Accessibility on demand
Recent years have brought a silent revolution in the informatics community. With the growing influence of open standards advocates and the ever growing demand for interconnected functionality delivered over the Internet, an array of standards, protocols and technical concepts have created a new paradigm for delivering ubiquitous access to information. New frameworks will rely heavily on this set of now commonly adopted technologies which are associated with the SOA approach to developing information networks. Although this array of technologies is beautifully mastered by software engineers, helped by an ever increasing set of development tools, users are still left out by the sheer complexity of toolsets. As such, this timeframe looks somewhat similar to the mid-nineties when a communication officer still depended on technicians to publish corporate information on the internet.
New frameworks will strive to make the same difference to end-users as for the early adopters of Content Management Systems. End-users will be able to create information functionality by combining and authoring different types of services in 'composite functionality’, which will reflect a particular workflow or way of sharing information. These composites are combined and interconnected to create a knowledge infrastructure. In this way, we can address one of the most important issues for achieving mainstream accessibility: that such accessibility processes are available when and where they are needed, and by the appropriate person in the information provision chain. For both the public and private sectors, this represents a significant breakthrough and has the potential to overhaul accessibility within mainstream environments.
New markets
The market for the project results should be significant. During 2008/9 a number of key software vendors will enter this market (eg Microsoft, Adobe) and offer more possibilities for generating accessible content, which further demonstrates the emerging need for such tools. The size of the market remains hard to gauge, given that accessible media are of interest to the general consumer and not only smaller niche markets. By way of example, a recent study conducted by RNIB and the Publishers Association in the UK established that sales of accessible products via the book trade are feasible as long as well-established supply chain mechanisms are followed in the same way as for any other product with an ISBN. For example, with approximately three million people in the UK with sight problems and dyslexia who cannot read standard print, the market could be significant. Elsewhere, there is a movement to incorporate alternative format materials in mainstream value chains (eg through the use of RFID, ISBN and DOI) and the EUAIN Network is fully aligned with these developments.
While the size of the market remains uncertain, the commitment by content holders to content re-aggregation and personalisation is not and it is very likely that the eLearning sector will be one of the first areas to benefit from this convergence. In terms of 'web-based access', legislative changes are likely to be forthcoming such as the recommendations for changes to Section 508 in the USA which had input from EC representatives. At an EU level, the likely access recommendations on public sector procurement policy are well-advanced.
Adaptive content production as well as delivery technologies and services have been continuously expanding over the last years. Multi-purpose software suites to organise, archive, index, display, transport, and retrieve the increasing amount of digital data face an increasing demand. Current offerings do not sufficiently address the emerging needs of users in audio-visual search. Search services are fragmented by type of content indexed (searching only for text and associated description) and not integrated in the workflow on content production. In order to enhance the global business competitiveness of Europe new business models of multimedia content management need to be fostered. Multimedia search mechanisms can leverage several vertical markets by enabling new ways of social, personal and business interactions. New revenue opportunities are created not only for enterprises but also for home and the end consumers.
Annual Turnover from audio-visual activities sums up to 182 Billion Euro in the US compared to 97.8 Billion Euro in Europe. By providing on the one side, advanced audio-visual search services, efficient presentation and navigation mechanisms and on the other side content production tools developed with the creative industries, EUAIN based infrastructure approaches can shorten the gap in the audio-visual market sector between Europe and the US.