Social trends are increasing the awareness of social inclusion which encourage content creators to publish accessible. According to the World Blind Union only 5% of published works, such as books and educational materials, are currently available in accessible formats. The move to digital books and supports, has the potential to greatly increase access to reading for the print impaired. Because of this, new laws that set accessibility minimums to many works are appearing. The new European Accessibility Act, which was voted into parliament on the 13 March 2019, is an example. Now, all European publishers must make their digital books accessible. However, it may be seen that there are a noticeable amount of works that continue being published in a non-accessible way. This workshop is offered with the aim of contributing to change this situation. That is causing some struggles in the publishing industry, which highly demands qualified professionals with the new required skills.

Attendees will:

• Get an overview about the current status of inclusion and accessibility requirements in digital publishing
• Learn what is and how to use ePub format to produce accessible works from the beginning
• Have access to the preliminary version of a training for accessible digital publishing production, developed by the Erasmus+ project SIDPT.

Target Audience

• Content creators; writers, people from academia, designers and developers.
• Managers of publishing-related organizations.
• People who work in the publishing industry from content creators, designers and developers to publishing firms’ managers.

Additional information

Inside EPUB

In this a hands-on training in which we will break open the EPUB to show how they are put together. We will show how easy can be add content in this format and produce accessible results. Using freely available tools, we will learn how to make improvements to an EPUB file, and how to validate the new version we made. We'll also look at ways that professionals not directly linked to de publishing industry like professors can make their own EPUBs. And with the variety of tools shown is it possible for all distribute their work in an accessible manner.

SIDPT

Supporting Inclusive Digital Publishing through Training is an Erasmus+ founded project which main goal is provide the accessibility competences and skills that are currently missing from professions involved in the production of digital publications. For doing so, SIDPT attempt to provide practical and effective learning materials for publishers and producers of digital publications, so they can make content accessible and implement accessibility requirements into their workflows. The project is being developed as a strategic partnership whose participants are BrailleNet (FR), Dedicon (NL) and Johannes Kepler Universität Linz (AU). The three participant are involved in the field of digital accessibility and the development of tools and methodologies to support learning in this area.

Persons

• Richard Orme
• Reinhard Ruemer
• Valentin Salinas-Lopez

Appointments:

• Thursday - 10th September 2020 14:40 - 16:00