Viko Eahil 2009

WikiVIKO : Information Literacy on a Wiki Platform

How to secure equal Access for Students with Disabilities

Karen Johanne BusetSigvor KvaleNTNU Library, Trondheim, Norway

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This session will focus on

• Universal design and web accessibility • Making the tutorial VIKO accessible to all

students• Process and methods of migrating VIKO to a

wiki platform

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Universal design

”…the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.” (Ron Mace, creator of the term “Universal design”)

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Principles for universal design

• Equitable use • Flexibility in use • Simple and intuitive • Perceptible information • Tolerance for error • Low physical effort • Size and space for approach and use

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Web accessibility

• Most web sites have barriers that make it difficult for many people to use the Web

• Web accessibility secures that people with disabilities can use the Web

“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” (Tim Berners-Lee)

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Web accessibility in Norway

The Act’s purpose is to strengthen the legal protection against discrimination on the basis of disability and contains rules concerning universal design, accessibility and user friendliness and it also applies to ICT. (The Anti-Discrimination and Accessibility Act, 1. January 2009)

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• Interactive course in information literacy

• Designed for students at NTNU

• Provides help in searching for information and writing papers

• Can be implemented as part of other library and university courses

• 36 subject guides, including Medicine and Health Science

VIKO

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Accessible VIKO

The students who would benefit most from good web design are those who are blind, partially sighted or dyslectic, and in particular those who use screen reading technology

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Solution to make VIKO accessible

• Follow guidelines and standards so that the assistive technologies can interact with VIKO

• The most important standards are: – WAI recommendation – XHTML 1.0 – CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

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From VIKO to WikiVIKO

• Testing• Main problems• New platform• DokuWiki

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Migrating to DokuWiki

• Principles• Technical solutions

– Plugins– Navigation– Design

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What do we achieve when we migrate from static HTML to the wiki platform?

• VIKO will meet the requirements for students with disabilities

• VIKO will be easy to update• DokuWiki generates standard HTML code

which makes it possible to adapt VIKO for use on mobile platforms e.g. iPhone