Accessibility SIG Meeting at BSI London

This workshop was jointly organised in collaboration with BSI (British Standards Institution) and its aim was to foster discussion and exchange between communities around recent and ongoing international and UK work in Accessibility Standards.

The first part of the day began with a brief introduction to JISC CETIS and the Accessibility SIG (Special Interest Group) by Sharon Perry that set the context for the rest of the workshop.

David Fatscher then  gave an introduction to the British Standards Institute and discussed the landscape of standards the BSI is involved in. Alex Li from Microsoft then gave an overview of the large amount of accessibility standards work under development in the US (United States), Canada, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India, China. Andy Heath then presented current work on the AccessForAll standards (Afa 3.0) and provided us with a summary of the new additions to the Afa vocabulary.Overall, the first part of the day was quite technical, with lots of acronyms and long standards names

The WIDE team (Dr Elaine Pearson, Franck Perrin and myself was invited to present and discuss our approach to implementing standards for widget development.The WIDE project, complements ARC’s ongoing research on adaptable personal learning environments and provides examples of applying the standards in a practical context.

Overall, it has been an interesting event and provided an opportunity for  various communities  (standards, HE/FE/vendors, commerical, government, publishers, charities etc) to get together and be aware of what is happening in each others’ sectors.

More information on the event can be found on the CETIS wiki at:http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Accessibility_SIG_Meeting_28th_February_2011

WIDE Presentation slides are available at: http://slidesha.re/fEj1cq