Tom
thank you for this posting.
I point out to the community that after the meeting with the Usage
Board in Berlin in 2008, the definition for the term was changed to
match that in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 so
the UB's decision was a formal decision related to a term that was no
longer being proposed by the community.
Little has been done publicly in the DC Accessibility Community
because we have been waiting for a decision from the Usage Board,
expecting it to be based on the proposed term as set out on the wiki
at http://dublincore.org/accessibilitywiki/NewElementProposal. It
seems there has been some confusion with respect to what is proposed
and what is being considered.
In the meantime, ISO/IEC has finally published ISO/IEC N24751:2009
Parts 1, 2 and 3. Perhaps more interestingly, the ISO/IEC group
responsible, JTC1 SC36, have worked to redefine metadata for learning
resources (MLR) and are close to finalising with a new model that is
almost identical to the Dublin Core Abstract Model. This probably
means a revision for the ISO/IEC N24751 to be fully MLR (and therefore
DC) compliant,
There will not be a meeting of the DC Accessibility Community in Korea
at DC 2009 but hopefully there will be some fruitful discussions that
will advance the needs of those trying to work with metadata to enable
people with disabilities to discover resources they can use.
If you are not familiar with the DC Accessibility wiki, you might like
to have a look at it as that is where most of the work is reported.
See http://dublincore.org/accessibilitywiki
Liddy
On 07/10/2009, at 7:18 PM, Thomas Baker wrote:
> 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
|