Web browser accessibility using open source software

A Web browser provides a uniform user interface to different types of information. Making this interface universally accessible and more interactive is a long term goal still far from being achieved. Universally accessible browsers require novel interaction modalities and additional functionalities, for which existing browsers tend to provide only partial solutions. Although functionality for Web accessibility can be found as open source and free software components, their reuse and integration is complex because they were developed in diverse implementation environments, following standards and conventions incompatible with the Web. To enable the integration of existing partial solutions within a mainstream Web browser environment, we have developed a middleware infrastructure, AMICO:WEB. This enables browser access to a wide variety of open source and free software components. The main contribution of AMICO:WEB is in enabling the syntactic interoperability between Web extension mechanisms and a variety of integration mechanisms used by open source and free software components. It als

Integrating heterogeneous open-source software into web browsers using AMICO:WEB

A web browser provides a uniform user interface to different types of information. Making this interface universally accessible and more interactive is a long term goal still far from being achieved. Universally accessible browsers require novel interaction modalities and additional functionalities, for which existing browsers tend to provide only partial solutions. Although functionality for web accessibility can be found as open-source and free software components, their reuse and integration is complex because they were developed in diverse implementation environments, following standards and conventions incompatible with the web. To enable the integration of existing partial solutions within a mainstream web browser environment, we have developed a middleware infrastructure, AMICO:WEB. This enables browser access to a wide variety of open source and free software components. The main contribution of AMICO:WEB is in enabling the syntactic interoperability between web extension mechanisms and a variety of integration mechanisms used by open-source and free software components. It also bridges the semantic differences between the high-level world of web XML-based APIs and the low-level APIs of the device-oriented world. We discuss the design decisions made during the development of AMICO:WEB in the context of web accessibility, using two typical usage scenarios: one describing a disabled user using a mainstream web browser with additional interaction modalities; another describing a non-disabled user browsing in a suboptimal interaction situation

An AAC enabled internet: from user requirements to guidelines

Ensuring that WWW pages are accessible and usable for people with complex communication needs provides a particular challenge for WWW page designers. Despite advances in commercially available assistive technologies, people using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) comment on continuing difficulty and frustration in physical access to technology and subsequent reliance on non-disabled partners (Clarke et al., 2001 and 2002). The EU WWAAC (World Wide Augmentative and Alternative Communication) project, which began in January 2001, has been engaged in a number of research and development activities in order to overcome some of these problems, including the: • Development of Internet applications, including an adapted Web browser, tailored to the needs of people who use AAC • Contribution to the development of Web accessibility guidelines • Development of a communication infrastructure and protocol to support symbol-based communication on the Web, based upon open-sourced concept coding • Development of a Dreamweaver extension to enable Web developers to symbol embellish their Web pages via the on-line concept coding database. This paper will concentrate on the first 2 activities to demonstrate how the design, development and evaluation of an adapted Web browser with people who use AAC will lead to more accessible and usable software. This work is also contributing to the development of WWW accessibility guidelines, which will feed into the work of the World Wide Web Consortium–Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C–WAI). It is important, however, to consider these activities in light of the concept coding stream of the work, which is briefly described below. Concept coding will facilitate the sharing of symbol-based content between different symbol users using different symbol language systems. It will also enable symbols to be converted into text and vice versa. This might mean, for example, that a person who uses AAC could open an Internet bank account by completing an on-line form using their own symbol system. The vision of concept coding is that instead of images and symbols having to be transferred from one computer to another, it is possible to share a unique code designating the meaning of the symbol needing to be transferred. In addition to efficiency in handling images used for communication purposes, this concept would also allow personalised or idiosyncratic symbols specific to one person to be used by them in Internet-based communication. An open source concept coding, in combination with more accessible and usable software, is the driving force behind the WWAAC project

An AAC-Enabled Internet: From User Requirements to Guidelines

Ensuring that WWW pages are accessible and usable for people with complex communication needs provides a particular challenge for WWW page designers. Despite advances in commercially available assistive technologies, people using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) comment on continuing difficulty and frustration in physical access to technology and subsequent reliance on non-disabled partners (Clarke et al., 2001 and 2002). The EU WWAAC (World Wide Augmentative and Alternative Communication) project, which began in January 2001, has been engaged in a number of research and development activities in order to overcome some of these problems, including the: • Development of Internet applications, including an adapted Web browser, tailored to the needs of people who use AAC • Contribution to the development of Web accessibility guidelines • Development of a communication infrastructure and protocol to support symbol-based communication on the Web, based upon open-sourced concept coding • Development of a Dreamweaver extension to enable Web developers to symbol embellish their Web pages via the on-line concept coding database. This paper will concentrate on the first 2 activities to demonstrate how the design, development and evaluation of an adapted Web browser with people who use AAC will lead to more accessible and usable software. This work is also contributing to the development of WWW accessibility guidelines, which will feed into the work of the World Wide Web Consortium–Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C–WAI). It is important, however, to consider these activities in light of the concept coding stream of the work, which is briefly described below. Concept coding will facilitate the sharing of symbol-based content between different symbol users using different symbol language systems. It will also enable symbols to be converted into text and vice versa. This might mean, for example, that a person who uses AAC could open an Internet bank account by completing an on-line form using their own symbol system. The vision of concept coding is that instead of images and symbols having to be transferred from one computer to another, it is possible to share a unique code designating the meaning of the symbol needing to be transferred. In addition to efficiency in handling images used for communication purposes, this concept would also allow personalised or idiosyncratic symbols specific to one person to be used by them in Internet-based communication. An open source concept coding, in combination with more accessible and usable software, is the driving force behind the WWAAC project

TechNews digests: Jan - Nov 2009

TechNews is a technology, news and analysis service aimed at anyone in the education sector keen to stay informed about technology developments, trends and issues. TechNews focuses on emerging technologies and other technology news. TechNews service : digests september 2004 till May 2010 Analysis pieces and News combined publish every 2 to 3 month

Secure multi-party computation for analytics deployed as a lightweight web application

We describe the definition, design, implementation, and deployment of a secure multi-party computation protocol and web application. The protocol and application allow groups of cooperating parties with minimal expertise and no specialized resources to compute basic statistical analytics on their collective data sets without revealing the contributions of individual participants. The application was developed specifically to support a Boston Women’s Workforce Council (BWWC) study of wage disparities within employer organizations in the Greater Boston Area. The application has been deployed successfully to support two data collection sessions (in 2015 and in 2016) to obtain data pertaining to compensation levels across genders and demographics. Our experience provides insights into the particular security and usability requirements (and tradeoffs) a successful “MPC-as-a-service” platform design and implementation must negotiate.We would like to acknowledge all the members of the Boston Women’s Workforce Council, and to thank in particular MaryRose Mazzola, Christina M. Knowles, and Katie A. Johnston, who led the efforts to organize participants and deploy the protocol as part of the 100% Talent: The Boston Women’s Compact [31], [32] data collections. We also thank the Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC), and in particular Executive Director Katherine Lusk, who brought this potential application of secure multi-party computation to our attention. The BWWC, the IOC, and several sponsors contributed funding to complete this work. Support was also provided in part by Smart-city Cloud-based Open Platform and Ecosystem (SCOPE), an NSF Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships PFI:BIC project under award #1430145, and by Modular Approach to Cloud Security (MACS), an NSF CISE CNS SaTC Frontier project under award #1414119

Accessing the mobile web: myth or reality?

Emerging technologies for learning report - Article exploring open web standard