4. Relationship with services - components

• How this is related to other specifications, within the Learning Domain
• Relation to LOM - other metadata requirements,
• DC-A4A

• Accessibility vs. Adaptability
• Providing alternatives vs. transformations
• Accessibility in devices used in an learning environment
  • Web-browsers (Screen readers etc.)
  • Special tools
  • Mobil-phones
  • Software in general (embedded in the operating systems of the computer)
• Braille - for the visual impaired

The web is getting more and more interactive, and information on a page could be updated without refreshing the whole page, by using techniques such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)- many of these technologies are called WEB2 technologies. How the accessibility issues should be tackled with regard to WEB2 technologies should be further investigated.
Many screen readers does not work with AJAX or any javascript based technologies, the problem is that when you have a javascript some kind of interaction is expected, the big problem with screen readers is that how should the screen reader be notified about the updated content? even if the screen reader to some extent support javascript.

More and more content on the web is also developed using Flash. Flash is "movie" that are played in its own embedded application in the web-browser, since the Flash movie is a single object it is impossible to understand the content of the Flash movie. To make sure that a Flash movie is accessible alternative descriptions of the content must be provided when the Flash movie is developed

Example of accommodation

When a group of users are participating in a collaborative work, and one of the activities is a oral discussion. How should that environment be accessible to all? The systems need to be aware of the needs and capabilities of the users, and the users need to be able of the capabilities of the system. For example if you are participating in a voice based communication, and a person with hearing problems joins, the system should change the mode of operation to text based communication to adapt to the needs of the person with a hearing impairment. This is to ensure that all users are included in the learning experience, and not excluded by the systems lack of capabilities.

To be able to give all users in a learning environment full access to the learning activities, the system used need to modify themselves so that no users are excluded, the mode of operation need to change accordingly with the user with least capabilities.