modern and that they represent good practice in accessible information
processing.
In essence, XML input will refer to part of an XML production stream where XML is used as the core interchange format.
This being the case, it is likely that there will be some pre-processing, as content is rarely created by hand straight into
XML. XML content can be converted to almost any format (using e.g. XSLT or other processing systems such as Stilo-
Omnimark), so it is a very good starting point for accessible information processes.
An output medium of HTML suggests that the content is being prepared for the usage within web environments. This
means that processing means should be aware of the relevant standards for accessible web content (e.g. W3C, WCAG
1.0, WCAG 2.0).
The HTML will possibly be published on the web or possibly as part of a Content Management System (CMS).
This conversion process is likely to be one output branch of an XML production process that uses XML as its central
archiving and interchange format. This would be the output node for one particular format.
5.10 Convert XML to structured Multimedia Material
XML to structured Multimedia Material conversion processes refer to a process where for example XML data is
transformed into the PDF format. PDF is a very common output format, it has the advantages that the content cannot be
changed by the user. It is also a format that is platform independent, which means that a PDF document will look the
same on any computer and is not dependent on any specific reading software.
Though PDF output refers to an electronic document format it can also be used within accessible information processing
for preparing documents for Large Print output. These Large Print PDF can either be read on a computer screen or, if
allowed, be also printed out for use as Printed Paper output.
The transformation itself is usually done automatically by software. It uses a specific transformation style guideline to
convert the XML data into a readable format. This implies that processing means should be aware of the relevant PDF
32

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
transformation (XSL:FO).The conversion style guideline contains information on font sizes, colours, and also layout
information. XSL:FO processing requires additional software called an FO-processor 71 .
In essence, XML input will refer to part of an XML production stream where XML is used as the core interchange format.
This being the case, it is likely that there will be some pre-processing, as content is rarely created by hand straight into
XML. XML content can be converted to almost any format, so it is a very good starting point for accessible information
processes.
5.11 Convert DTP to Multimedia Material
This primarily multimedia input will refer to a complex package of media files, which are held together by one governing
structure. Well known DTP packages currently are QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign. These documents also have the
most complex formats, which can be used in accessible information processing, and the ability to process these formats
forms the key to integrating accessibility with mainstream workflows and processes.
In the case of Accessible Output from a Multimedia package, guidelines are often needed for describing images and
other multimedia formats which cannot be directly translated into a suitable format.
Usually the PDF output from DTP software is used for submission to the printing house for print output. New production
techniques and also improvements and new features in the DTP software now make it possible to create a basic PDF
output version that can be used as input to other conversion processes such as the conversion of Multimedia Material to
structured Multimedia Material.
PDF as an output format is a very common one and it has the advantages that the content cannot be changed by the
user. It is also a format that is platform independent, which means that a PDF document will look the same on any
computer and is not dependent on any specific reading software.
5.12 Convert Audio to structured Audio
Audio files have been an integral part of specialist formats for some time. Currently all audio streams are available or
easily convertible to digital formats (WAV, MP3, other MPEG based formats etc.)
The conversion process includes the modification of the audio content and adding structural data to the audio content. In
general, this implies cutting large files into smaller ones or producing a list of timing markers so that audio rendering can
start at any desired point in a larger audio file.
Structured Audio as an output format refers to audio content that is fully navigable (headings, chapters, paragraphs). This
can be reached by using relevant standards or frameworks for handling structured audio content such as ANSI/NISO
Z39.86 (DAISY) and NIMAS/DAISY. These frameworks can provide a combination of different output formats. In the case
of DAISY this can be a combination of textual representation of the content combined with audio. A special case is the
addition of time markers on human-read audio files so that they can be rendered in small pieces of audio. This process is
part of the production chain of hybrid (text + audio) Daisy books.
5.13 Convert XML to XML
Primarily XML input will refer to part of an XML production stream where XML is used as the core interchange format.
This being the case, it is likely that there will be some pre-processing, as content is rarely created by hand straight into
XML. From XML content can be converted to almost any format, so it is a very good starting point in accessible
information processes.
XML output will refer to structured content which is either being fed into an XML reader which accesses the content and
the metadata which surrounds that content or the XML is being fed into the next stage of an XML production stream for
further conversion.
In general this process is the core of many compound production processes. XML is being converted in some way. This
could be an adaptation from one XML format to another (e.g. TEI to DAISY) or a change in presentation of an XML
format, possibly through use of XSLT.
71 An example of this is the Altova Stylevision processor, http://www.altova.com/downloadtrialstylevision.html
33

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Due to the fact that XML can also be used as storage format it is likely that different publishers may use their own XML
format. For accessible information processing it might be necessary to transform one XML format into another to be able
to apply the follow up conversions into the final delivery format. This might include a conversion from proprietary XML to
an open standard such as TEI or DAISY.
The transformation itself is usually done automatically by software. It uses a specific transformation style guideline
(XSLT) to convert the XML data into another XML format. To be able to preserve all the structural information during the
transformation process it is necessary for the people involved to be aware of the involved XML grammaticism.
Technically this means that both input and output structuring definitions (DTD or Schemas) must be known.
34

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6 Scenarios introducing accessibility within publishing workflows
The term "fully accessible" or "full accessibility" is always controversial. Accessibility is a mixture of two main factors –
first, the type and degree of the print disability of the user, and second, the combination of "readability" and "navigability"
of the information offered to the user. Some formats are only readable, but hardly navigable and some are both. Some
users may have problems with colours and others with the size of the fonts used, and some with both.
As far as formats go, a pure ASCII file is perfectly readable with most (if not all) adaptive devices, but it is hard to
navigate as there is usually no structure at all, neither visual nor spatial. However, an XML text (or HTML, XHTML, etc.)
are both readable and navigable, as they allow for different degrees of internal structure. Some text formats (ASCII,
marked-up languages and word processor documents) allow for customisation of the characters shown in the screen
(both in size and appearance) and the background colours. Some others may be readable and navigable but not
customisable (like, for example, a tagged PDF document read with Acrobat Reader – here the size of the whole page
can be changed but it does not allow for changing only parts of the text to the size or appearance that may be needed).
According to this pure images can be put on one side of the scale and a DAISY book on the other side – a pure
untagged PDF document is completely inaccessible for most print disable people (as much as a printed book is), while a
full-audio full-text DAISY book includes all possible accessibility features that might be thought of. In between these two
extremes the possibilities are endless. There are proprietary file formats that can create good accessible documents if
only used properly (PDF, Word, etc.).
But making documents accessible for customers does not mean that there is an obligation to satisfy everyone’s needs.
That is never possible, not even with printed books – some people prefer smaller books, other people would like a
slightly bigger font, while yet others prefer glossy to matte paper. To try to address as many customers as possible
(according to economical, social, cultural and personal differences) publishers put in the market different editions of the
same book – hardback editions, paperback editions, pocket editions… and they make as many translations of the book
as needed to sell as many copies of it in as many countries as possible. All these different editions are considered to be
in the same format – printed paper. But, in fact, they are "customised" versions of the same format, and some people
may even consider them to be "different formats". And they all originate in the same electronic file, slightly or largely
modified to meet the special characteristics of a certain edition. So publishers are already publishing the same book in
different "formats" when needed.
Formats that are only "readable" are only advisable if there is no other possibility of producing an accessible version of a
book. These formats are, for instance, pure ASCII files or a continuous wav or mp3 file for an audio book. The book thus
produced can be read, but the reading experience is far from satisfactory. Sometimes, if the book is not the type of book
that is usually read sequentially, plain readable formats are of very little or no use at all.
On the other side of what an accessible book may be stand DAISY books. They can reproduce the experience of moving
and browsing through a printed book for those who cannot read print. Navigation can be taken as far as the word level
when needed and both text and audio (when they are both present) are perfectly synchronised. DAISY books have many
layers of navigability that go from full-audio and full-text (on the top of the scale) to fully structured text-only or audio-only
books. DAISY books can be produced directly from properly created XML files with the appropriate DTD.
35

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.1 Scenario 1 - Delivering XML files
We are an SME operating largely within one large EU country. All of our document design and structuring is out-sourced
to different design agencies, depending on the type of materials we are publishing. We have been asked to provide XML
source files to our national organisation for the blind in order to create accessible versions of the materials. Our material
is largely educational and includes multimedia materials. How can we comply with this request?
In this scenario the libraries have to be specific in their wishes. E.g. do they want source documents or XML?
Publisher's structures (if not, structures will be lost when the material is exported)
Guidelines need to be produced instructing actors what to ask for in specific situations.
Actors
National Publisher, Educational Publishing, Multimedia Publishing, SME
Library for the blind
Service Provider
Conversions
Multimedia to structured Multimedia [5.1]
Structured Multimedia to XML [5.2]
Multimedia to XML [5.3]
XML to XML [5.13]
Scenario description
There are three basic ways to create accessible information in this scenario:
Convert the Multimedia files (e.g. PDFs) to XML and add then the structural information to the XML
file and deliver those to the Library for the Blind
Edit the the structure within the Multimedia document and convert it afterwards to XML. Deliver the
XML to the Library for the Blind
Convert a multimedia document into a structured multimedia document and then into XML. This can
then be delivered to the Library for the Blind
36

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 2 - Scenario 1 Delivering XML files
37

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.2 Scenario 2 - Accessibility enhancement in general
We are a large publisher operating in several markets across Europe and the US. We already have an enterprise content
management system. To what extent can this be made more accessibility compliant so that we can create accessible
output formats for national accessibility organisations in different countries? In some countries we are required by
legislation to provide these materials, in others it is on a voluntary basis, but in each case we need to know how to do
this.
In this scenario, the national accessibility organisations need to express their requirements of formats and files that are
needed (e.g. sources files or XML). Guidelines need to be produced instructing actors what to ask for in specific
situations.
Actors
International Publisher, General, Multimedia Publishing
Large national specialist providers
Conversions
Multimedia to XML [5.3]
DTP to XML [5.5]
DTP to Multimedia [5.11]
Scenario description
Three possible ways:
The DTP files are converted straight into a multimedia format (e.g. PDF) and then into XML, where
the structure and accessibility information are added
The DTP is directly converted into XML and the structure and accessibility information are added
The structure is adden within the DTP document (e.g. through XML tagging). Then these documents
can be converted into XML again
38

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 3 - Scenario 2 Accessibility enhancement in general
39

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.3 Scenario 3 - Increasing web accessibility
We are a major scientific and technical publisher. Most of our material is already available online but we do not really pay
attention to accessibility issues other than on a general level. Our customers tell us this is not enough, and much of our
material remains inaccessible. How can we better distribute our materials over the web to our print impaired users?
Guidelines need to be produced instructing actors what to ask for in specific situations.
Actors
International Multimedia STM Publisher
Print impaired end users
Conversions
XML to HTML [5.9]
Scenario description
In this case, the Publisher in question has a large body of content which they would like to make accessible on the web.
This is a case where standards are increasingly important.
There are several relevant standards in this case:
WCAG 1.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0)
WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0)
There are several relevant organisations in this case:
CEN/ISSS Workshop on Document Processing for Accessibility (WS/DPA)
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative)
In order to make the incorporation of these standards as streamlined as possible, it is important to use a CMS system
suitable for the needs of both the target end users and the producing organisation. For non-XML documents the user
might need access to information or transformation platforms to convert those documents also into HTML.
40

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 4 - Scenario 3 Increasing web accessibility
41

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.4 Scenario 4 - Accessibility policy
We are a traditional print publisher but we have absolutely no experience in accessibility. We want to train our staff in
making our materials accessible, what do we do?
Guidelines need to be produced instructing actors what to ask for in specific situations.
Actors
International Multimedia STM Publisher
Print impaired end users
Conversions
Traditional print to XML [5.4]
Scenario description
This requires a plan to be put in place concerning an accessibility policy within the organisation. It is important that such
a policy is aware of relevant standards, policies and legislation. These training materials are a good start, but
communication with specialist organisations for the blind and visually impaired could also be useful.
From a technical perspective, the possibility of incorporating accessibility within existing XML processing streams should
be investigated.
And for all new materials, publisher should develop author guidelines for digital publishing workflows to incorporate
accessibility needs within the process.
42

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 5 - Scenario 4 Accessibility policy
6.5 Scenario 5 - Spoken documents for everyone
We are a major player in the EU Spoken Book market. We are interested in the accessibility area, as we believe this
could strengthen our hold on the market. How do we produce books that are accessible for everyone, especially people
with dyslexia?
Actors
EU audio book publisher
National Specialist provider
Conversions
Audio to structured Audio [5.12]
Scenario description
It is likely that the solution to this scenario is very simple. With the assistance of the national specialist provider in
question, it should be possibly to convert an audio book (WAV or MP3 based) into an audio book which contains
structure for navigation. This would require the use of a standard such as Daisy.
43

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 6 - Scenario 5 Spoken documents for everyone
44

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.6 Scenario 6 - Accessible and protected PDFs
We are a major publishing conglomerate. Much of our content is made available in PDF format exclusively. How do we
make PDFs accessible but still protected from unauthorised use? Is there software I can use?
Actors
Major Publishing Conglomerate
National Specialist Provider
Conversions
Multimedia to structured Multimedia [5.1]
Scenario Description
Accessible PDFs are a hot item at the moment and as a result there is a lot of activity on the internet:
Adobe Accessibility Resource Centre 72
Creating Accessible PDF Documents with Adobe Acrobat 73
PDF Universal Access working group 74
In this document, PDF is considered to be a multimedia format which is a packaged set of files of different formats
structured into a document. In the conversion process 5.1 a PDF document is converted through tagging of the PDF into
a structured multimedia document. The DRM within these documents can be considered as another element with specific
and often conflicting requirements. The technical requirements for conversion are much the same as those for any
multimedia package.
72 http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/
73 http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/pdfs/acro7_pg_ue.pdf
74 http://www.aiim.org/standards.asp?ID=27861
45

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 7 - Scenario 6 Accessible and protected PDFs
46

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.7 Scenario 7 - Working hand in hand
We are an organisation providing accessible format materials. We often receive unstructured (or poorly structured)
publisher source files and convert them to (DAISY) XML and Braille. What specifications can we give to publishers so
that they can better structure their source files themselves, as this will make the process easier?
Actors
Specialist organisation
General National Publisher
Conversions
Multimedia to XML [5.3]
XML to Braille [5.7]
XML to XML [5.13]
Scenario description
The communication of requirements between publishers and specialist organisations is difficult. In both directions, there
can be complications because of the language used, priorities and different end user requirements. In order to make the
communication process as seamless as possible, it is essential to start this process as early as possible, and build up a
relationship of trust and knowledge of each other’s requirements. International Standards are also essential to ensure
that there is a starting point and other work can be re-used. In order to create a solution that is as wide as possible it is
important to make use of a standardised XML dialect for support of automatic transformation.
47

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 8 - Scenario 7 Working hand in hand
48

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.8 Scenario 8 - Accessible design
We are a design agency working for several private and public organisations. They have asked us to build in accessibility
in our products but how do we do this? We understand the principles of "Design For All" and web accessibility but how
does this apply to the documents we design?
Actors
Design Agency
Public and private service provider
Conversions
Multimedia to XML [5.3]
XML to structured Multimedia [5.10]
Scenario description
Multimedia documents are converted into XML. The information can then be structured and afterwards converted again
in multiple output formats.
Assuming the service provider is using modern software and modern XML production streams, it should be a case of
adding new outputs to these streams for the major accessibility formats which are described in these training materials.
49

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 9 - Scenario 8 Accessible design
50

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.9 Scenario 9 - Accessibility on a large scale
We are a national library and are responsible for archiving vast amounts of digital material. How can we be sure this
material will be accessible? Should we follow some guidelines?
Actors
Library acting as a service provider
National Specialist Organisation for the Blind
Conversions
XML to structured multimedia (5.10)
Scenario description
Since there is an archive of digitised information, it is likely that an XML production stream has been used. If this is the
case, then specific formats for impaired users in question need to be added to the output formats. If no XML processes
have been put in place, it is likely that some manual intervention may be required to add metadata to the information in
order to make it suitable for conversion to accessible formats. As a national Library, it is also important that there is a
degree of communication with the National Library for the Blind in your country.
Figure 10 - Scenario 9 Accessibility on a large scale
51

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.10 Scenario 10 - What authors can do
I am an author who publishes my own works/publishes as part of a collective. How do I make sure that everyone can
read my books without me incurring too many costs?
Actors
Author
Accessibility specialist
Conversions
Structured Multimedia to XML [5.2]
Traditional print to XML [5.4]
Scenario description
The author defines together with accessibility specialist guidelines that support the author to create
accessible documents.
On the other hand existing print material is converted into XML which can then be exported into
various output formats.
52

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 11 - Scenario 10 - What authors can do
53

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.11 Scenario 11 - Repair and adaptation
We are a disability support unit in a major university. Our staff members are experts in specific disabilities and our role is
to support specific learners at the university by ensuring the multimedia content supplied for their learning is accessible
to each learner, providing or recommending appropriate formats to match access modes available to that learner. How
can we adapt learning materials? What are the processes and what standards are available to support the processes.
Actors
Disability Support Staff
Conversions
Multimedia to structured Multimedia [5.1]
Scenario description
A Disability Support Staff member will work with the learner and the material assessing the adaptations required to make
the material accessible for the learner’s context. The learner’s requirements for the context might be expressed in a
functional description (e.g. IMS Accessibility for LIP 75 or ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 36 24751-2 Personal Needs and Preferences
Statement 76 ). There may also be environmental context requirements, such as might be expressed in a device profile.
Content produced by the Educator will be in the form of an aggregation, which might be HTML or SCORM or an IMS
Content Package or other aggregation usable by a Learning Management System. A piece of content may itself contain
multiple aggregations and formats such as PDF files, MPEG videos, text, HTML etc. Determining whether the content
matches the functional requirements and what the needs for repair are might involve examination of Metadata associated
with the content (such as IMS AccessForAll Metadata 77
or ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 36 24751-3 Digital Resource
Descriptions 78 ) or using automated software tools to determine accessibility properties of content.
Appropriate repair assistance tools might output machine and human-readable statements in the language EARL 79 or
properties related to WCAG 2.0 or Section 508 or other such Accessibility standards and also other properties.
Repair might involve disassembling an aggregation (such as IMS Content Packaging 1.2 80 ) into its constituent parts,
providing alternate/supplemental resources and re-assembling. Repair might also involve provision of offline materials
(such as the notes in large font at some specific time) or online services or offline services to accompany the use of the
material.
75 http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/#acclip
76
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=43603&scopelist=PROGRAMM
E
77 http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/accmdv1p0/imsaccmd_oviewv1p0.html
78
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=43604&scopelist=PROGRAMM
E
79 http://www.w3.org/TR/EARL10-Schema/
80 http://www.imsglobal.org/content/packaging/
54

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Figure 12 - Scenario 11 Repair and adaptation
55

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
6.12 Common scenario requirements
As is shown in the possible workflow for each scenario, there are common tasks that need to be covered when
introducing accessibility into the publishing workflow. Those tasks include:
Definition of document style guidelines that are agreed and disseminated to the actors.
Reference conversion of document’s references into tagged structured formats.
Manual correction of conversion input/output (in the case where content creators did not follow style
guidelines requirements).
Extension of descriptions regarding visual data (images, videos) and other multimedia material.
Subsequent on demand conversion into accessible formats.
6.13 Specific scenario requirements
In order to make documents accessible for a specific group, specific format conversions need to take place. It is
important in these format conversions that the structure, annotation and metadata and intellectual property rights of the
parent documents will be inherited by the child documents and not be lost. Therefore, attention must be paid to using the
right conversion order and toolkits. One strategy that seems to be the most viable is to use a media rich (including
annotations, and metadata) structured format as reference and then create the desired output operating directly on that
format. An additional advantage of this strategy is that this format can ideally also be used for backups and can be stored
in the publishing archive or also in libraries for long-term archiving.
The next sections will further elaborate the requirements found for the possible scenarios presented above. An analysis
will be provided of the options for document style guidelines, reference conversion into a structured format, how to
minimise manual correction and enhancement of the conversion output, how to extend descriptions of visual data and
other multimedia material and how to convert the reference format into other accessible formats.
7 Application-oriented scenario implementation
7.1 Harry Potter and the RNIB
Actors involved: International Publisher, General, Printed paper books, Large, International Publisher, General,
Audiobooks, Large, Public blind Service Provider
Conversions: Audio wav to ASCII, ASCII to printed Braille, Multimedia to printed Braille, Multimedia to printed paper,
Multimedia to Multimedia
This case study concerns the simultaneous release of standard and accessible versions of a popular work of fiction in the
United Kingdom. The latest Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) was brought out simultaneously in
normal print, large print, Braille, audio and DTB. The RNIB produced the Braille version; the publishers produced the
normal print, large print and audio. A third actor produced the DTB.
7.1.1 Print version
Bloomsbury published both the standard print and large print versions of the book simultaneously. The large print version
was produced in 16 point and was of good quality. A number of individuals seemed to encounter significant difficulties in
securing large print copies of the book; this was despite the large print version being mentioned in press releases and
being included on the Nielsen database (the primary tool for booksellers in identifying availability). Potential customers
for large print were encouraged to pursue the issue with mainstream booksellers. The National Blind Children's Society
also provided customised large print versions of the book to children, in a range of point sizes. They waited until the print
version of the book was published and then scanned it. The customised large print service is only available to children
and the print price is heavily subsidised by the charity. As with other accessible versions of the book (see below), the
stated aim of the charities concerned is to provide the ‘same book, at the same time, at the same price to the print
impaired end user. (List price of Standard Print Book £16.99, List price of large print Book £30.00, Price of NBCS book is
£16.99 to individual children)
56

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
7.1.2 Braille
RNIB were required to undertake and pay for a security audit before the publication date. Once cleared, a representative
from Bloomsbury arrived with the word file of the book on a CD. The CD was loaded onto a computer that was not
networked. The word file was translated into a Braille file and a stock of hard copy Braille was produced. The artwork for
the cover had been secured earlier than the text. The Braille version of the book was available at exactly the same time
as the print version of the book. This was a major achievement, the cost of production was still heavily subsidised by
RNIB. (Price of Braille copy of book: £16.99 available from RNIB)
7.1.3 Analog Audio
The audio rights for the book were owned not by Bloomsbury but by an individual, Helen Nicholl. The actor Stephen Fry
narrated the book (as he had done with previous Harry Potter titles). The book was recorded using industry standard,
professional, recording software (Pro tools/ Sadie). The digital master was then used to produce both a CDDA (Compact
Disk Digital Audio) copy of the book (17 CDs long) and an audio-cassette version of the book. These audio versions of
the book were available 6 weeks after the publication of the print book. This delay was apparently due to the work
commitments of Stephen Fry. According to UK law you can not use a copyright exception to produce an accessible
version of a book if there is already an equivalently accessible version commercially available. For this reason the
Stephen Fry cassette and CD version of the book is the only one available (albeit at an incredibly high price) (List Price of
analog audio £55.00, List price of CDDA £65.00)
7.1.4 Daisy Audio
Daisy audio is deemed a significantly different format to both analog audio and CDDA so RNIB was within the law to
produce the book in Daisy. There were several options available:
Use the electronic file (used to produce the Braille) to produce a synthesised voice version of the
book
Use an RNIB narrator to produce a real voice recording of the book
Use the Stephen Fry recording to produce a Daisy version of the book
The advantages of the first two options were that the Daisy version would be available at the same time as the print
version of the book. However as previous Daisy versions of the series had all used the Stephen Fry audio version it was
decided to go for continuity over ‘same day publication’. The rights owner provided a copy of the CDDA version of the
book. This was used to produce wave files of the recording which were then converted into the Daisy book. The Daisy
book is available for loan via the RNIB talking book service. It is also available for sale. The rights owner set an arbitrary
limit of 250 copies (for sale). This will soon be reached and will need to be re-negotiated. Once again the Daisy version
of the book was given the same price as the standard print price copy of the book. It was available for loan and sale, 4
months after the original publication of the print book. (Daisy copy of book from RNIB £16.99)
7.2 Magazine and Newspaper distribution in the Netherlands
Actors involved: Public blind, Public partially sighted, Public dyslexics, National Publisher, General, Multimedia
Publishing, Large
Conversions: ASCII to XML, XML to audio, XML to Braille, XML to printed paper, XML to XML, HTML to XML, Multimedia
to XML
The Dutch Library for the Blind Dedicon converts 37 newspapers automatically to accessible XML formats, making them
available at the same time if not before the printed editions. Magazines still require some intervention by skilled staff to
convert files to a common format, which sometimes causes short delays between print publication and the availability of
accessible versions.
DEDICON, the Dutch library for print impaired readers distributes 37 newspapers and 60 magazines in a special XMLformat.
The website Anderslezen.nl is used as a digital distribution platform, which reduces delay in delivery to a
minimum. Most of the newspapers are available at the same time or even earlier than the printed versions. This is
possible because conversion and distribution of the content is fully automated. Magazines cannot be delivered so quickly
because some of the work still has to be done by hand. Production of the special “Dedicon” XML format means that
delivery times cannot be guaranteed. Nevertheless delays are reasonable.
57

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
7.2.1 The production of newspapers
Publishers deliver their content in different XML formats. For example NewsMl, NITF, SGML and special internally
developed XML formats. The files are transferred by FTP to a Dedicon server, where they are converted automatically:
The conversion editor/post processor (Dedicon software) or XSLT software converts the file into Dedicon-XML and sorts
the content in a logical order.
A DMD-file (document metadata, Dedicon software) is created. It contains metadata about the publisher, the newspaper,
the date and the size of the file. It supports the transport and storage of metadata to Anderslezen (website and
distribution platform).
The Dedicon-XML is encrypted and placed, together with a CSS and a XDF-file (the CSS supports
the customer's reader software) in an EXD-file (encrypted XML document).
EXD- and DMD-files are placed on the website Anderslezen (distribution platform).
The costumer gets an automatically generated email with an attached (EXD-file) or a link.
The EXD-file is decrypted and the file is opened by the Dedicon-reader.
The costumer can navigate through the document with his mouse or the buttons of his keyboard.
The customer can choose between different output formats: synthetic speech, Braille and large print,
all of them produced locally out of the XML files.
7.2.2 The production of magazines
The content is not only delivered by FTP but also by CD or email. Dedicon receives many different formats, such as: PDF,
Word, QuarkXpress, Indesign and HTML. It is not possible to convert all of those formats automatically.
QuarkXpress is converted by hand in an Apple environment. The employee places the different parts of the content in the
right order by using Textarch software. Automatic export would lead to an illogical content order.
Indesign is converted in a Windows environment. With the assistance of FIX software (developed by Dedicon) the
employee places the different parts of the content in the right order.
The conversion editor/post processor (Dedicon software) converts the content into Dedicon XML.
The employee controls the quality of the Dedicon XML. The content has to be well formed and valid. In case of an error
the employee restores the content by hand.
Any information which is missing and relevant is added to the DMD file (document metadata, Dedicon software) by the
employee. The rest of the process is similar to the production process of newspapers.
7.3 Time Warner and Dolphin Audio Publishing
Actors involved: International Publisher, General, Audiobooks, Large Service Provider
AFB Talking Books recently introduced a new technology developed in partnership with Time Warner AudioBooks and
Dolphin Audio Publishing, for the best-selling author James Patterson's new novel, The Jester. The Jester appeared as
an audio e-book in 2003 and included an unabridged CD audio version of The Jester. The audio e-book, basically a
digital talking book (DTB), was made possible through standards developed by libraries for people who are blind from
around the world through the international DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) Consortium.
DTB technology allows large amounts of textual information and formatting to be stored, transcribed into a variety of
formats, and easily navigated. The EaseReader software developed by Dolphin Audio Publishing synchronises audio to
the text and plays/displays The Jester on desktop and laptop PCs. Readers can display the text of the book on the
screen, fully synchronised with the audio of a professional narrator. Switching back and forth, or “toggling,” between print
and audio versions of the same work, is also possible. Additionally, users can search both the entire text and audio for
keywords and phrases. These features have a particularly broad appeal for travellers and commuters who may wish to
read the text and listen to the audio independently or simultaneously, depending on their environment.
Electronic hardware manufacturers are already responding to the innovation. In the near future, audio e-book technology
will be integrated into hand-held Personal Data Assistants. Additionally, the Consumer Electronics Association is planning
58

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
to integrate the DTB file format into CD player technology, allowing any CD player to access the audio portion of the
audio e-book. This in itself would mark a significant advance, since an entire book’s worth of text and audio can fit onto
one CD with the DTB file format.
7.4 Educational publishing in Austria
Actors involved: International Publisher - General - Printed paper books - SME, Service Provider - Public blind
Conversions: Multimedia to XML, XML to HTML, XML to Multimedia. This case study outlines the co-operation between
Austrian schoolbook publishers and service providers for people with special needs, to make books available in
electronic formats.
7.4.1 Situation in Austria
In Austria, the Federal Ministry for Social Affairs and Generations is providing educational materials like schoolbooks and
other materials for primary and secondary education. Blind and visually handicapped students - and hopefully soon in the
future other print disabled students - can order books in accessible formats.
Publishers, till this project, did not agree on handing over and distributing digital copies of books. The development of
alternative formats starts from printed books with scanning, OCR or, when lots of graphics and/or formal structures like
math are used, with typing. In this process structure was added to the book, headings were defined and lists and other
structural elements were assigned to the text. This was a very time consuming process.
This situation motivated to start a project which addressed the following issues:
a minimum set of structural elements which documents from publishers have to contain to make
them usable for the production of books in alternative formats (e.g. Braille, large print, ebooks)
know-how and handouts for publishers on how to implement structured design with these elements
using standard desktop publishing (DTP) systems (InDesign, QarkExpress)
examples new books and redesigning existing books to learn how to do accessible document design
in practice
training materials, workshops and seminars to transfer the developed know-how to other publishers
and design agencies
a general agreement which gives the right of transferring books in electronic format to students with
disabilities
a Document Rights Management System including to prevent the data to be misused in practice
a workflow for the co-operation between schools/teachers, service providers, publishers and the
ministry.
Publishers were interested to take part as a) the new anti discrimination legislation will ask for accessibility of school
books and b) they experience general problems in the publishing process when they want to use sources for different
publishing purposes (e.g. print, online, CD, audio/multimedia). This convergence of interests led to a strong partnership
for the project named.
7.4.2 "Multi Channel Publishing"
Five publishers take part in the project. Each of them is responsible for the designing or redesigning one of their books
based on a predefined set of structural elements. This basic structural design defined in the project guarantees that the
electronic version of the book can be used for the production of alternative formats. An analysis of the publishing process
at publisher’s sites showed that service providers can only start from the final print ready version as the content, which is
approved by public authorities, changes till this point. This final version today is most of the time a PDF generated from a
DTP Tool (e.g. Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress). Due to this, if electronic sources should be usable for services
providers, structured design has to be implemented into the DTP work.
7.4.3 Definition of structural elements for electronic versions of books
To be able to collect the data of the source document and convert it into a XML File, we used the element set of the TEI-
Standard, in particular the TEI Lite DTD. The TEI’s Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange were first
published in April 1994. This set of metadata is widely known by publisher and guarantees compatibility or convertibility
to other definitions in use like Daisy [Daisy 06]. Using TEI keeps the process close to the upcoming XML database
59

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
schemes which publishers might use in the future using database structures for processing their documents. The TEI Lite
DTD still consists of over 120 Elements for the tagging of books, most of them important for librarians. To simplify the
work for all participating parties, a subset of those elements was selected. This subset consists of structural elements
which are of general importance for structured document design and automatic content processing. This subset does not
ask for special knowledge of accessible versions but can be seen as the basis for structured document design in general.
Using this subset guarantees that the sources (or PDFs) can be used as a starting point for the production of accessible
versions. In general this sub-set of the TEI Lite DTD comprises structural metadata elements for:
Headings
Divisions / Subdivisions
Images
Tables
Notes
Page breaks
References
It also comprises administrative metadata elements (e.g. Edition, Year of Publishing, Author(s), Publisher, ...). The
experience in the project showed, that this D.T.D. Subset is sufficient to structure the content of the schoolbooks.
Publishers after a short training were able to do the work by themselves. This subset also proved to be in accordance
with new publishing systems based on X.M.L. databases.
7.4.4 Authoring Tools
After the definition of the XML DTD, knowledge was developed how the authoring tools could support the efficient
marking-up ofdocuments in the right way during the layout process. Further on routines for exporting the defined
structure and layout data into XML were developed. The two most widely used authoring tools were examined in detail:
7.4.5 Example Books
The post-processing tasks are necessary, because, as mentioned before, the exported files in some cases have no
structure and there are also parts of some books that could not be exported (e.g. graphics, made in the authoring
systems). The post-processing tasks were:
Adding Structure to the XML
Revise elements, that were not exported properly
Describe Images
The result after the completion of the work is a valid XML version of the book. The next step is to convert the XML via
style sheets into the target format. The style sheets for the conversion are freely available on the internet. They allow to
convert the XML file into a HTML file with one/multiple pages and also to convert the XML file into a PDF file.
7.4.6 Training materials, seminars and workshops
Training materials have been developed which are now used in workshops and seminars to transfer the knowledge to as
many publishers as well as design agencies as possible.
7.4.7 DRM-System
To make sure that the books are not used outside the designated user group a DRM System was customised. The
system consists of a secure-reader-software and a USB dongle, which acts as the key. Every student gets a key and the
software. The key has a code, which allows the student to read the book if the key is plugged into the computer. This
system has the advantage that the user is not bound to one specific computer or piece of hardware. He can read the
book for example at school but also in a learning group or at home. How the students get their books and a detailed
workflow between publishers and the service providers is described in the next paragraph.
7.4.8 Workflow
To start the process, a teacher of a student with special needs orders a book in an accessible format. If the schoolbook
service provider does already have the book in stock, it will be provided directly to the student. Otherwise, the service
provider asks the publisher for the electronic version of the book. The publisher sends his TEI-XML file to the service
60

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Provider. The service Provider produces the accessible version of the book. Printed (Braille/enlarged) copies are sent by
standard mail. If an electronic document is ordered, the service provider encodes the files with the DRM system using
the data from the student’s USB dongle. The book is placed on a server, where the student can download the book.
When the student has the reader software installed and the dongle plugged in, he can open the book and read it.
7.4.9 Agreement between Publisher and Service Provider
To ensure that the process works efficiently, an agreement between publishers and service providers has been drafted.
The core articles of the agreement are:
The publishers provide their electronic source documents
It must be ensured, that the books are only given to people with a special need
A DRM system must be used therefore
It must be a "closed" system with registered users
The agreement will be signed by every publisher and service provider. If a service provider needs a book from a
publisher he can ask for it under the condition of the framework agreement.
7.4.10 Conclusion
The most important result of the project is the fact that handing over digital copies of print published documents is
guaranteed in the future.
The project showed that it is technically feasible to create XML versions of books by using the print ready version of a
document. The experience also showed that the quality of the XML after just using the functions provided by the
authoring tools is not good enough. A lot of work has to be done afterwards by cleaning and revising the XML document.
The people who are performing this work will have to have some basic XML skills. It will also be a challenge to convince
the publishers to create documents that can be exported into XML without a lot of additional effort. In some areas at the
moment there are only limited possibilities to sources from publishers, especially in areas, where books consist mainly of
pictures, graphics and other visual content. Another challenge is the integration of non-text content like mathematical or
chemical expressions.
The project made obvious that all publishers pass their layout data to the print office by using PDF. An important task for
the future will be the development of a program to allow authoring systems to create PDF files that are either accessible
or allow a conversion back into a useful format.
In any case these are only first, but important steps towards multi channel publishing. More work is needed for a more
efficient production of different versions of one source document.
7.5 Best practice for distributing accessible content
The “ideal accessible information network” could be a structured and collaborative network of organisations producing
accessible information for print disabled people. To improve its efficiency, it should be a technical network with
normalised tools and practices, with technical experts to keep working with publishers for innovating solutions.
Reliable technical solutions should be set up to distribute accessible electronic documents to print disabled people.
These solutions must guarantee intellectual property rights without restricting access to information. This ideal accessible
information network should be a trust network, where the actors are well identified and work responsibly and accountably.
Exchanges with publishers should be enhanced and organised by trusted intermediaries to discuss intellectual property
rights and structured files provision. These intermediaries should be legally acknowledged as public authorities.
Publishers should be provided with clear specifications on the file formats they can provide to trusted intermediaries. If
necessary, guidelines or tools can be supplied to help publishers in integrating accessibility in their production chains.
Publishers should introduce accessibility in the contract they sign with their subcontractors and service providers. They
should also guide their authors in creating structured information using the prescribed authoring tools.
61

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
When projects on electronic products are launched, accessibility should be introduced in the functional specifications and
considered in the project design and realisation. 81
7.5.1 Current examples of good practice
These examples of current good practice cover the following areas:
Technical books
School books
Electronic books
7.5.2 Technical books
These are examples of best practice in distributing accessible content in the form of technical books.
7.5.2.1 O'Reilly Media Inc.
Technical books and articles have changed considerably with the advances of new information technologies. The
example of O'Reilly Media Inc. illustrates how technical information can be disseminated in both paper books and
electronic documents. O'Reilly media was originally a technical writing consulting company. Today it has become one of
the most famous publishers of books for software developers with its iconic “animal books” and “In a Nutshell” references.
O'Reilly publications activities are not reduced to paper books; it offers many on-line services as its “Safari Books Online”
82
service, a web-based subscription service that offers a searchable reference library of computer books from different
publishers. This on-line library allows subscribers to search across more than 3,000 books, parts or entire books can be
read on-line, the catalogue can be browsed by category. Chapters of books can be downloaded for viewing off-line.
O'Reilly has published a number of Open Books – books with various forms of “open” copyright. 83 These books can be
out of print or written by authors who thought that their books had to be widely distributed under a particular open
copyright. Through its Open Library project, the Internet Archive 84 is scanning and hosting PDF versions of O'Reilly open
books.
A number of the open books are also available as HTML or PDF e-books on the O'Reilly web site. These documents are
structured in chapters, sub chapters and contain table of contents to access information. 85
To create such a variety of products and services around paper books, O'Reilly has set up a complete publication
process starting from authors to the final products.
Authors are provided with very strict guidelines for the final book submission. The approved formats are: - Microsoft Word
for PC or Mac, tagged to O'Reilly's paragraph and character style template, - XML tagged according to the DocBook Lite
DTD, - Adobe FrameMaker tagged according to the paragraph and character style tags in O'Reilly's templates. Once the
final draft is submitted by the authors and properly reviewed by a technical committee, the book is prepared for print by
O'Reilly staff. Illustrations are re-done by graphic artists, the cover is designed.
The camera and press ready material is then produced by the production group late in the production process. Adobe
FrameMaker is used to prepare the final document that will be sent to press. 86
81 http://wiki.euain.org/doku.php?id=wiki:distribution:distributing_content:best_practice
82 http://safari.oreilly.com/
83 http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/
84 http://www.archive.org
85 An example of an HTML open book can be found at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/debian/chapter/book/index.html
86 http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/author/
62

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
This particular example shows a publisher who has created a rationalised multichannel publication process. Both paper
books and digital publications are created from the authors submissions. This process is well documented. It involves
authors in the early stages guiding them through the edition. Even if it takes place in a favourable context (authors are
computing scientists and O'Reilly is specialised in technical publication), this example can be considered as encouraging
for structured content publication and leading to accessibility.
7.5.3 School books
These are examples of best practice in distributing accessible content in the form of school books.
7.5.3.1 Bordas-Nathan electronic school books
The French publishers Bordas 87 and Nathan 88 are major school books publishers in France. In addition to a very large
catalogue of paper books for pupils, teachers and pedagogues, these publishers create multimedia products as web sites
and CDROMs for teachers and pupils. Since 2000, Bordas and Nathan have been also actively involved in electronic
schoolbags projects.
BrailleNet 89
has studied the accessibility of an electronic History and Geography book for 15 years old pupils published
by Bordas. The electronic book content is based on the paper version with extra multimedia documents as Macromedia
Flash animations or audio and video sequences. The aim of this project for the publisher was also to explore
multichannel publishing to deliver information to different target devices as personal digital assistants (PDA) and third
generation cell phones.
The final version of the electronic book for computer is a thick client application based on a modified version of Mozilla: -
the book's static content is encoded in XHTML, - the user interface is described with XUL, - and the major part of the
application mechanisms are developed in JavaScript. The electronic book for computer offers the following functionality: -
read textual content, view pictures, play video and audio documents, - search content in the whole book using an
integrated search engine, - browse the table of content of the book and move directly to a given part, chapter, lesson
thanks to encoded links, - annotate images using a minimal editing toolkit containing a brush and a colour selector, -
create and edit XHTML content for pupil’s personal homework.
BrailleNet carried out accessibility tests with common assistive technologies such as screen readers and magnifier
software. The results were negative because of compatibility issues between Mozilla and the screen readers. Even if
these technical problems could have been solved, the use of Macromedia Flash was also another important barrier to
access.
However the book's high level of structure and the large amount of semantic information added to it was a good
opportunity to improve its accessibility. It was decided to go deeper in the study, the publisher let BrailleNet access the
build chain of the application and develop solutions to create an accessible version of the book.
Both XHTML content and XUL content are automatically built from XML data. The source of the whole application is
contained in a unique XML document following a DTD developed by the publisher. This DTD is divided in two parts: - a
first subset is common to every electronic book produced by the publisher, it is close to XHTML, and describes
information as paragraphs, divisions, and images; - a second subset is specific to a given book. It defines the grammar
and the vocabulary of the book: which containers are used, how they can be nested. This part was particularly interesting
because the publisher chose to structure information in a very semantic way in order to output media-specific structures
later in the production process.
The publisher provided BrailleNet with this DTD and the XML source file of the application. It was interesting to note that
the DTD already contained the necessary structures to add textual alternatives to images. However, all these alternatives
were empty in the XML document. But all the documents (textual documents, illustrative pictures, video and audio) were
provided with a textual legend introducing and describing the content.
87 http://www.nathan.fr/Multimedia/cartable/default.asp
88 http://www.editions-bordas.com/
89 http://www.braillenet.org/
63

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
With the publisher's DTD and XML source files, BrailleNet was able to develop a set of XSL style sheets to convert the
XML source document into XML dtbook and then to an accessible XHTML book where a user can easily navigate with
tables of contents, many internal links, textual alternatives to images etc.
This example is encouraging for the integration of accessibility in the publishing industry. It shows how a publisher was
led to add structure to its content to create new innovative products for its customers. It also shows how easy it was to
create an accessible version of the electronic book from the XML source files of the publisher. This demonstrates the
technical convergence of publishers and accessibility in electronic documents, especially in the case of multichannel
publishing. This technical convergence is also illustrated by the example of a mathematics book from the same publisher:
it was decided that mathematical content will be stored in MathML instead of images in order to be able to convert them
later in the building chain if necessary.
7.5.4 Electronic books
These are examples of best practice in distributing accessible content in the form of school books.
7.5.4.1 Numilog
Numilog is an electronic bookseller based in France and selling books for both French-speaking and English-speaking
markets. The Numilog website proposes a large catalogue of titles for its customers (more than 23,000 available titles).
Customers can choose the format they prefer between: - Mobipocket format (PRC) readable on a computer with
Microsoft operating system, Palm, Pocket PC and smartphone; - Microsoft Reader format (LIT) also readable on all the
above platforms; - PDF for PC and Mac. The catalogue is composed of novels, books for children, documentaries, nonfiction
books (computing, management, biology law, economics, ...) and dictionaries. 90
7.5.4.2 Relations with publishers
Numilog has business relations with publishers to negotiate the rights to distribute their books on the Internet, the selling
price and eventually source file provision. English and American publishers set the price Numilog must pay to obtain the
rights to sell electronic books from their catalogue. Then Numilog is free to decide the selling price and so its profit
margin. The French publishers collaborating with Numilog have decided to apply the policy they use with conventional
book distributors: book prices are set by the publishers themselves. This follows the French law about book prices, called
“loi Lang”. This law was passed in 1981 and prescribes that anyone publishing or importing a book has to define its
selling price. This price must be respected by all distributors. This law does not include electronic books but the
publishers have decided to apply it to this particular case. This means that Numilog has to negotiate with publishers the
selling price in order to keep a decent profit margin. This price of the electronic version is always lower than the price of
printed books. Most of the time, Numilog has to pay to obtain the electronic files from publishers, and the price fluctuates.
Publishers almost always provide Numilog with files of their books. 90% of these files are prepress files in PDF, Quark
XPress or Adobe inDesign. PDF files are always optimised for press, with cutting lines and very large pictures. The other
10% are author’s files, usually in Microsoft Word. Sometimes Numilog must digitise books because publishers cannot
provide digital files.
Numilog has chosen Adobe Content Server 91
to secure eBook distribution. Content Server is a Web-based system for
publishers, distributors, libraries and booksellers. It automates the supply chain for eBooks and other media by providing:
- an interface for eBook publishing, distribution and procurement; - a way to manage and protect digital rights; - a secure
repository with encryption of eBooks and authentication of transactions; - a business to business transactions model,
including selling eBooks to clients and procurement from vendors; - a lending model for online libraries ... Numilog has
become an Adobe partner for this particular product and can sell licences and offer to host this service for a customer.
7.3.3. eBooks preparation
Numilog has set strict quality requirements for eBooks: - file size must be optimised (finding a good ratio between quality
and file size); - all the eBooks must have a cover page; - file textual content must not be provided as images (textual
electronic books only) so that content can be searched, magnified, selected (but not copied for security reasons); -
technical books must be structured and offer a convenient way to access information quickly; - footnotes and endnotes
must be hyper-textual links as often as possible; - external references are checked to avoid broken links. To prepare the
eBooks, Numilog employs people to rework the files provided by publishers.
90 http://www.numilog.fr/
91 http://www.adobe.com/products/contentserver/index.html
64

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
7.5.4.3 Conclusion
This experience shows again a convergence of interests between the publishing world and the accessible information
world because Numilog's eBook quality requirements are close to accessibility requirements. Numilog faces the same
issues the accessible information world currently faces, publishers files are not structured for electronic publication, and
the additional costs to make structured information from unstructured files is prohibitive.
65

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
8 Identified gaps and areas for further research
In Section 1 we asked two fundamental questions:
How do we describe the questions and problems of end users and content providers?
How do we marry both within manageable and consistent frameworks?
This workshop has sought to provide some pointers towards answering these questions. As can be seen, there are many
ongoing initiatives and projects which seek to incorporate accessibility within publishing processes. Largely through
necessity, most of these initiatives have been undertaken by specialist organisations supporting print impaired people. In
some instances, and sometimes in collaboration with publishers and other content providers, this has resulted in
innovative practices and far greater access to information.
However, progress has been fragmented and often very slow. The provision of alternative format materials varies greatly
from country to country (and within national boundaries), according to local conditions and according to the economic
vagaries of provision and depending on different types of impairment. These problems are well-described elsewhere.
8.1 Descriptions & Requirements
Considerable work has been done by specialist organisations in establishing end user requirements and a number of
preferred output formats are well-established. There is less consistency, however, in relating these requirements to reusable
models for use within content processing environments. Combined with a historical tendency to separate
alternative format production from mainstream production and to focus on separate specialised formats, this has lead to
a fragmented approach to implementing accessibility within both specialist and mainstream processes. Similarly, there is
very little consistency in the work undertaken by content providers in this area and there is a corresponding
fragmentation of effort. Such work that has been undertaken tends to focus on web authoring issues and this only
addresses one part of the accessible content processing chain. Indeed, an important outcome from this workshop is the
realisation that generic processing models are required for this work to proceed with any degree of coherence. 92
8.1.1 Further Research on Descriptions & Requirements
Systematic descriptions of end user requirements remain problematic. Such requirements are constantly changing and
there has been little effort made to capture the dynamic nature of these requirements.
Further research s required to establish requirements for different types of impairments and to compare and examine
where points of intersection might lead to collaborative efforts.
8.2 Process & Content Modelling
This workshop has sought to provide information about different scenarios and to point towards ‘real-life’ examples which
have proven successful. The motivation for content providers to create accessible information will always vary but there
is a clear need for generic processing frameworks which can make this as straightforward as possible.
It appears unrealistic to expect that any one format be accepted by all stakeholders and universally applied. Multimedia
content processing can involve many different types of software and many different processes, thereby making it very
difficult indeed to introduce accessible content processing at the right stages. No single input, representation or output
format can contain these complexities. Given the general move towards distributed media, it is perhaps better to focus on
building frameworks which enable accessible content processing, according to the local preferences and requirements of
all the stakeholders. In short, accessibility is not a format or a product: it is a process.
Our modern use of multimedia information requires that information and services accommodate different presentations
and interaction designs design at the user interface level, on the basis of requirements that include user needs,
preferences, personalisation, customisation, adaptation and constraints; characteristics of the tasks to be performed (e.g.
repetitive, knowledge-intensive, collaborative); capabilities of available access devices; and contextual information. In
92 See for example, the ongoing work of the ProAccess project (http://proaccess.euain.org), co-ordinated by
the Italian Publishers Association and supported by the Federation of European Publishers.
66

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
providing this level of usability, a fundamental accessibility can be achieved which allows users to interact with content at
a much deeper level.
This work may be at a relatively early stage, but most importantly it is a mainstream endeavour: the modelling and
aggregation of content is a central concern for all those in the private and public sector.
The ever-increasing complexity of dealing with information from structured and unstructured media (images, sound, text,
recordings, etc.), in several working modalities and in multitasking modes, makes adapting to context and content a
necessity. Additionally, what is becoming more and more important is a universal, scalable, adaptive and customisable
multidimensional interface to media content where appropriate media viewpoints/perspectives can be presented to the
users adapted to their preferences, workflow constraints, and interaction models.
Existing approaches to user-content interaction are characterised by a lack of a holistic view to the complex problem of
designing accessibility of interaction and content and they fail to look at the process of authoring, managing and
delivering the content as being highly inter-woven. Also, the majority of these approaches either look at accessibility,
personalisation or context of use problems; they do not deal with the more complex issue of user interaction and content
presentation as a whole and the open-ended and frequently changing real world environments.
The various MPEG family members operate at different abstraction levels with some communication between these
abstraction levels. The process of contriving a procedure to interface the various processing levels should be based on
use. The difficulty lies in achieving a level of description of the user requirements that allows re-description in
technological terms. This re-description ideally leads to specifications and ultimately implementations. These
implementations ‘prove’ the viability of the concept: it is the proof of the hypothesis. The process of standardisation that
runs in parallel with this ensures extraction of higher level descriptions and these are aggregated down to the earlier
family members. Using this built-in feature to provide ‘slots’ for common and specialised accessibility requirements would
create what we refer to as accessibility from scratch (see above). If embedded in the family tradition of the MPEG
initiative, accessibility might become a commonly available feature instead of a workaround necessity.
The representation of the interplay between the various user groups should always remain accessible. If all relevant
entities in a representation system remain accessible, creating meaningful mappings is a matter of connecting the
appropriate entities. For this reason, accessibility from scratch is of fundamental importance.
8.2.1 Further research on process and content modelling
There is a need to develop open source frameworks to bridge the gap between original content design heuristics and
intuitive multimodal interfaces required for content and communication systems.
Such frameworks would build in profile-based access to information, content and services, which not only bring together
and extend state-of-the-art technologies for information access, but also conform to standards and guidelines available
for accessibility, usability, scalability and adaptability.
There is a need to conduct basic research to establish the nature of the interaction between people with cognitive
impairments and multimedia information. A critical and guiding factor is that the supply of information should be
determined by the end user from a central content reserve, thereby allowing the end- user the freedom to explore the
information as they see fit and to make their own choices regarding how the information is to be displayed, rather than
through the sometimes discriminatory filtering processes of information gatekeepers.
8.3 Introducing and using metadata for accessibility purposes
People compress information. People decompress information. The compression procedure involves filtering out
redundant information based on the perspective of the user. How do we decide which redundant data entities are
relevant for the user? What to use? On what requirements are these redundant data entities based? Whose
requirements? How do we marry the existence of these accessibility metadata entities with the requirements as
described in “common” metadata entities? More importantly, how do we ensure a synchronised and therefore valid
coupling between any kind of content with these metadata entities? How do we ensure that any metatags themselves
remain accessible? What is the context of any accessibility metatags that are to be conceived?
How then can we make sure that the context remains consistent? If we describe the knowledge that is applied to enable
processes to exist in a digital system that parallels analogue organisational systems, knowledge is transferred from the
individual participants to a shared information framework. The use of knowledge can be separated into three parts: the
body of information that is contained inside knowledge structures; static information about the knowledge processing,
which is also known as meta-information or metatags; dynamic information that is used to describe the processes and
67

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
procedures to retrieve, transform or use the content. By introducing metatags that aim to address the needs for
accessible information processing, it is mandatory to describe the procedures that will meaningfully interpret these meta
tags to communicate the content in a way that enables every person to appreciate the content. Creating meaningful
mappings between the static redundant information -the meta tags- and the dynamic processes
Many people believe structure to be static: from a meta modelling perspective this is not the case. It is well known that if
the representation of the information at hand is perceived by the system and mapped onto a framework, the information
is then usable in a multitude of ways: and for this reason non-programmers will often promote the use of XML.
However, this mark up and the set of tools that surround it are simply a set of tools which exist to achieve this objective. If
the architecture of the system does not answer the wider range of needs, requirements and questions, the mark up
cannot paper over the cracks. In order to build extensibility into a system, the architecture should be such that every
element used for processing the information is adaptable. This can be achieved by building a representation layer which
builds an object oriented structure from the information and which is free to adapt the meta relationships and hierarchies
intrinsic in that data genus. This is defined by identifying the parameters upon which the structure is built, and ensuring
they are interconnected in such a way that promotes future adaptability without degrading the system: which is to say,
using the right parameters for accessible information processing.
As noted in 8.1.1 above, the goal should be to anticipate the changes in user requirements. These changes can occur in
the very nature of the requirements, such as new functional groups or in the definition of the existing requirements, such
as additional details. These aims should be pursued by adding redundant information in the form of meta tags, thus
augmenting the quality of the content. The content itself and the existing meta tag structures, including their mapping to
the meta modelling domain, is not allowed to change. From a meta modelling perspective, this allows us to meet
changing requirements for the future, because if the requirements demand additional detail in the form of features or
metadata, we can unveil the metadata that is available.
8.3.1 Further research on introducing and using metadata for accessibility purposes
Further research is required to identify and investigate the ways in which metadata can help achieve efficient and futureproof
solutions to accessibility.
In order to make this perceived information useful, it must be represented within an architecture which allows the
accessibility requirements to be questioned in more than one way. Such architecture must enable both the core system
to adapt to new and changing representation requirements, and to allow (theoretically) infinite user requirements.
8.4 Standards and personalisation of content
Personalisation of media makes several demands on standards. In particular, it requires:
that the modalities in content are identified
that the modalities or adaptations of them that a user requires in the context are identified
that the glue standards that enable these things to work exist
We perceive the world partly by using our senses. Modalities are the aspects or components of media or system
interfaces that correspond with those senses and enable us to perceive them. For example a video usually has a visual
aspect or component and this corresponds with the sense of sight. Without at least some match between the modalities
available in the media and the senses a user has available at the time or access modes a user can use there can be no
perception or use of the media. Therefore it is very useful if the modalities available in media or provided in an interface
can be described. Doing so permits matching to the modalities a user has available or the authoring of adaptations to
enable that matching.
There is not a simple precise match between modalities and senses because some senses are used in complex
interactive ways – for example the sense of sight and reading – but there is a general broad matching.
Traditionally, ways to describe media on computers has developed in ways suited to the needs of computer design and
not so well suited to use by people. An example would be the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions standard for
describing media formats (MIME-types) with email but widely used for other purposes. This does not describe modalities.
Only now are appropriate standards supporting modality description emerging.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 36 Committee for Information Technology for Learning Education and Training has
produced a standard for description of access modalities and adaptations for those. This is the Individualized
68

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Adaptability and Accessibility in E-learning, Education and Training. 24751. This was initially developed in IMS
and then internationalised in ISO. It is planned to be publicly available at the end 2007.
The standard provides for description and matching of resources to personal contexts/requirements. It has
three parts – a Framework that shows how to use the other parts, A standard for description of Digital
Resources (Digital Resource Description DRD) and a standard for description of functional learner
requirements Personal Needs and Preferences (PNP) that enables matching of resources and adaptations to
user requirements and specific contexts. Currently the vocabulary for modalities within the standard can be
used to describe the modalities of visual, textual, auditory, tactile and olfactory. Vocabularies for description of
adaptations for these (for example audio description) are more extensive as these extend to representation
forms used on computers and with assistive technology. Several new parts to the standard are under
construction including parts for description of requirements and components for offline media and services
and and for places and events.
8.4.1 Further Research on personalisation of content
In order usefully to use the modalities within media to match to or adapt to user requirements a few glue standards are
needed. This is an area of active development in the standards.
To make it all work there is needed the development of best practices with particular media. This CWA presents some of
those best practices. Even more progress towards providing truly personalisable media could be obtained with the
development of more formally-described practices. Ontologies describing the use of different media components across
different media types would be very useful here. For example, most media types contain alternatives that could be
described and matched to a context as described above, but the media types all do it different ways. What is needed is
some way to operate across media types with the same principles.
IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee is developing a standard currently called Resource Aggregation Model
for Learning, Education and Training. This work is constructing a standard ontology that tackles this cross-media issue,
though the precise requirements for adaptation for accessibility have not yet been addressed in that work. The work can
be found on http://www.ieeeltsc.org/working-groups/wg11CMI/ramlet/
Alternatives within media types are further described elsewhere in this CWA.
8.5 Licensing and technical protection measures
It is evident that neither at international level nor at European level is there any requirement to provide exceptions to
copyright protection facilitating access to protected materials by visually impaired people. Further, the measures on anticircumvention
of technical protection measures introduced by the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO
Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) in 1996 are not matched by any provision to accommodate exceptions to
copyright protection. The European Union Copyright Directive does address this issue in article 6.4.1 but gives no
indication how the conflict is to be resolved nor does it require resolution of the conflict for content made available via
interactive digital services.
The legislative provisions found at national level are diverse. The reasons for this state of affairs include the following:
The variety of digital file formats used by publishers
The complexities of format and structure conversion and the provision of the corresponding resource
requirement
The concerns of publishers regarding the release to third parties of digital text files
Concerns by publishers that they may be impeded from collaborating by not having the requisite
rights to authorise conversion into particular formats e.g. audio books
Security is a vital issue for publishers and technical protection measures are a complex issue for most content holders.
Every publisher’s content, client base and requirements are different, which often results in a personalised set of
requirements for each case. As a result, approaches to licensing and agreements on accessible formats are often
negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Naturally, publishers have to be confident that any digital format is being delivered
through secure gateways to only the people who are intended to receive it. For these reasons, there is a perception that
the provision of digital files in alternative formats may compromise technical protection measures. Combined with a
widespread belief that the provision of accessible format materials is expensive and time-consuming, only limited
progress has thus far been made.
69

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Much of the discussion around DRM and Accessibility has necessarily focused on the right of access versus the need to
protect content. However, points of common interest exist and the development of trusted intermediary concepts can
offer real-world solutions.
From a technical perspective, earlier problems relating to the digitisation of materials have been largely overcome and
recent formats (such as XML, RDF, METS, MARC21 etc) provide a realistic basis for implementing the different aspects
of this work. It is now possible to address the key concerns of content creators and providers and coherently to address
issues such as: automation of document structuring, adherence to emerging standards, workflow support, digital rights
management and secure distribution platforms.
As the lifetime of a book gets shorter and shorter, publishers frequently have to offer access to digital versions of that
book and taking this into account when constructing the layout brings us much closer to real accessibility in the wider
sense. Indeed, it has been the accessibility community that has in many ways pioneered new structures for digital
content, as these developments are often borne of need.
Trusted intermediaries establish a personalised relationship between content holders and specialist organisations
whereby publishers and agencies serving blind and partially sighted people work together in a secure and trusting
environment to increase the quantity and timeliness of titles available in an accessible format. Within trusted intermediary
frameworks, DRM is an enabler of controlled access. A number of different security methods are being developed or are
already in use for making content available in this way.
As far as security is concerned, the higher the level the more likely publishers are to allow content to be made available
in accessible digital formats. At present, the security systems used are simple, they use basic encryption technologies
with key exchange mechanisms. The potential for the release of content is considerable – although there are few
recorded instances of such occurring. Once decrypted, content is available to anyone, authorised or not. The ability to
attach content to particular devices, or better to provide access only to authorised users, requires a level of DRM
sophistication that is not yet generally in place in services catering to the needs of visually impaired people.
8.5.1 Further research on licensing and technical protection measures
There is a need to examine and describe existing practice in this area, with particular focus on the implementation of
trusted intermediary environments.
Further research is required to examine accessibility in the wider sense and to examine the requirements for modelling
accessibility and DRM within emerging multimedia environments.
9 Conclusion and future work
Accessible content started as a niche market mainly targeting people with visual impairments and dyslexic users.
Publishers have recently realised the potential market and are offering alternative book versions (audio, large print, etc.)
of newly published editions together with the printed ones. Accessible content can be used in different situations and
cover part of the changing requirements of the user population in the framework of ambient intelligence for content
anytime, anywhere, and with any service. Usage examples include, users on the move, multitasking environments that
require hands-free, eyes-free access and browsing, learning and instructional scenarios, and many others.
Despite this, the full potential of accessible content has not been released yet, due to a mismatch between existing
standards regarding accessibility and their implementation in publishing processes. This CWA aims to reduce that gap
and realise the full market potential of accessible content. Therefore, several real-life publishing scenarios have been
analysed and related actors, formats, conversions and standards presented.
In this elaboration the following conclusions can be drawn:
(a) There are many common tasks that need to be covered when introducing accessibility into the publishing workflow.
Those tasks deal with the definition of document style sheets that are agreed and disseminated to the actors, manual
correction of conversion input/output (in the case where content creators did not follow style sheet requirements),
extension of descriptions regarding visual data (images, videos) and other multimedia material and lead to common
requirements.
(b) Specific format conversions need to take place in order to accommodate user needs. In these format conversions, the
original structure, annotation and metadata and intellectual property rights of the parent documents need to be inherited
to the child documents and not be lost. One of the strategies that seem to be most viable is to use a media rich (including
70

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
annotations, and metadata) structured format as reference and then create the desired output operating direct on that
format. An additional advantage of this strategy is that this format can be ideally also used for backups and to be stored
in the publishing archive.
c) Existing research, standards and technologies can be used in order to transform current publishing workflows into
accessible content processing workflows. In order to be successful in this transformation, the barriers publishers face for
deploying accessibility into their workflow must fall and the incentives for producing accessible content increased.
Barriers will fall when automated format conversions and clear stylesheets and guidelines are followed. Although there is
still a lot of research to be done in order to robust and reliable produce automatically accessible documents from any
source, there are nowadays means to economically implement accessible content processing workflows. Incentives for
producing accessible content may come from opening new markets for publishers e.g. personalised information delivery,
electronic distribution, efficient storage, preservation, search and retrieval of publishing titles, and therefore a greater
economic return is expected.
The analysis of accessible information provision showed also that there are some specific steps that need to
be done to complement and extent the accessible information publishing process. Those are:
For software developers and ICT researchers, to develop frameworks and tools to support actors in
content production to fulfil the accessibility requirements, including automated conversion of both
single and multi-type composite document formats into accessible documents, personalised
presentation of content and adaptive content interfaces, licensing a technical protection measures.
The focus should be to solutions that address specific sector requirements (eGovernment, eLearning,
Medical Documents, Scientific documents, etc.)
For accessibility researchers to look more clearly and define requirements of users with special
needs in the information provision, and based on that, propose and/or adapt standards for the
publishing and content management industry.
For the content management industry to bring accessible information provision on its agenda and
start proposing standards in this area, supporting open framework and standards development.
For publishers and publishing associations to work on elaborating tools used by authors in the
content authoring process, and systems used in content production and delivery with the aim to
provide detailed input for on-going accessible format and accessibility software and standards
development and be part of future development on process and content modelling efforts for
accessible information provision
It is clear from the above elaboration that accessible information provision requires interdisciplinary efforts in
order to be realised. We look forward to this realisation process and hope to attract the best solutions from
each area and to see barriers to access information reducing.
71

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Appendix A – Relevant standards
Nr. Title Subject (if available) URL
BP – PRD
BP – PRO
MPEG 21
Open eBook Publication Structure
specification
ST – PRD
The International Standard Text Code
(ISTC)
This document, derived from the guidelines for TEI Lite, provides an introduction
to the recommendations of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), by describing a
subset to, and extension of, the full TEI encoding scheme developed for marking
up OUCS web pages and course documentation.
I have prepared a set of XSLT specifications to transform TEI XML documents to
HTML, and to XSL Formatting Objects. I have concentrated on TEI Lite, but
adding support for other modules is fairly easy, and I am working my way
through the TEI as applications come along. In the main, the setup has been
used on `new' documents, i.e. reports and web pages that I have authored from
scratch, rather than traditional TEI-encoded existing material.
MPEG-21 is developed within the International Standard Organisation (ISO) and
aims at defining a normative open framework for multimedia delivery and
consumption for use by all the players in the delivery and consumption chain
The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Guidelines are an international and
interdisciplinary standard that facilitates libraries, museums, publishers, and
individual scholars represent a variety of literary and linguistic texts for online
research, teaching, and preservation.
The International Standard Text Code (ISTC) is developed by ISO Project 21047
and aims at a unique, international identification of individual textual works.
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/standards/
mpeg-21/mpeg-21.htm
http://www.idpf.org/specs.htm
http://www.tei-c.org/
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/iso/tc46sc9
/wg3.htm
AEN/CTN 139
AEN/CTN 153
Authoring Tools
Working Group
(AUWG)
Computer applications for people with
disabilities. Computer accessibility
requirements. Software
Audio description for visually impaired
people. Guidelines for audio description
procedures and for the preparation of
audio guides
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines
1.0 (ATAG 1.0)
http://www.aenor.es/desarrollo/inicio/home/
home.asp
http://www.aenor.es/desarrollo/inicio/home/
home.asp
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oucsweb/teioucs.xml
http://xml.web.cern.ch/XML/www.teic.org/Stylesheets/teixsl.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-ATAG10-
20000203/
72

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Nr. Title Subject (if available) URL
Authoring Tools
Working Group
(AUWG)
BS 7000-6:2005
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines
2.0 (ATAG 2.0)
Design management systems. Managing
inclusive design. Guide
http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/
http://www.bsiglobal.com/Quality_management/Design/bs
7000-6.xalter
CAN/CSA-B659-01 Design for Aging http://www.csaintl.org/onlinestore/GetCatalogItemDetails.a
sp?mat=000000000002012683
Draft ISO/IEC 24751
Individualised Adaptability and
Accessibility in E-learning, Education
and Training
The scope of this multi- part standard is to provide a common framework to
facilitate matching of learner accessibility needs and preferences with
appropriate learning resources and user interfaces.
Part 1: Framework
Part 2: Access For All Personal Needs and Preferences Statement
Part 3: Access For All Digital Resource Description
Part 1: http://jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1139.pdf
(temporary URL)
Part 2: http://jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1140.pdf
(temporary URL)
Part 3: http://jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1141.pdf
(temporary URL)
Draft ISO/IEC 26513 Software and systems engineering –
User documentation requirements for
documentation evaluators and testers.
Draft ISO/IEC 26514 Software and systems engineering –
User documentation requirements for
documentation designers and
developers.
http://www.jtc1-sc7.org/
To be developed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 2 – Software and systems
documentation.
Should contain both requirements and recommendations on all aspects of
documentation evaluation and testing.
Being developed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 2 – Software and systems
documentation. Contains both requirements and recommendations on all
aspects of documentation including planning, design, production and
maintenance. Several clauses provide guidance on accessible documentation,
notably 12.5
Estimated ISO publication in 2010.
Estimated ISO publication in 2008.
EN 1332-4
Identification Card Systems - Manmachine
interface - Part 4: Coding of
user requirements for people with special
needs
Machine readable cards facilitate the provision of a growing variety of services
across Europe. The purpose of EN 1332 is to increase the accessibility of these
services for the benefit of consumers. This will be achieved by facilitating the
inter-sector and cross border interpretability of machine-readable cards and to
do so with the maximum possible degree of user-friendliness. EN 1332
addresses the needs of all users, including people with special needs, for
example the aged, minors, the disabled, the visually impaired, those with
learning difficulties, first time users, those not conversant with the local
language.
http://www.bsi-
global.com/en/Shop/Publication-
Detail/?pid=000000000030009505
73

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Nr. Title Subject (if available) URL
ETSI EG 202 416:
User interfaces: Set up procedures for
mobile terminals and services
Being developed by ETSI HF STF 285 – Guidelines for set up procedures for
mobile terminals and services.
The ETSI Guidelines (EG) will include documentation and include
recommendations for disabled and elderly users.
Available from ETSI web site free-ofcharge.
http://www.etsi.org/services_products/freest
andard/home.htm
ETSI EG 202 417
User education guidelines for mobile
terminals and e-services
Available from ETSI web site free-ofcharge.
http://www.etsi.org/services_products/freest
andard/home.htm
IEEE standard
RAMlet – Reference model for resource
aggregation.
http://ieeeltsc.org/wg11CMI/ramlet/Pub/
also:
http://www.ieeeltsc.org/workinggroups/wg11CMI/ramlet/Pub/RAMLET_proj
ect_description.pdf/view
IMS standard
IMS AccessForAll Meta-data
Specification 1.0
http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility
IMS standard
IMS Learner Information Package
Accessibility for LIP 1.0
http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility
ISO 10075:1991
Ergonomic principles related to mental
work-load -- General terms and
definitions
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=18045&I
CS1=13&ICS2=180&ICS3=
ISO 14915-1:2002
Software ergonomics for multimedia user
interfaces -- Part 1: Design principles
and framework
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=25578&s
copelist=ALL
ISO 14915-2:2003
Software ergonomics for multimedia user
interfaces -- Part 2: Multimedia
navigation and control
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=28583&s
copelist=ALL
ISO 20282-1:2006 Ease of operation of everyday products -
- Part 1: Context of use and user
characteristics
ISO 20282-1:2006 provides requirements and recommendations for the design
of easy-to-operate everyday products, where ease of operation addresses a
subset of the concept of usability concerned with the user interface by taking
account of the relevant user characteristics and the context of use.
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=34122&s
copelist=PROGRAMME
74

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Nr. Title Subject (if available) URL
ISO 2108:2005 Information and documentation --
International standard book number
(ISBN)
ISO TS 20282-2:2006 Ease of operation of everyday products -
- Part 2: Test method
The purpose of ISO 2108:2005 is to establish the specifications for the
International Standard Book Number (ISBN) as a unique international
identification system for each product form or edition of a monographic
publication published or produced by a specific publisher. It specifies the
construction of an ISBN, the rules for its assignment and use, the metadata to be
associated with the ISBN allocation, and the administration of the ISBN system.
ISO 20282-2:2006 specifies a test method for measuring the ease of operation
of "walk-up-and-use" products. The purpose of the test is to provide a basis for
predicting the ease of operation of a walk-up-and-use product, including
measures of its effectiveness and efficiency of operation, and the satisfaction of
the intended user population in its expected context of use.
http://www.isbninternational.org/en/index.html
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=36452&s
copelist=PROGRAMME
ISO/AWI TR 22411
ISO/CD 9241-20
ISO/DIS 9241-151
ISO/DIS 9241-171
ISO/DIS 9241-300
ISO/IEC 11581
Ergonomic data and guidelines for the
application of ISO/IEC Guide 71 in
standards related to products and
services to address the needs of older
persons and persons with disabilities
Ergonomics of human system interaction
-- Accessibility guideline for information
communication equipment and services -
- Part 20: General guidelines
Ergonomics of human-system interaction
-- Part 151: Guidance on World Wide
Web user interfaces
Ergonomics of human-system interaction
-- Part 171: Guidance on software
accessibility
Ergonomics of human-system interaction
-- Part 300: Introduction to requirements
and measurement techniques for
electronic visual displays
Information technology -- User system
interfaces and symbols-part 1-6
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=40933&s
copelist=PROGRAMME
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=40727&s
copelist=PROGRAMME
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=37031&s
copelist=ALL
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=39080&s
copelist=ALL
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=40096&s
copelist=PROGRAMME
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueListPag
e.CatalogueList?COMMID=4768&scopelist
=ALL
75

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Nr. Title Subject (if available) URL
ISO/IEC 18019:2004
Guidelines for the design and
preparation of user documentation for
application software
Provides guidelines for the design and preparation of user documentation for
application software. It describes how to establish what information users need,
how to determine the way in which that information should be presented to the
users, and how then to prepare the information and make it available. Contains
recommendations on implementing accessibility for documentation (clause
4.2.6).
ISO/IEC 18019:2004 Software and system engineering --
Guidelines for the design and
preparation of user documentation for
application software
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=30804&I
CS1=35&ICS2=80&ICS3=
ISO/IEC 26300:2006
OASIS standard
Information technology -- Open
Document Format for Office Applications
(OpenDocument) v1.0
The OpenDocument specification defines an XML schema for office applications
and its semantics. The schema is suitable for office documents, including text
documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings or
presentations, but is not restricted to these kinds of documents.
The schema provides for high-level information suitable for editing documents. It
defines suitable XML structures for office documents and is friendly to
transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based tools
http://www.oasisopen.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abb
rev=office,
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=43485&s
copelist=ALL
ISO/IEC CD 24756
Information technology -- Algorithmic
framework for determining accessibility
for individual users of interactive systems
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueListPag
e.CatalogueList?COMMID=4768&scopelist
=ALL
ISO/IEC CD TR
19766
Information Technology -- Guidelines for
the design of icons and symbols
accessible to all users, including the
elderly and persons with disabilities
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueListPag
e.CatalogueList?COMMID=4768&scopelist
=ALL
ISO/IEC DTR 19765
Information technology -- Survey of
existing icons and symbols for elderly
and disabled persons
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueListPag
e.CatalogueList?COMMID=4768&scopelist
=ALL
ISO/IEC NP 24786-1
Information Technology - User Interfaces
- Accessible User Interface for
Accessibility Setting on Information
Devices -- Part 1: General and methods
to start
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=41556&s
copelist=ALL
ISO/IEC TR 19764
Information technology -- Guidelines,
methodology and reference criteria for
cultural and linguistic adaptability in
information technology products
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueListPag
e.CatalogueList?COMMID=4768&scopelist
=ALL
76

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Nr. Title Subject (if available) URL
ISO/TR 16982:2002
Ergonomics of human-system interaction
-- Usability methods supporting humancentred
design
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=31176&s
copelist=
ISO/TS 16071:2003
Ergonomics of human-system interaction
-- Guidance on accessibility for humancomputer
interfaces
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPa
ge.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=30858&s
copelist=ALL
Italian Government
Law n. 4, January 9, 2004 - Provisions to
support the access to information
technologies for the disabled (also
known as "The Stanca Act").
http://www.pubbliaccesso.gov.it/english/ind
ex.htm
JIS X 8341-1
Japanese Industrial Standards
Committee.
Guidelines for older persons and persons with disabilities -- Information and
communications equipment, software and services -- Part 1: Common
Guidelines
http://www.webstore.jsa.or.jp/webstore/Com
/FlowControl.jsp?lang=en&bunsyoId=JIS+X
+8341-
1%3A2004&dantaiCd=JIS&status=1&page
No=0
JISS0032
Japanese Industrial Standards
Committee
Guidelines for the elderly and people with disabilities - Visual signs and displays
- Estimation of minimum legible size for a Japanese single character
http://www.webstore.jsa.or.jp/webstore/Com
/FlowControl.jsp?lang=en&bunsyoId=JIS+S
+0032%3A2003&dantaiCd=JIS&status=1&
pageNo=0
JISS0033
Japanese Industrial Standards
Committee
Guidelines for the elderly and people with dasabilities - Visual signs and displays
- A method for color combination based on categories of fundamental colors as a
functionof age
http://www.webstore.jsa.or.jp/webstore/Com
/FlowControl.jsp?lang=en&bunsyoId=JIS+S
+0033%3A2006&dantaiCd=JIS&status=1&
pageNo=0
JISZ8071
Japanese Industrial Standards
Committee
Guilines for standards developers to address the needs of older persons and
persons with disabilities
http://www.webstore.jsa.or.jp/webstore/Com
/FlowControl.jsp?lang=en&bunsyoId=JIS+Z
+8071%3A2003&dantaiCd=JIS&status=1&
pageNo=0
Nordic Cooperation on
Disability
Nordic Guidelines for Computer
Accessibility
http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/nordic_guidelines
/nordic_guidelines.htm
OASIS standard OASIS DITA Language Specification The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification defines both a)
a set of document types for authoring and organising topic-oriented information;
and b) a set of mechanisms for combining and extending document types using
a process called specialisation.
http://www.oasisopen.org/committees/download.php/12091/
cd2.zip
77

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Nr. Title Subject (if available) URL
Standard from:
EDItEUR jointly with
Association of
American Publishers,
Book Industry
Communication and
the Book Industry
Study Group.
ONIX International
ONIX International is the international standard for representing and
communicating book industry product information in electronic form,
incorporating the core content which has been specified in national initiatives
such as BIC Basic and AAP’s ONIX Version 1'
http://www.editeur.org/onix.html
Swedish Government,
Office of the Disability
Ombudsman
Guidelines for an accessible public
administration
http://www.tillganglig.se/start.asp?lang=en&
sida=1450
US section 508 US Section 508 , on the requirements for accessibility for public procurement.
This act requires all federal agencies' electronic and information technology is
accessible to people with disabilities.
http://www.section508.gov/
User Agent
Accessibility
Guidelines Working
Group (UAWG)
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines
(UAAG) 1.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-UAAG10-
20021217/
W3C
Recommendation
EARL (W3) , the Evaluation and Report
Language.
The Evaluation and Report Language is a standardized vocabulary to express
test results.
http://www.w3.org/TR/EARL10-Schema/
W3C
Recommendation
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
WCAG 1.0 has 14 guidelines that are general principles of accessible design.
Each guideline has one or more checkpoints that explain how the guideline
applies in a specific area.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php
W3C
Recommendation
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
Following WCAG makes Web content more accessible to the vast majority of
users, including people with disabilities and older users, using many different
devices including a wide variety of assistive technology.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-WCAG20-
20051123/
W3C
Recommendation
W3C
Recommendation
XHTML (1.0) W3C (X)HTML Working group http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/,
Working group homepage:
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/
XML standard W3C XML standards http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-
20060816/
Working group homepage:
http://www.w3.org/XML/
78

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Appendix B – Relevant European organisations
Title Subject URL
AAP Open eBook Standards Project and AAP/Andersen
Consulting eBook Study
AXMEDIS (EC Project)
BISG (Book Industry Study Group)
The goal of the AAP Open ebook Standards Project was to recommend standards
and requirements in the areas of Digital Rights Management [ref], Metadata and
Numbering that will enable an open, competitive marketplace for ebook commerce
on a large scale. The intention is to consider all aspects of the burgeoning ebook
marketplace in developing standards and requirements to promote its growth.
AXMEDIS is developing technologies to reduce the costs of digital content
production, distribution and protections. It is an environment where digital content
producers, aggregators and distributors can gain access to a wide range of digital
contents.
A membership-supported, not-for-profit research organisation comprised of
organisations from every sector of the publishing community. Its goal is to provide
accurate and current research information about the industry for its members and
others. BISG produced jointly with the Association of American Publishers and
Book Industry Communication the ONIX International standard.
http://www.publishers.org/digital/index.cfm
http://www.axmedis.org/
http://www.bisg.org/
BrailleNet, France: Digital Document Delivery for the Blind in France http://www.braillenet.org/
DAISY Consortium
DBK, De Braillekrant, Belgium
The DAISY Consortium's mission is to develop the International Standard and
implementation strategies for the production, exchange, and use of Digital Talking
Books in both developed and developing countries, with special attention to
integration with mainstream technology, to ensure access to information for people
with print disabilities.
Private foundation supported by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Sensotec
company, producing daily newspapers in Braille since 1993, in Daisy format since
2003 and in audio format starting April 2007.
http://www.daisy.org/
http://www.braillekrant.be/
DEDICON Netherlands: National Federation of Libraries for the Blind http://www.dedicon.nl/
Digital Media Project
On the policy and legal side, new policies should be determined and legacy policies
should be revised
On the technical side, a DRM platform should be designed offering the following
main features
http://www.chiariglione.org/project/
Dolphin Audio Publishing, United Kingdom: Multimedia solutions for the adaptive technology industries http://www.yourdolphin.com/
79

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
ENABLES Enhanced Network Accessibility for the Blind
and Visually Impaired
ETSI Task Force STF 286
The specific objectives in this area include:
Developing techniques that will convert existing non-accessible Web contents into
accessible forms according to the user's need.
Investigate multimodal representation for different contents, different applications
and different user disabilities.
Producing guidelines for creating multimodal representation and toolkits for
developers to create accessible Web contents in general and images in particular.
ETSI Human Factors designing access symbols to indicate special services for
disabled users of ICT equipment
http://www.enabledweb.org/AWC.htm
http://www.etsi.org/pressroom/Previous/200
5/2005_05_stf286.htm
EUAIN (EC Project) The EUAIN project (European Accessible Information Network) aims to promote e-
Inclusion as a core horizontal building block in the establishment of the Information
Society by creating a European Accessible Information Network to bring together
the different actors in the content creation and publishing industries around a
common set of objectives relating to the provision of accessible information.
http://www.euain.org/modules/wfsection/
FEP, Belgium: Federation of European Publishers, Brussels. http://www.fep-fee.be/
FORCE, Netherlands:
Independent foundation for education and support for the print impaired in
developing countries
http://www.force-foundation.org.uk/
Institute Integriert Studieren, Austria Austria-wide Institute for Information systems Supporting Print Disabled Students http://www.integriert-studieren.jku.at/
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF),
ISO/IEC JTC 1 Special Working Group on Accessibility
standards
National Council For the Blind of Ireland Media
Conversion Service (NCB IMCS)
The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), formerly the Open eBook Forum
(OeBF), is the trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry.
Established by JTC 1 (10/2004) to:
- establish user requirements for accessibility standards
- prepare an inventory of existing accessibility standards & legislation
- Identify gaps (and overlaps) in accessibility standardisation
- Work with standards bodies (ISO, IEC, ITU, CEN, ETSI, etc) to prepare new
standards
The MCS converts information and documents into formats accessible to
people with vision impairments for a range of public and private
clients. The MCS provides 3 specific services:
1. Conversion into Braille and audio formats
2. Audio-description
3. MCS Consultancy and QA Services
4. Braille Training for the Pharmaceutical Sector
http://www.idpf.org/
http://www.jtc1access.org/
www.ncbi.ie
80

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
OASIS DITA Technical Committee
The purpose of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee (TC) is to define and
maintain the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and to promote the use
of the architecture for creating standard information types and domain-specific
markup vocabularies.
http://www.oasisopen.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abb
rev=dita
OASIS ODF Technical Committee http://www.oasisopen.org/committees/workgroup.php?wg_a
bbrev=odf-adoption
ONCE, Spain: Spanish National Organisation for the Blind http://www.once.es/
Royal National Institute of the Blind (UK)
New RNIB web site addressing software accessibility
Royal National Institute of the Blind
RNIB
Society for Technical Communication (US)
UK’s leading charity offering information, support and advice to over two million
people with sight problems. The Web Access Centre provides web designers and
managers with the tools and resources needed to plan, build and test accessible
websites. RNIB also offers paid for web accessibility consultancy services including
website audits, advice, presentations and seminars. The directory of accessible
websites lists the sites that have passed the RNIB audit within the past year.
The STC is a US-based international organisation and has a Special Interest
Groups addressing the accessibility of documentation (A-SIG).
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/
documents/publicwebsite/public_sachome.h
csp
www.rnib.org.uk
http://www.stcsig.org/sn/index.shtml
SUTII, Poland: University Technical Research Department
TechDis (a JISC Advisory Service)
Technologie-Zentrum Informatik, University Bremen,
Germany:
Web Accessibility Business Case Documents
Web Standards Project
The mission of the JISC TechDis Service is to support the education sector in
achieving greater accessibility and inclusion by stimulating innovation and providing
expert advice and guidance on disability and technology. The TechDis website
features many aids for accessible document processing, including the Accessibility
Essentials guides to inclusive use of Microsoft (R) Word and Adobe (R) PDFs.
Institute at the University Bremen with the main aim to develop cutting edge
technologies in computer science and engineering and transfer those into practice.
Special focus on multimedia content accessibility and presentation
The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group
(EOWG). "Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organisation."
describes social, technical, financial, legal and policy aspects of Web accessibility.
It is designed to help organisations develop their own customised business case for
Web accessibility. It provides text that can be used as is, as well as guidance on
identifying the most relevant factors for a specific organisation.
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards that
ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
http://www.techdis.ac.uk
http://www.tzi.de/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
http://www.webstandards.org/
81

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Appendix C – Sustainability: network of interested parties for ongoing support and further development
Name Enterprise Country Function Email address
P. Abrahams Bloor Research United Kingdom Practice leader Accessibility
&Usability
peter.abrahams@bloor-research.com
Mr. A. Arch Online Accessibility Consulting Vision Australia Manager andrew.arch@nils.org.au
Mr. H. Aspelund
Directorate for Health and Social Affairs, The
Delta Centre
Norway Adviser ICT Haakon.Aspelund@shdir.no
haa@shdir.no
Mr. S. Ball JISC TechDis Service United Kingdom Senior Advisor simon@techdis.ac.uk
Mrs. A. Bergman-Tahon Federation of European Publishers Belgium Director abergman@fep-fee.be
Mr. H. Bjarnø Visual Impairment Knowledge Centre Denmark hbj@visinfo.dk
Mrs. T. Bogner Institut Integriert Studieren Austria tanja.bogner@jku.at
L. Bowick Ministere de l’Agriculture et de la Peche France Reseaux et telecommunications lisa.bowick@educagri.fr
Mr. M. Brauer Sun Microsystems Germany Technical Architect Software
Engineering
Michael.brauer@sun.com
Mrs. Lino Brundu Alitha of Milan Italy Chairman Lino.Brundu@libero.it
Mr. Bruno bruno@vonniman.com
Mr. D. Burger Association BrailleNet France Dominique.Burger@snv.jussieu.fr
82

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Name Enterprise Country Function Email address
Mrs. J. Clark Jenny.Clark@rnib.org.uk
Mr. M. Cooper Web Accessibility Specialist Web accessibility specialist cooper@w3.org
Mr. D. Crombie DEDICON Netherlands Head International Projects dcrombie@dedicon.nl
Mrs. J. Darzentas University of the Aegean Greece jennyd@aegean.gr
Mr. D. Day OASIS DITA Technical Committee IBM Lead DITA Architect dond@us.ibm.com
Mr. A. Egger University of Applied Sciences Austria alexander.egger@campus02.at
Mr. J. Engelen Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium jan.engelen@esat.kuleuven.be
Mrs. B. Fanning AIIM USA Director BFANNING@AIIM.ORG
Mr. M. Ford Martin Ford Consultancy Italy Consultant martin.ford@libero.it
Mr. T. Fraser Monotype Imaging Ltd United Kingdom Finance Director timothy.fraser@monotypeimaging.co.uk
Mr. dr. J. Friedrich IBM Germany Germany Program Manager ICT
Standardization
jochen@de.ibm.com
Mr. J. Garner INCITS/Information Technology Industry Council USA jgarner@itic.org
Cerys Giddings IBM UK Ltd UK cgiddin@uk.ibm.com
Mrs. K. Grant Kate@ninetiles.com
Mr. C. Gravenhorst claus.gravenhorst@ccs-gmbh.de
83

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Name Enterprise Country Function Email address
Mr. A. Haffner Technische Universität Dresden Germany Professur Mensch-Maschine-
Kommunikation
alexander.haffner@inf.tu-dresden.de
Mrs. Mayumi Handa RiverDocs Ireland Test Manager mayumi.handa@riverdocs.com
A.K. Heath Axelrod Access For All United Kingdom andyheath@axelrod.plus.com
Mr. S. Herramhof Sandor.Herramhof@jku.at
Mr. R. Hodgkinson Institute of Scientific and Technical
Communicators (UK)
United Kingdom Consultant Richard_Hodgkinson@btinternet.com
Mr. M. Horstmann TZI, University Bremen Germany mir@tzi.de
Mr. A. Houser arh@groupwellesley.com
Mr. Dr. G. Ioannidis IN2 and TZI - University. Bremen Germany Director gi@in-two.com and
george.ioannidis@tzi.de
Mr. H. Janczikowski hartmut.janczikowski@ccs-gmbh.de
Mr. G. Kerscher kerscher@montana.com
Mr. S. Klironomos FORTH/ ICS Greece Secretariat manager arh@groupwellesley.com
Mr. M. Koettstorfer marco.koettstorfer@jku.at
Ms. MIRA KOIVUSILTA STAKES, R&D Centre for Health and Welfare Finland Mira.Koivusilta@stakes.fi
Mr. P. Korn Sun Microsystems United States Accessibility Architect peter.korn@sun.com
84

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Name Enterprise Country Function Email address
Mr. N. Kovacs DIN Committee Information Technology Germany NIKOLAUS.KOVACS@DIN.DE
Mr. F.J. Martinez-Calvo ONCE Spain fmc@once.es
Dr. Thomas Kahlisch Deutsche Zentralbücherei für Blinde zu Leipzig Germany Director thomas.kahlisch@dzb.de
K. Lindelien Standards Norway Norway KLi@standard.no
Mrs. L McNamee Texthelp Systems Northern Ireland Marketing manager louise@texthelp.com
Mr. S. McGrenery CTO Ireland seamus.mcgrenery@bigriverdocs.com
Mr. N. McKenzie DEDICON Netherlands nmackenzie@dedicon.nl
Mr. D. Mann RNIB david.mann@rnib.org.uk
Mrs. M. McRae OASIS-OPEN mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org
Mr. C. Menezes UNESCO France Senior programme specialist c.menezes@unesco.org
Mr. F. Middelkoop DEDICON fmiddelkoop@fnb.nl
Mr. Dr. K. Miesenberger University of Linz Austria klaus.miesenberger@jku.at
Mr. J. O Connor NCBI (National Council For The Blind Of Ireland) Ireland Web Accessibility Consultant joshue.oconnor@ncbi.ie
Mr. H. O’Neill Central Remedial Clinic Ireland Project Coordinator honeill@crc.ie
Mr. R. Orme RNIB Richard.Orme@rnib.org.uk
P. Permezel Cosmosbay-Vectis France Chef de project ppermezel@cosmosbay-vectis.com
85

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Name Enterprise Country Function Email address
Ms. C. Pollitt National Library for the Blind United Kingdom carol.pollitt@nlbuk.org
Mrs. F. Preteux francoise.preteux@int-evry.fr
Mr. K. Richter klaus.richter@bam.de
Mr. Roel van Gils roel@anysurfer.be
Mr. Dr. R. Romero Fundacion SIDAR Spain rafael@rafaelromero.com
Mr. R. Ruemer University of Linz Austria reinhard.ruemer@jku.at
Mrs. A. Salaun European Commission Belgium anne.salaun@cec.eu.int
S. Schotel DEDICON Netherlands sschotel@dedicon.nl
Mr. Shadi Abou-Zahra W3C Web Accessibility Initiative France Web Accessibility Specialist for
Europe
shadi@w3.org
Ms. S. Sollat C-LHISTOIRE Digital-Prod France Executive Producer dmz@c-lhistoire.com
Mr. F. van Stek DEDICON fvstek@fnb.nl
Mr. C. Stephan cstephan@wxs.nl
Mr. M. Straat Adobe mstraat@adobe.com
Mr. C. Strobbe K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical
Engineering - Research Group on Document
Architectures
Belgium Christophe.Strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be
86

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Name Enterprise Country Function Email address
Paivi Tahkokallio STAKES, R&D Centre for Health and Welfare Finland paivi.tahkokallio@stakes.fi,
Mr. D. Taylor Lightning Source UK Ltd United Kingdom Managing Director David.Taylor@lightningsource.com
Mr. Malte Timmermann Sun Microsystems GmbH Germany Technical Architect Software
Engineering
Malte.Timmermann@sun.com
Mr. T. Tontchev toni.tontchev@dzb.de
Mr. D. Tucker FORCE Foundation Netherlands dtucker@f-force.nl
Mr. S. Tyler RNIB steve.tyler@rnib.org.uk
Mr. L. Van den Berghe
CEN/ISSS - Information Society Standardization
System
Belgium Workshop manager luc.vandenberghe@cenorm.be
Mr. C. Walinn Danish National Library for the Blind Denmark cwa@dbb.dk
Mrs. M. White mandy.white@rnib.org.uk
Mr. R. Winiarsczyk Silesian University of Technology Poland head of research group Ryszard.Winiarczyk@polsl.pl
Mr. T. Worthington tom.worthington@tomw.net
Mr. J. Worsfold Dolphin Computer Access United Kingdom john.worsfold@dolphinuk.co.uk
Mr. W. Wünschmann ww2@inf.tu-dresden.de
Mr. Dr. J. Rietveld Netherlands Standardization institute Netherlands Standardization Consultant jan.rietveld@NEN.nl
87

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
Appendix D – Abbreviations List
Abbreviation
Text
AAATE
Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe
AIIM
The Enterprise Content Management Association
AIP
Accessible Information Processing
ANSI
American National Standards Institute
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange
CDDA
Compact Disk Digital Audio
CD-ROM
Compact Disc read-only memory
CEN
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION
CMS
Content Management System
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
CWA
CEN Workshop Agreement
DAISY
Digital Accessible Information System
DATSCG
Design for All and Assistive Technologies Standardization Co-ordination Group
DEXA
Database and Expert Systems Applications
DITA
Darwin Information Typing Architecture
DPA
Document Processing for Accessibility
DRM
Digital Rights Management
DTB
Digital Talking Book
DTD
Document Type Definitions
DTP
Desktop publishing
EARL
Evaluation and Report Language
EC
European Commission
ECM
Enterprise Content Management
EDeAN
European Design for All e-Accessibility Network
EIDD
European Institute for Design and Disability
88

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
ETSI
European Telecommunications standards Institute
EU
European Union
EUAIN
European accessible information network
EXD
Encrypted XML document
GNOME
GNU Object Model Environment
GNU
a recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language
ICCHP
International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs
ICS
International Classification for Standards
ICTSB
Information Communication Technologies Standards Board
IEC
International Electrotechnical Commission
IEEE
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IMS
IMS Global Learning Consortium
ISO
International Organization for Standardization
ISSS
Information Society Standardization System
JAWS
Job Access With Speech
JTC 1 Joint Technical Committee 1
KDE
K Desktop Environment
LaTeX
LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting.
LCNS
Lecture Notes in Computer Science
LIP
Learner Information Package
MARC21
Machien-Readable Cataloging
MathML
Mathemtatical Markup Language
METS
Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard
MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
MP3 MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3
MPEG
Moving Picture Experts Group
NIMAS
National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard
89

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
NISO
Navigation Control Centre
OASIS
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
OCR
Optical character recognition
ODF
OpenDocument Format
OECD
Organisation for Ecomic Co-operation and Development
PC
Personal Computer
PDF
Portable Document Format
RDF
Resource Description Framework
RNIB
Royal National Institute of the Blind
RTD
Research and Technology Development
RTF
Rich Text Format
SC
Subcommittee
SCORM
Sharable Content Object Reference Model
SGML
Standard Generalised Markup Language
SME
Small and medium enterprises
SMIL
Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
STM
Scientific Technical Medical
TC
Technical Committee
TC/HF
Technical committee Human Factors
TEI
Text Encoding Initiative
TeX
TeX is a typesetting language.
US
United States
USB
Umoversa; Serial Bus
VHS
Video Home System
VPAT
Voluntary Product Accessibility Template
W3C
World Wide Web Consortium
WAI
Web Accessibility Initiatieve
WAV
short for Waveform
90

CWA 15778:2008 (E)
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
WCT
WIPO Copyright Treaty
WG
Working Group
WIPO
World Intellectual Property Organization
WPPT
WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty
XHTML
Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
XML
Extensible Markup Language
XSLT
XSL Transformations
91