Andrew,

In order to facilitate discussion and editing,
I have moved the proposal to the wiki file
http://dublincore.org/usageboardwiki/AccessibilityProposal.

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 07:57:54PM -0000, Pete Johnston wrote:
> First, I'm guessing we would make the range some class of "non-literal
> resources", rather than a set of literals? i.e. values would be
> "concepts" which have those strings as names/labels:
> 
> auditoryOnly - the notion that the use of a resource requires only the
> sense of hearing 
> 
> And so on.
> 
> So - leaving aside that last item in your list for a second - the "value
> space", the range of the property, would be something like the class of
> "modes of access"?
> 
> But I did wonder whether that set of values actually does the job? Yes,
> an audio resource is engaged with through my sense of hearing only, but
> none of those values would be applicable to a video with an audio
> soundtrack? Isn't it often the case that resources are engaged with
> through multiple senses?

I agree with Pete that we should be able to specify a coherent
range for the property. I also agree that the definition seems
too broad. Language is an excellent example of "a characteristic
of a resource that relates to the human capacity to perceive,
operate, understand, or otherwise engage with the resource".
One could make the argument for many other properties that they
would be within scope as well. In a way, it reminds me of the
discussions we used to have on whether a given property was
relevant for "resource discovery"; in the end, such a use could
be justified for just about any property, given the appropriate
resource discovery needs (e.g. "books that weigh less than 500
grams" for a backpacker).

I find the Explanation more helpful than the Definition in this
respect.  It currently reads:

    Metadata descriptions of resources (and a user's needs) can
    be used to provide the necessary information for a user to
    determine if a resource is one that they can access and use
    given limitations in their physical or virtual capacity to
    do so.

Rephrased, I interpret this to mean:

    Descriptive information about a resource can helps a user
    determine whether the resource is one that they can access
    and use given limitations in their physical or virtual
    capacity to do so.

In my reading, the interesting word here is "limitation". Could
"limitation" be used to describe the access modes? With the
exception of "hazard", could the vocabulary be characterized
this way?
    
    auditoryOnly    - limited to auditory
    hapticOnly      - limited to haptic
    visualOnly      - limited to visual
    brailleOnly     - limited to braille
    tactileOnly     - limited to tactile
    olfactoryOnly   - limited to olfactory
    hazard          - limited to ???

But the wording "limited to auditory" is still not entirely satisfactory.
Do we in fact mean:

    auditoryOnly    - limited in accessibility to auditory mode

or, as Pete suggested "auditoryOnly - the notion that the use of
a resource requires only the sense of hearing", maybe:

    auditoryOnly    - the notion that the resource is limited in accessibility to auditory mode

If so, then the range class could perhaps be defined as 
something like LimitationMode.

Tom

-- 
Thomas Baker <[log in to unmask]>