Accessibility Continues to Evolve in Education Publishing

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Accessibility Continues to Evolve in Education Publishing

In an article we published on this blog back in 2017, we highlighted some of the challenges, complexities and benefits associated with making digital educational content (K-12 and Higher Ed) more accessible for visually and cognitively impaired readers.

Fast forward several years and the sector’s commitment to digital equality has really been put to the test. As millions of students all over the world switched to remote learning, educational publishers and learning providers had to act quickly to ensure that all the right resources and content were available digitally in order to support students’ rapidly evolving needs.

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Digital Equality for Distance Learning

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Digital Equality for Distance Learning

Accessible content ensures that students with disabilities don’t fall behind during the Great Shutdown

Here at KGL, we have long championed accessibility in publishing. Ensuring that your books, journals, digital products, websites and other content are either remediated or “born accessible” is essential to readers with disabilities. Many publishers by now appreciate that the same technologies and guidelines that improve access to materials for people with visual or hearing impairments, limited mobility, perceptual and cognitive differences can also open opportunities to better reach and serve all users. But if there has ever been a time to acknowledge the consequences of digital equality, it is the great experiment in distance learning of 2020.

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Accessibility as a Civil Right

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Accessibility as a Civil Right

In October, the United States Supreme Court handed down an order stating that it would not take up a plea from Domino’s pizza chain to reverse a decision in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stating that the company must make its website accessible to people with disabilities. This lawsuit is one of many that have been brought in the last two years against fashion designers, art galleries, gyms, grocery stores, among other companies in a variety of industries, which host websites featuring content which is inaccessible to the visually impaired.

Under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, any business with at least 15 full-time employees which operates for 20 or more weeks every year must provide accommodations for those with disabilities. As the marketplace is going from a physical to a digital one and more content—from news to research—is being read more online than off, it has become vital for those hosting the content to adapt to accessible content.

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Accessibility: Because the Internet is Blind

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Accessibility: Because the Internet is Blind

Like the visually impaired, the Internet cannot “see” content the way a sighted human being does. It can only discover relevant content via searchable text and metadata. When publishers take the right steps to make content accessible, they also make it more discoverable.

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NIMAS: Opportunities With XML-Based Accessibility Specifications for Publishers

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NIMAS: Opportunities With XML-Based Accessibility Specifications for Publishers

Since the early nineteenth century invention of braille, the concept of making written content available to the blind or visually impaired has been a noble aspiration of civilized society. Making that concept a practical reality is another matter. Even as new, more automated, technologies arise, the challenges of accessibility remain formidable. For educational publishers, accessibility is particularly important. In the United States, schools receiving federal funding support are required to provide accessible content to any student or parent who requests it.

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