1. Accessible Multimedia in Textbooks WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) May 3, 2011

2. 2 About NCAM  Established at WGBH in 1993 as R&D center  Founding member of W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)  Builds on / extends expertise of: - The Caption Center -est. 1972; pioneered captioning for users who are deaf or hard of hearing - Descriptive Video Service (DVS) -est. 1990; pioneered descriptions for audiences who are blind or visually impaired

3. 3 About NCAM  Focus on solutions for existing and emerging media - DTV, Web, mobile, multimedia, convergent media - LMS, DVDs, educational technologies, many others  Serves on federal committees - FCC committees (technology, disability, public safety) - rulemaking committees (Section 508, VPACC, mobile)  Advises technology developers, federal and state agencies  Offers tools for multimedia accessibility - MAGpie, CCforFlash, ccPlayer, CaptionKeeper  Publishes guidelines for creating accessible materials - multimedia, STEM images, Web sites, e-books, iTunes

4. 4 Industry standards and specifications  W3C working groups (WAI, TTML, HTML5, WCAG, SMIL, others)  IMS Global Learning Consortium and ISO/IEC JTC 1  DAISY and EPUB  Advanced Television Systems Committee - broadcast and mobile  Society of Motion Pictures Engineers (SMPTE) committees  United Nations G3 Inclusive Communications Technologies  Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) collaboration  cloud-based services

5. 5 Educational applications and STEM expertise  Access for All distributed learning standards - implements user profiles to customizes search and display of individualized accessible content  Effective Description Practices - collaborative effort with APH, RFB&D, AFB & DAISY to research meaningful use of description in textbooks, DTBs, on-line materials  Accessible Test Items - research and training to inform use of description in high- stakes testing (students with visual and print disabilities)

6. 6 Educational applications and STEM expertise  STEM expertise from 21 years of describing science- focused programming and associated Web content  Successive NSF and DoED grants  Beyond the Text (multimedia in e-books)  PIVoT, MIT’s online physics curriculum  Personalized Access to NSDL  WGBH’s Teachers’ Domain  DIAGRAM Center: Partner with Benetech and DAISY in R&D of challenges, opportunities, tools for accessible textbooks

7. 7 Publishers beginning to hear access demands  Some colleges and universities are beginning to include accessibility requirements in their adoption processes  Who is requiring accessibility? - not all schools - students benefit from widespread accessibility  Who defines accessibility? - school, state, student, publisher, technology provider - school, state, student, publisher, technology provider  Schools benefit from having materials use similar access features; lowers the learning curve for staff and students

8. 8 Image-description authoring/display  Solutions for static images - alternative text (brief; @alt) - long descriptions (detailed; @longdesc, prodnote, figcaption, aria-describedby)  Solutions for multimedia/interactive - captions - descriptions - subtitles, dubbing - player/device control  Authoring tools exist to address many of these solutions; rendering is sometimes problematic (e.g., DIAGRAM findings)  Description of STEM content is challenging

9. 9 Math in on-line materials today  Math in textbooks (textbooks/Web-based materials)  equations are frequently displayed as images  some contain @alt  some contain @longdesc  Math in DTBs  equations can be conveyed using @alt or prodnote  can simply be read aloud as part of human narration  These approaches can be accessible via assistive technology but don’t always provide unambiguous readback

10. 10 Math in on-line materials today  MathML can display math as text - MathML authoring via various tools - MathML display via browsers/plug-ins, DTB players, other devices is available - can be accessible to screen readers - in some cases can be spoken without a screen reader - accessibility sometimes requires additional plug-ins

11. 11 Multimedia description authoring/playback Learning materials include images and multimedia  Learning materials include images and multimedia - video lectures - supplemental materials (e.g., video tutorials)  Flash and Silverlight are used now for embedded textbook/Web presentations  Apple-compatible formats are often used for stand-alone presentations (e.g., iTunes U)  Coming soon: textbooks/Web pages with a video-lecture window running alongside windows showing other information (illustrations, math, other Web pages, etc.)

12. 12 Multimedia description authoring/playback Accessible multimedia presentations require...  Accessible multimedia presentations require...  captions  descriptions  perhaps extended descriptions with data tables  perhaps MathML representation of equations  perhaps SVGs with description of key data  accessible playback/interaction mechanisms  support on desktop/laptop computers as well as handheld devices

13. 13 Implementation opportunities: coming soon  New methods of creating and presenting accessible images and interactive activities - Flash - HTML5 - ARIA  New features for labeling and describing images, other elements of a textbook or Web page  Other immersive technologies

14. 14 Multimedia description authoring/playback All these are being considered or addressed by HTML5  All these are being considered or addressed by HTML5 - mechanisms for identifying and operating accessibility features (captions, descriptions, subtitles, etc.) - caption formats (currently undefined) - mechanism for text-to-speech audio descriptions under consideration - mechanism to generate and display additional descriptions via data tables, MathML, SVG, etc.

15. 15 Implementation opportunities: coming soon  Changes in practices related to image and multimedia creation - authoring/production - packaging within online library/portal - distribution and playback - archiving

16. 16 Implementation opportunities: coming soon  New features of HTML5 related to multimedia will make it easier to add captions or descriptions -, elements; no plug-ins required - caption formats - player control - identifying/operating alternative tracks  Also easier to add in-line MathML and SVG into Web pages with HTML5; no namespaces necessary

17. 17 Identifying resources - Access for All (AfA)  Access for All (AfA) - tagging enhancements so accessible content can be identified and retrieved on demand  AfA is a standard approach (ISO/IEC 24751) to personalize and increase access to content for everyone  AfA provides a means to: - describe digital resources (video, audio, text) with respect to accessibility support - describe a user’s particular needs or preferences - match the needs with the media  WGBH Teachers’ Domain - AfA implementation (80% K-12 schools) - one usage data point - 20% of users selecting captions - probably labs with no speakers or headphones - universal design

18. 18 Descriptions today  “Regular” descriptions - inserted into the natural pauses in narration or dialog  Extended descriptions - use when a long description is necessary but there is not a sufficient pause in the audio to accommodate it - program dialog and video automatically pause while a long audio description plays - when the description has finished playing, video/dialog resume playback  Math, tables, charts, scientific notation in videos - currently must be read within description

19. 19 DIY tools: descriptions  DIY description-authoring tools, post-production only - MAGpie - CapScribe  Manual recording/integration is also an option  Extended descriptions present challenges/opportunities - control of original video (automatic pause/resume) - lengthening of duration/timeline - providing appropriate levels of description (verbosity, grade-level vocabulary, etc.)  Description tools currently do not offer support for MathML or SVG; these must be created elsewhere

20. 20 DIY tools: captions  DIY captioning-authoring tools are relatively common and available for free or low cost - MAGpie - Subtitle Workshop - CapScribe - Adobe’s FLVPlaybackCaptioning component - Participatory Culture Foundation’s Universal Subtitles - others

21. 21 Contact WGBH National Center for Accessible Media http://ncam.wgbh.org Geoff Freed Geoff_Freed@wgbh.org Madeleine Rothberg Madeleine_Rothberg@wgbh.org