Introduction
The European Accessible Information Network (EUAIN) project was established in 2004 by Dedicon when a core group of organisations involved in accessible content production came together on a European level to seek greater clarity and systematisation for this field. This was made possible through European Commission support under the 6th Framework Programme.
During the last 4 years the EUAIN Network has brought together the different stakeholders in accessible content processing and sought to find new ways to mainstream the provision of accessible content. In November 2008 we will co-host the ACP 08 Conference in Amsterdam.
As well as providing an overview of the core concepts, a new document entitled “The Freedom to Explore” (pdf) (text) describes the results of the EUAIN EC project phase and highlights the forthcoming activities of the EUAIN Network. If you would like a DAISY audio version of this document with either human or synthesised speech, or a Braille version, please send us an email and we will send this to you directly.
It is becoming clear that a far deeper examination of fundamental accessibility is required if we are to mirror mainstream content provision. Given the general move towards distributed media, there is a need to develop open source frameworks to bridge the gap between original content design heuristics and intuitive multimodal interfaces required for content and communication systems.
Such frameworks would provide built-in, profile-based access to information, content and services, which not only combine and extend state-of-the-art technologies for information access, but also conform to standards and guidelines available for accessibility, usability, scalability and adaptability.
In short, the opposite of this!
The EUAIN Network will continue to act as a focal point to pursue these activities and to ensure that all European countries have access to appropriate training and expertise. The forthcoming ACP 08 Conference will highlight the results of this work and we would encourage you to register for this event.
The forthcoming Deep Access Roadmap (October 2008) (pdf) aims to provide pointers to design, build and validate robust and compliant adaptive content processing frameworks. These frameworks can then be used within private or public sector organisations to distribute content in suitable formats to end-users whilst maintaining the structural integrity of that content and ensuring all the concerns of content providers and rights holders are met. In this way a central concern can be addressed, namely the real-life mainstreaming of accessible content processing within existing and emerging service provision and value chains.
If you would like to be kept informed about new developments, please contact Sabine Schotel.