Hi everyone,

 

Thank you all very much for your help with the Aspire ebook accessibility audit so far.

 

As of 10am today we had 187 publisher audits and 144 aggregator/platform audits.

 

Compared to the 2016 e-book accessibility audit we have already covered a bigger range of publishers and platform providers which is absolutely brilliant news! J

 

The audit will remain open until Wednesday 15th August so there is still plenty of time to get involved. As ever, we are extremely grateful for your help.

 

 What you can do to help

·        For a step-by-step summary of what to do and links to all the relevant resources please go to https://tinyurl.com/aspirego (or the full URL - if that one gets blocked by your browser) 

·        If you have already 'bagged' a publisher/aggregator on the signup sheets (see slide 4 of instructions), please ensure you fill in the audits for your chosen suppliers as soon as possible. 

 

If you need any help undertaking an audit or have any questions please email: [log in to unmask]  

 

Thank you again for all your help,

 

The ASPIRE team

 

 

 

Hi everyone,

 

The Aspire ebook accessibility audit closes on Wednesday 15th August by which time we're looking to have a robust and comprehensive crowd-sourced dataset on the accessibility information provided by suppliers. This is a quick update on how it's going.

 

What is working well?

As of 10am on 24th July we had 89 publisher audits and 95 aggregator/platform audits.

 

Compared to the 2016 e-book accessibility audit we have already covered a bigger range of publishers and platform providers - a big 'well done' to all contributors!

 

Many of the suppliers covered so far have had multiple audits, giving us more robust data.

 

What you can do to help

·        If you have 'bagged' a publisher/aggregator on the signup sheets (see slide 4 of instructions), please ensure you actually fill in the audits for your chosen suppliers as soon as possible. 

·        Encourage library colleagues in other organisations to participate, HE, FE, NHS, schools, and public libraries etc. all are welcome - if they have ebooks then it affects them. We're aiming for contributions from over 100 library services. We are halfway there. A hundred corporate customers is a number that is hard to ignore so please help us get there.

·        Encourage your own library colleagues to participate. It is excellent staff development in accessibility awareness and will really open your eyes to the reason why disabled people sometimes struggle to use e-books effectively. Even when files and platforms have reasonable accessibility, the information available is often very sparse.

·        Have an audit party! The University of Kent library service has organised an audit party for next week. Organise your own accessibility audit party (it's more fun than it sounds - honest!). Challenge your rival organisations to see who can have the biggest party (but make sure data is collected BEFORE drinks roll out...).

And finally - keep the partnership in mind

Remember, this is about empowerment all the way along the supply chain. 

 

It's as much about supporting accessibility advocates within the corporate suppliers who often face internal barriers in getting change. If we can give them the data to show that this matters to the student experience, to disability teams and to librarians - and procurement - we help them win the arguments in-house. 

 

Publishers and aggregators took a proactive part in shaping the audit - even though some of them knew their own statements wouldn't score well. Part of this process is giving those colleagues some customer feedback to strengthen their hand. Let's make sure there's good data on as many suppliers as we can get to!

 

If you need any help undertaking an audit or have any questions please email: [log in to unmask]  

 

Thank you for all your help,

 

 

 

Hi everyone,

 

Following on from the Ebook Accessibility Audit we would now like your help with a new initiative. This time we are evaluating the information that platforms and publishers provide to advise people about the accessibility of their products. ASPIRE stands for Accessibility Statements Promoting Improved Reading Experience.

 

We'd be delighted for as many people as possible to take part - it's far quicker and easier than the last time and is excellent for staff development and accessibility awareness.

 

For a step-by-step summary of what to do and links to all the relevant resources please go to https://tinyurl.com/aspirego (or the full URL - if that one gets blocked by your browser - is https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D7Wb6HRVxnXYIn3znZyDXgaDe9G4pb4d/view) 

 

We've had over 50 audits done in the first few days and we've got until 15th August so the signs are good but we're really keen to get multiple audits on multiple suppliers to give us robust statistics. 

 

Be creative - get a coffee/cake and audit afternoon planned with colleagues, work with distant friends via Skype, use it as a team-building exercise. 

 

You will be astonished at how little information is provided by some suppliers. Let's gather the evidence to argue for better information...!

 

If you need any help undertaking an audit or have any questions please email: [log in to unmask]

 

Thank you

ASPIRE team