4. Relationships with services/components

We will use the following use case to explain how accessibility relates to services and components: "A voice conference discussion is going on, and one person with hearing disabilities enters the conference, preferring to participate in discussions using text."

I don't understand why the use case is introduced here - for not to be used in the following text. (Tore)

Within learning technology we have a mix of technologies that are used simultaneously, in sequence or as standalone activities. If a person with disabilities enters this technology space the learner will need to use the same systems with the same capabilities to be able to participate in the learning activities. The learners preferences need to be transported between the systems and the services without intervention from the learner each time.

When searching for learning resources, the capabilities of the learning resources should be visible so that the learner could choose learning resources that are useful, or find information about alternatives. The learning resource metadata should include information about the capabilities of the resource in addressing the preferences of the different learners. The same should happen when a learning resource is downloaded to your local system using the IMS-CP specification, accessibility meta data should be embedded within the package.

When you have a system calling another system, the learners preferences should be a part of that call so that the new application or service starts in the proper mode with the correct settings based on the learners preferences. Today the only specification that addresses how one system could call another system is IMS Tools Interoperability Spesification.  At the moment accessibility and the learner preferences are not addressed here, but IMS will start a revision of the specification in September 2006, and hopefully accessibility will be addressed.

With regard to the evolving ISO 24751 (Individualized Adaptability and Accessibility in e-Learning, Education and Training ) this standard should be embedded in most systems as soon as possible. The part 3 of ISO 24751 should also be embedded in most learning resource repositories for ensuring that learners can search and browse for resources that are capable of addressing their personal preferences.

Do Part 3 of 24751 address respositories or learning resources?

Emerging web technologies

One of the most important of the "new" web technologies is AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML) that changes the "whole page refresh" paradigm that have ruled web-publishing for a long time. With AJAX any part of the "page" can be updated and by that everyone with a screen reader have a problem. How do we notify the screen reader that some part of the information has changed - and how will that affect the readability of the information?

However, when we encounter new technologies it is important that we do not standardise to early, but wait until the technolgoy is established and have reached sufficient maturity.

The same goes for new approaches to how learning technology could be used, exemplified by the Personal Learning Environments (PLE). Using a PLE the learner collects the information from a variety of resources and publishes and shares information at different places. How this will affect accessibility is still to early to tell.

Use case

With regard to the proposed use case, we want the user experience for all to degrade gracefully with regard to the experience of all the learners.

Said before? (T)

When the learner with text as communication form is entering the discussion, all other users should be notified that they should change mode of operation. This requires that the tools and systems used for communication should be notified and change mode based on this. To be able to achieve this the systems need to be operable and adjust their capabilities accordingly - or start an alternative application. This put a requirement to the IMS-TI (Tools Interoperability) specification.

Is not the point in the paragraph above already built into the use case? Can't see that anything new is said her?! (Tore)

Interoperability issue

Since learning technology is of a horisontal nature - the challenge to interoperability is even greater than for more vertical solutions and industries. With regard to accessibility this need to be embedded in all tools and solutions that support content production and content retrieval.
To be able to find and locate learning resources that can satisfy the preferences of the learner.
To achieve interoperability with so many variables and differences in systems, interoperability testing is the only viable method. Both with regard to accessibility and learning technology in general.

Anything new here? (Tore)