New organisation to make online video more accessible for blind and vision impaired people

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Friday, 11 November 2011 12:42pm

The Video Description Research and Development Center (VDRCD) is a new organisation funded by the US Department of Education which will investigate and develop new technologies to make online video more accessible for students who are blind or have impaired vision.

Located at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco, the VDRCD will identify and prototype new technologies to improve access via audio description to educational material delivered via the Internet and mobile devices.

Any software that it develops will be made available as free, open-source software. A number of projects are already in development, including Crowd-Sourced Description for Web-Based Video, and Remote Real-Time Description. (Video description is a term often used in the US for audio description.)

The VDRCD works closely with the Description Leadership Network, a coalition of organisations involved with developing policy and technology relating to blindness and video accessibility. 

Information about online video can be found in our Online Media section.


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