Research & Policy

Error message

Deprecated function: Array and string offset access syntax with curly braces is deprecated in include_once() (line 14 of /home/mediacc/public_html/themes/engines/phptemplate/phptemplate.engine).

US Government releases FAQs for accessible eReader laws and rules

no

The United States Department of Education has released a new guide that provides further clarification for schools and colleges about the laws and rules they must follow to ensure eBook readers and other emerging technologies are accessible to all students.

The guide is a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the June 29, 2010, Dear Colleague Letter that was sent to college and university presidents expressing concern that these institutions were using electronic book readers that were inaccessible to people who were blind or vision impaired.

The FAQs, released on 26 May 2011, reinforce that the same considerations apply to:

Digital media and technology: 

Top of page

Report on captioning in the European Union released

no

The European Federation of Hard of Hearing People (EFHOH) has released a report which looks at levels of captioning on audiovisual media across the European Union.

The EFHOH, which has been campaigning for increased levels of captioning for the last ten years, notes that some countries have made great progress in that time. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France now have 100% captioning on their main television channels, but other countries are lagging behind.

The EFHOH notes that there are 50 million Deaf and hearing impaired people in Europe, and believes that 100% of programs on all public TV channels should be captioned by 2020.


Top of page

Australian Government seeks Senior Web Accessibility Policy Officer

no

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) is advertising for an Executive Level 1 – Senior Web Accessibility Policy Officer.

AGIMO, which is part of the Department of Finance and Deregulation, is tasked with delivering the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy – a strategy that requires government websites to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.  

The strategy requires all Federal, State, and Territory government websites to conform to the Single A level of the WCAG 2.0 by the end of 2012.  All Commonwealth Government websites must conform to the Double A level of WCAG 2.0 by the end of 2014.


Top of page

Football fan sues American university over lack of captioning at games

no

A hearing impaired man who attends University of Kentucky home football games at Commonwealth Stadium, has filed a case in a US district court to try to force the university to provide captioning of all announcements during the games.

The man, Charles Mitchell, said that captions for announcements over the public address system could be displayed on video boards and monitors, and not doing so was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

He has asked the court to issue a permanent injunction ordering the University of Kentucky to provide Deaf and hearing impaired people with equal access to all activities and services during games.


Top of page

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Research & Policy