A Framework for Information Accessibility in Large Video Repositories

International audienceOnline videos are a medium of choice for young adults to access or receive information, and recent work has highlighted that it is a particularly effective medium for adults with intellectual disability, by its visual nature. Reflecting on a case study presenting fieldwork observations of how adults with intellectual disability engage with videos on the Youtube platform, we propose a framework to define and evaluate the accessibility of such large video repositories, from an informational perspective. The proposed framework nuances the concept of information accessibility from that of the accessibility of information access interfaces themselves (generally catered for under web accessibility guidelines), or that of the documents (generally covered in general accessibility guidelines). It also includes a notion of search (or browsing) accessibility, which reflects the ability to reach the document containing the information. In the context of large information repositories, this concept goes beyond how the documents are organized into how automated processes (browsing or searching) can support users. In addition to the framework we also detail specifics of document accessibility for videos. The framework suggests a multi-dimensional approach to information accessibility evaluation which includes both cognitive and sensory aspects. This framework can serve as a basis for practitioners when designing video information repositories accessible to people with intellectual disability, and extends on the information presentation guidelines such as suggested by the WCAG. Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM acknowledges that this contribution was authored or co-authored by an employee, contractor or affiliate of a national government. As such, the Government retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free right to publish or reproduce this article, or to allow others to do so, for Government purposes only

Invest to Save: Report and Recommendations of the NSF-DELOS Working Group on Digital Archiving and Preservation

Digital archiving and preservation are important areas for research and development, but there is no agreed upon set of priorities or coherent plan for research in this area. Research projects in this area tend to be small and driven by particular institutional problems or concerns. As a consequence, proposed solutions from experimental projects and prototypes tend not to scale to millions of digital objects, nor do the results from disparate projects readily build on each other. It is also unclear whether it is worthwhile to seek general solutions or whether different strategies are needed for different types of digital objects and collections. The lack of coordination in both research and development means that there are some areas where researchers are reinventing the wheel while other areas are neglected. Digital archiving and preservation is an area that will benefit from an exercise in analysis, priority setting, and planning for future research. The WG aims to survey current research activities, identify gaps, and develop a white paper proposing future research directions in the area of digital preservation. Some of the potential areas for research include repository architectures and inter-operability among digital archives; automated tools for capture, ingest, and normalization of digital objects; and harmonization of preservation formats and metadata. There can also be opportunities for development of commercial products in the areas of mass storage systems, repositories and repository management systems, and data management software and tools.

Illinois Digital Scholarship: Preserving and Accessing the Digital Past, Present, and Future

Since the University's establishment in 1867, its scholarly output has been issued primarily in print, and the University Library and Archives have been readily able to collect, preserve, and to provide access to that output. Today, technological, economic, political and social forces are buffeting all means of scholarly communication. Scholars, academic institutions and publishers are engaged in debate about the impact of digital scholarship and open access publishing on the promotion and tenure process. The upsurge in digital scholarship affects many aspects of the academic enterprise, including how we record, evaluate, preserve, organize and disseminate scholarly work. The result has left the Library with no ready means by which to archive digitally produced publications, reports, presentations, and learning objects, much of which cannot be adequately represented in print form. In this incredibly fluid environment of digital scholarship, the critical question of how we will collect, preserve, and manage access to this important part of the University scholarly record demands a rational and forward-looking plan - one that includes perspectives from diverse scholarly disciplines, incorporates significant research breakthroughs in information science and computer science, and makes effective projections for future integration within the Library and computing services as a part of the campus infrastructure.Prepared jointly by the University of Illinois Library and CITES at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig

Internet innovations:exploring new horizons

The aim of this paper is to provide a standpoint on an emerging trend in sharing digital video content over the Internet. The paper is based on participative evaluative analysis of business model employed by digital video content sharing providers. The authors have found that because of wide diffusion of broadband and cheap video recording equipment, enabling digital video content to be shared online, and emerging business internet video sharing practice its users increasingly find themselves infringing the intellectual property rights of others. This has implications for anyone using online video resources. The paper offers an insight into the increasing popularity of online video and the resulting dilemmas encountered by internet researchers; it also offers a functional way for researchers, businesses and online users to understand the mechanism of infringement of the intellectual property rights relating to online video content. The paper further contributes to expanding the understanding of internet users behaviour in relation to digital video content creation and distribution in the context of challenges faced by cyberlaw

Using metadata for content indexing within an OER network

This paper outlines the ICT solution for a metadata portal indexing open educational resources within a network of institutions. The network is aimed at blending academic and entrepreneurial knowledge,by enabling higher education institutions to publish various academic learning resources e.g. video lectures, course planning materials, or thematic content, whereasenterprises can present different forms of expert knowledge, such as case studies, expert presentations on specific topics, demonstrations of software implementation in practice and the like. As these resources need to bediscoverable, accessible and shared by potential learners across the learning environment, it is very important that they are well described and tagged in a standard way in machine readable form by metadata. Only then can they be successfully used and reused, especially when a large amount of these resources is reached, which makes it hard for the user to locate efficiently those of interest. The metadata set adopted in our approach relies on two standards: Dublin Core and Learning Object Metadata. The aim of metadata and the corresponding metadata portal described in this paper is to provide structured access to information on open educational resources within the network

Institutional Repositories: Features, Architecture, Design and Implementation Technologies

Europe is the leading continent in terms of active adoption and use of Digital Libraries – particularly Institutional Repositories (IRs). Africa has not done poorly in this area with a steady increase from 19 repositories in 2008 to 46 in January, 2011 but there is need to raise awareness and channel efforts towards making IRs easily accessible to Africans through ubiquitous channels such as hand-helds and mobile devices. This paper reviews the features, architecture, design and implementation technologies of IRs. In addition, it highlights viable research areas that can be pursued by African researchers in the field of Digital Libraries. It also encourages research efforts to focus on areas that will be beneficial to Africa

The evolving landscape of learning technology

This paper provides an overview of the current and emerging issues in learning technology research, concentrating on structural issues such as infrastructure, policy and organizational context. It updates the vision of technology outlined by Squires’ (1999) concept of peripatetic electronic teachers (PETs) where Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide an enabling medium to allow teachers to act as freelance agents in a virtual world and reflects to what extent this vision has been realized The paper begins with a survey of some of the key areas of ICT development and provides a contextualizing framework for the area in terms of external agendas and policy drivers. It then focuses upon learning technology developments which have occurred in the last five years in the UK and offers a number of alternative taxonomies to describe this. The paper concludes with a discussion of the issues which arise from this work

The Sustainability, Preservation and Accessibility of Internal and External Communities by Universities

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : DSpace User Group PresentationsDate: 2009-05-20 03:30 PM – 05:00 PMThis paper will provide three different cases or examples of how a mid-size University is able to implement DSpace across diverse groups of users. Additionally, one of the cases will show how the DSpace software has been 'repurposed' to serve as the university library's Electronic Reserve and how it has been linked the library's ILS. The paper will show how the university has obtained a consistent level of sustainability, preservation and accessibility to using DSpace with limited resources

MoPark Initiative, Metadata Options Appraisal (Phase I)

Examines – and makes recommendations on - the needs of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park as regards the metadata, metadata standards, and metadata management required for the competent handling of digital materials both now and in the future. Proposes an iterative approach to determining metadata requirements, working within a METS-based framework