eAccessibility Lab [Home]
Welcome to the eAccessibility lab at the Research Centre for Networks and Communications Engineering (RINCE) of DCU. The lab carries out research and outreach on the accessibility of web sites and services to users with disabilities. We have recently completed participation in the Support-EAM Project, investigating the establishment of a Europe-wide "quality mark" for web accessibility. We also participate in the W3C WAI Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) and the Irish eAccessibility Design-for-All Network. See the white papers section for more details of our work.
News
- 27 Nov 2006: The e-Access lab, in conjunction with Irish Design-for-All e-Accessibility Network, will celebrate the 2006 UN International Day for Disabled Persons with an open event on 6th December 2006 at DCU, with demonstrations and presentations around the topics of e-accessibility and education.
- 16 Nov 2006: We are pleased to announce availability of a new white paper: Some Comments on Accessibility of PDF Format Resources.
- 23 May 2006: The eAccess lab will be presenting at the Irish eGovernment Centre of Excellence Seminar on 24th May 2006. You can find the "un-presentation" slides here.
- 28 November 2005: The full report on a study of the e-Accessibility of European Online Public Services has been published. The report was launched at the EU Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Manchester, 27-28th November, 2005. Also available are the slides from the presentation at the conference by Dr. Barry McMullin.
- 25 October 2005: The eAccess lab will be running an online training course on web accessibility for academic staff from October 24th - November 21st 2005. (Participation open to DCU staff only.)
- 27 September 2005: Presentation materials from the seminar on Web Accessibility Marks in Europe are now online.
- 28 July 2005: Seminar Announcement. The eAccess Lab, in conjunction with the Irish Design-for-all and eAccessibility Network (Irl-Dean), is pleased to announce a seminar on Web Accessibility Marks in Europe, which will take place in DCU on 31st August 2005.
- 14 June 2005: Morag Munro and Barry McMullin recently presented a paper entitled Conflict of interests? Can tensions between accessibility, interactivity and multimedia in e-learning be overcome? at EdTech 2005.
- 6 June 2005: Following a number of enquiries, the eAccess Lab has produced a brief white paper providing Some Comments on Accessibility of CHM Format Resources.
- 18 February 2005 (09.00 GMT): The technical issues with accessing the www.support-eam-org website have been resolved, and the Support-EAM Questionaire on Stakeholders needs for a European eAccessibility certification and services is fully open. We would greatly appreciate all input to this important Europe-wide initiative.
- 16 February 2005: Please complete the Support-EAM Questionaire on Stakeholders needs for a European eAccessibility certification and services - this is your opportunity to inform this important EU project, and influence the development of a Europe-wide quality mark for website accessibility. See also the full announcement and invitation to participate in both this questionaire and the CEN CWA standardisation process.
- 11 February 2005: Support-EAM and CEN/ISSS are preparing a new Workshop to address "Specifications for a European certification scheme concerning the delivery of a Quality Mark for Web Content Accessibility". Its kick-off meeting is scheduled for 14 April in Brussels. At this meeting, the Business Plan will be approved.
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28 January 2005: The eAccess lab will
be represented at the Colloque
BrailleNet: Politiques et Législations en faveur de
l'accessibilité numérique en Europe, in Paris, 31
January 2005. More details are available as follows:
- Full paper: A Comparative Assessment of Web Accessibility and Technical Standards Conformance in Four EU States (Carmen Marincu and Barry McMullin)
- Presentation slides.
- 2 November 2004: The kickoff meeting for the Support-EAM project took place in Paris, on 28-29 October 2004. The eAccess lab contributed a brief white paper on current Web Accessibility Status/Policy in Ireland.
- 11 June 2004:Barry McMullin will present the RINCE Research seminar on Friday 11th June 2004 (DCU, Room HG19, Nursing Building), with the title Accessibility: The Inclusive Web - One for Everyone in the Audience?.
- 16 April 2004: A new white paper, A Comparative Assessment of Web Accessibility and Technical Standards Conformance in Four EU States is now available.
- 10 December 2003: Barry McMullin will speak at the e-Learning Day 2003 at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) on Thursday 11th December 2003. (This will recycle the same presentation, Accessibility: The Inclusive Web - One for Everyone in the Audience? previously given at the HEAnet National Networking Conference.)
- 5 November 2003: Slides are available for the talk Accessibility: The Inclusive Web - One for Everyone in the Audience? to be presented by Barry McMullin at the HEAnet National Networking Conference in Kilkenny, 7 November 2003.
- 26 September2003: The eAccess site has been redesigned to further enhance accessibility. We have taken the decision to move to HTML strict coding, with all presentational effects achieved via CSS. We have also added a site search facility via Google. Do please let us know what you think!
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23 September2003: The results of a study of accessibility of 30
French Web sites (in French) have been published
today. The study was conducted in a collaboration
between the eAccess Lab at RINCE, and the Association BrailleNet. By evaluating the
accessibility of 30 popular French Web sites, the
Association BrailleNet wanted to
check the reality of what should be a natural objective
for all these sites: to be consultable and usable by
all, and thus in particular by users with disability.
Key results were as follows:
- None of the 30 sites meets level A (the minimum level) of the internationally recognised W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
- None of the 30 sites meets the requirements for the Bronze level (the minimum level) of the AccessiWeb accessibility label.
- More than 60% of the 30 sites failed to meet more than 50% of the Bronze criteria for the AccessiWeb label.
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4 September2003:
- A new white paper, Improving Access to Online Information via Valid HTML Mark Up is now available. This was first presented by Carmen Marincu at the conference The Good, The Bad and The Irrelevant, Helsinki, 3--5 September 2003.
- Slides are available for the talk Large Scale Web Accessibility Evaluation presented by Barry McMullin at the WAI-EO Web Accessibility Evaluation Exchange held in Dublin, 4 September 2003.
- 4 May 2003:A HTML version of the document Equal Citizens Proposals for Core Elements of Disability Legislation Disability is now available.
- 28 April 2003: EuroAccessibility: Twenty-four European Organisations Launch Effort for a More Accessible Web.
- 24 April 2003: The eAccess lab will be represented at the Colloque BrailleNet 2003, Nouvelles Technologies pour une Société plus Accessible, in Paris, 28-29 April. More details are available as follows:
- 23 January 2003: It has come to our attention that marketing material has recently been circulated by "Symbiant Consultancy Services (Irl) Ltd.", citing the work of this lab. We would like to make clear that there is no relationship between that organisation and RINCE or DCU; and that we have no knowledge of, and do not endorse in any way, any products or services which they may supply. For advice or consultancy, from this lab, relating to e-accessibility issues, please contact us directly!
- 12 December 2002: The first results of the Web Accessibility Reporting Project (WARP) have been formally published in a paper called "Users with Disability Need Not Apply? Web Accessibility in Ireland", in the online peer-reviewed journal First Monday, volume 7, number 12 (December 2002).
- 21 November 2002: The first report of the Web Accessibility Reporting Project (WARP) was officially launched today.
