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Voice for Information Society Universal Access and Learning

Deliverables

Within the VISUAL project, a lot of attention was paid to the development of an accessible user interface for the VISUAL tool. To create a user interface compliant with the ATAG and that could be easily accessed by screen reader and magnification software users was one of the goals of the project. Consultancy to outside groups on how to develop accessible user interfaces is a possible exploitation result.
Within VISUAL quite a lot of attention was paid to the visual presentation of web pages. Three partners have worked on Cascading Style Sheets. KULRD helped to integrate the SAC parser (Simple API for CSS) into the VISUAL Web authoring tool. CSS validation with SAC will be a relevant task in future KULRD projects.
The IMS Question & Test Interoperability (QTI) specification describes a basic structure for the representation of question and test data and their corresponding results reports. Therefore, the specification enables the exchange of item, assessment and results data between Learning Management Systems, as well as content authors and, content libraries and collections. The QTI specification is defined in XML to promote the widest possible adoption. XML is a powerful, flexible, industry standard mark-up language used to encode data models for Internet-enabled and distributed applications. This wizard was designed to create or modify XML QTI files in an easy way.
Within the VISUAL project, KULRD developed a course on accessible (X) HTML and CSS. This course can serve as a starting point for a university course (post-academic or other) on accessible Web design. This would probably be the first such course offered by a higher education institution in Flanders. KULRD is organising since 4 years a professional course on XML and is envisaging to bring in their XHTML issues too.
Within the VISUAL project, SCT used the java classes of the ConPalabras plug-in (developed outside this project to provide web pages with voice capabilities) upgrading its functionality to add voice output to Visual Basic components in such a way that it is compatible with assistive technologies that already have voice output such as screen readers and magnification software. The code that performs the synthesis of messages is written in Java, so it can be used in any platform. To access the java code from the Visual Basic side, a C+++ library was written. SCT wants to further explore this approach in other research and developments projects.
Within VISUAL three partners developed each parts of an accessibility checking system, which were then assembled into the Web Authoring Tool (VISUAL result eTIP number: 18291). KULRD developed a component for checking the accessibility of HTML and XHTML code. The rules against which the HTML/XHTML code is checked are described in an XML format. This approach may be adaptable to other mark-up languages (checking accessibility of SVG, XHTML 2, etc.). KULRD wants to further explore this approach in other research and development projects, possibly also the forthcoming project BenToWeb [IST-2-004275-STP] - Benchmarking Tools for the Web. SCT integrated the component developed by the KULRD to check the accessibility of HTML and XHTML code into de VISUAL tool, to assists authors in the creation of accessible web content.
Part of the multilingual European e-learning portal oriented to visually impaired people. The goal of the VISUAL Project is to develop voice-based technology in order to improve the access of visually impaired people to the information society.
RNIBs' main outcome of this project is to share the IMS knowledge gained from VISUAL with other interested parties such as CETIS and IMS TechDis. RNIB aims to campaign to remove accessibility barriers that blind and visually impaired come up against by working closely with IMS. This knowledge will be used as part of wider dissemination activities and to form the basis of further projects. Helen Petrie from City University is a member of the British Standards Institute BSI/IST 43 Working Group that is developing a British Standard for accessible e-learning material based on the IMS work. She will use the results from the VISUAL project in the development of that standard.
The VISUAL Web Authoring Tool (VWAT) is an accessible web authoring tool (designed to be accessible from the beginning) that can be used both by visually impaired and sighted people to produce accessible content. The VWAT creates accessible web pages - clean structural mark-up - and encourages the use of Style Sheets - separate content from presentation. VWAT integrates a CSS editor. VWAT provides built-in validation for 1) XHTML syntax 2) CSS level 2 and 3) accessibility ratio of Web pages VWAT provides automatic conversion of valid HTML to XHTML It validates and guides users to repair accessibility errors. It provides 2 editing modes 1) source code 2) tree view. As a unique feature, VWAT integrates voice 1) into web pages (using the ConPalabras object) and in the tool itself (self-voicing mode). Moreover, VWAT provides a set of wizards to create XML/QTI tests/questions. VWAT supports user Help (off line in HTML format), Manuals (off line in HTML format), Quizzes (off line in HTML format) and Wizards that guide the user in the creation of web content, making it very difficult to create invalid or inaccessible web pages. The VWAT supports multi-language (currently available in English and Spanish) and provides advanced environment configuration options to change the look and feel of the GUI. Within VISUAL, four partners developed different parts and modules that were assembled into the VISUAL Web Authoring Tool. VISUAL results HTML Validation, HTML Accessibility Checking, CSS Validation, XHTML Course, QTI Wizard eTIP are some of those modules. SCT assembled to create the VWAT. SCT developed the accessible XHTML editing module, which is the core of the VISUAL tool, and designed and developed the accessible GUI to be compatible with assistive technologies and to provide built-in voice interaction. This is the global result of several developments made within the Visual project. Sufficiently knowledge has been gathered by the project partners to develop a fully functioning web authoring tool that takes into account all present WAI guidelines on accessible web-design. For more information, cf. the more specific Visual results.
KULRD wants to further develop XSLT transformations from IMS QTI into accessible (X) HTML. The KULRD group developed the project results in this field together with the Computer Science Dept. (Prof. Erik Duval) of the same Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
KULRD developed within VISUAL a software component that can serve as an interface/bridge to different validators. Bridges to JTidy and SP (James Clark's SGML parser) were developed. KULRD primarily wants to reuse this knowledge in further projects such as BenToWeb [IST-2-004275-STP] - Benchmarking Tools for the Web. SCT integrated the software component developed by the KULRD to perform HTML validation in the VISUAL tool, to offer an easy to use way to check and correct mark-up errors.
One of the objectives of the VISUAL Project was the development of an accessible portal that can be browsed by means of speech. By creating an e-learning portal, the Consortium tried to take advantage of the benefits of the e-learning method, and of the technology developed by VISUAL. Therefore the Consortium managed to offer multilingual educative contents that are accessible by any citizen of the European Community. The Portal has a Forum option that focuses on e-Learning and accessibility issues. The forum is both accessible and usable. The consortium used XML to store the QTI examples on the Examples Section and in the Test section. The XSLT language was used in the portal to transform the QTI examples in the Examples Section. During this last year (after the Final Review), the Portal has been updated and improved adding news related to accessibility, receiving questions at the forum, having new subscriptions, etc.
KULRD wants to further develop XSLT transformations from IMS QTI to accessible (X)HTML for use inside DocArch's own e-learning support for the post-academic XML course. The current electronic assessment system for this course currently uses a different format from IMS QTI. Consultancy to outside groups on this subject is also a possible exploitation result.

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