1. Introduction

Executive Summary An Executive Summary of the Chapter should be part of the Introduction - it is still missing here!

Accessibility is about giving all the possibility to participate in the society, free of barriers; of physical, logical or practical constraints.

Definition This sentence is "definition like", without being a definition of Accessibility. Should be considered to define Accessibility - as e.g. "Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a system is usable by as many people as possible without modification." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) And describe as Wikipedia the relationship to usability and universal design ("Universal design, which is related to "inclusive design" and "design for all," is an approach to the design of products, services and environments to be usable by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation. It links directly to the political concept of an inclusive society and its importance has been recognised by governments, business and industry." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design (Tore)

In the LIFE project, we have investigated accessibility with regard to on-line ICT based learning, and tried to identify key-issues that are important for Learning Interoperability in Europe.

There is no good reason for not providing learning free of barriers within an ICT environment - that is - if the organisations plan for accessibility from the beginning. In today's ICT environment barriers are constructed either by design or by lack of knowledge on how to develop ICT systems. This position should be used as a starting point when evaluating and deciding on how to move forward with the process of ensuring ICT barrier free systems.

When done properly there should be no extra cost in the development process of ensuring accessibility.

This is still a strong statement, ref Frans' comment of June 22! (Tore)

Addressing accessibility issues we usually think of people with a specific accessibility need or lacking a set of capabilities, i.e. hearing, seeing or the ability to move around. However this is only a small group of users of ICT systems that have problems with accessing information and lacks the possibility to participate actively in the modern society.

The better education a person have the better the possibility to participate in the society. Therefore is accessibility of great importance with regard to learning and learning technologies.

Maybe one of the most important principles when dealing with accessibility is predictability, i.e. being able to predict the behaviour of ICT systems, how information is presented, where it is presented, the interaction schemes when performing tasks and communicating with the systems, etc. Usually these issues are consistent within one systems, but when moving to another system this changes, and the nomadic users need to learn new ways how to communicate with different systems.

Building systems with foundations based on established conventions and best practice is crucial when developing ICT that are accessible.

Concluding comment Introduction to be rewritten. We should still try to describe which approach we have to accessibility - there are some hints in the present text that should be developed! (Tore)