Dear all,

The Usage Board has taken a formal decision on a proposed
"accessibility" property.  In the decision text below, we
outline our reasons for not accepting the proposal as submitted.

We hope that this summary may prove useful as input to the
ongoing search for robust metadata solutions for accessibility.

Tom

-- 
Tom Baker, Chair
DCMI Usage Board

As proposed in [1,2], pp. 32-34:

   Property:   accessibility
   Definition: Characteristics of the resource that affect how
               it can be modified for users or agents.
   Comment:    An Accessibility statement might be used to match
               a (digital or physical) resource to a
               description of user or user agent needs and
               preferences.

Decision: Reject

Reasons:

-- The proposed definition defines the property by how it can used;
   rather, a definition should directly say what the property means.
   The proposal does not explicitly say what it means to "modify" a
   resource, nor does the proposal explain how the use of the 
   proposed property will enable such modification.

-- The proposal says that the property has "been carefully
   re-modelled from the ISO/IEC version".  However, the proposal
   does not provide a reference to or explanation of the
   ISO/IEC property of which the proposed property is a
   re-modelled version (other than a general reference to
   ISO/IEC N24751); the reasons or experience that led to the
   re-modelling, i.e., what problems were identified; the
   process that was applied in the re-modelling and how
   the identified problems are resolved by the proposed
   property.

-- The proposal refers to the "use of the new term in
   combination with other descriptive information" as enabling an
   "AccessForAll process".  However, the proposal does not
   explain or illustrate the AccessForAll process, so the Usage
   Board has no basis for judging whether the proposed term can
   lead to useful results.

-- The proposal does not specify the range of the property.  At
   a minimum, the description of a property should specify whether the
   intention is that the property is to be used with literal
   values or non-literal values, or both.

-- The proposal describes the discussion of a "stand-alone
   new term" since 2001.  However, it does not say who was
   involved in developing the term as now proposed, nor does it
   document any support or endorsement of the term, as proposed,
   from experts in the cited ISO/IEC and W3C communities.

For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that a
subsequent version of this proposal was discussed by the Usage
Board in 2009 [3] though never formally submitted for
a decision.

[1] http://dublincore.org/usage/meetings/2008/09/berlin/2008-09-18.berlin-packet-revised.pdf
[2] http://dublincore.org/usage/meetings/2008/09/berlin/2008-09-18.accessibility-proposal.pdf
[3] http://dublincore.org/usage/meetings/2008/09/berlin/2009-10-04.accessibility-proposal-revised.pdf