Publicaciones científicas accesibles para personas ciegas y deficientes visuales

La obra, tesis doctoral de la autora, defendida en la Universidad de Barcelona en 2009, analiza la situación actual de la edición accesible, atendiendo a las necesidades específicas de los usuarios con discapacidad visual, y valora las características de los documentos digitales en función de tales necesidades. Al estudiar la estructura de los diversos tipos de documentos digitales, la autora señala la edición de artículos científicos como sector más avanzado, por lo que este tipo de documentos constituyen un modelo particularmente idóneo para validar la edición accesible

Daisy: an open, multimodal and accessible digital book

Introduction of the Daisy multimedia book format, which integrates text, sound, images and video in a synchronized sequence. Daisy presents a high usability for digital reading thanks to its advanced navigation through text or audio. The article also describes DTBook, the text component of Daisy, which is a highly structured xml format ideal to create alternate format editions. The article sets out the differences between Daisy and other audiobooks and presents the most common Daisy players and Daisy market adoption. The format has good potential for becoming a flagship format in ebook publishing if costs of playing devices decrease and a solution is found for digital rights management

La educación post-Covid y el alumnado con discapacidad o con necesidades específicas de apoyo educativo: marco normativo y experiencias

The aim of this research is to summarise thoughts, feelings and demands of lecturers, students and support staff in relation to special needs education, within the context of a legal framework with stated compromises and legal duties. The research is contextualized in the COVID-19 pandemics online or hybrid teaching, and it compares the statements of stakeholders with the recommendations issued by universities during this period and with existing best practices. The article aims to give an answer to the following questions: Which are the most important measures for students with special needs in this situation? Which are the most important for lecturers? How can we get ready for similar emergency situations? The methodology consisted in a review of the legal and standard framework, and a thematic analysis of 45 semi-structured interviews to students (27), lecturers (10), and support staff (8). The most problematic areas for students,lecturers and support staff are the inaccessibility of online teaching, virtual classrooms, teaching material, exams and assessment exercises. Students also emphasize the need for emotional/social support and the lack of it.El objetivo de esta investigación es presentar un análisis de las reflexiones, valoraciones y peticiones del profesorado, alumnado y personal de gestión universitario en relación a la docencia para alumnado con necesidades específicas de aprendizaje, en un marco legal explícito de obligaciones y compromisos adquiridos. El estudio se enmarca en la experiencia de la docencia online o híbrida durante la pandemia de la COVID-19 y se comparan las declaraciones de las personas implicadas con las medidas publicadas por las universidades y las buenas prácticas existentes. Las cuestiones a las que se pretende dar respuesta son: ¿Qué medidas son importantes para el estudiantado con necesidades específicas en situaciones como la vivida? ¿Cuáles lo son para el profesorado? ¿Cómo podemos prepararnos ante nuevas situaciones de emergencia? La metodología de investigación ha consistido en una revisión documental del marco normativo y legislativo aplicable, así como en el análisis temático con base en las transcripciones de 45 entrevistas semi-estructuradas realizadas a estudiantes (27), docentes (10), y personal con responsabilidades relacionadas con el estudiantado con necesidades específicas del aprendizaje (8). Las cuestiones más problemáticas detectadas tanto por estudiantes como por docentes y personal de gestión son la no accesibilidad total de las clases en línea, las aulas virtuales, los materiales docentes, así como de los exámenes o pruebas de evaluación. Por parte del estudiantado, se destaca también el escaso acompañamiento emocional/social con el que han contado

Accessible charts are part of the equation of accessible papers: a heuristic evaluation of the highest impact LIS Journals

Purpose Statistical charts are an essential source of information in academic papers. Charts have an important role in conveying, clarifying and simplifying the research results provided by the authors, but they present some accessibility barriers for people with low vision. This article aims to evaluate the accessibility of the statistical charts published in the library and information science (LIS) journals with the greatest impact factor. Design/methodology/approach A list of heuristic indicators developed by the authors has been used to assess the accessibility of statistical charts for people with low vision. The heuristics have been applied to a sample of charts from 2019 issues of ten LIS journals with the highest impact factor according to the ranking of the JCR. Findings The current practices of image submission do not follow the basic recommended guidelines on accessibility like color contrast or the use of textual alternatives. On the 2 other hand, some incongruities between the technical suggestions of image submission and their application in analyzed charts also emerged. The main problems identified are: poor text alternatives, insufficient contrast ratio between adjacent colors, and the inexistence of customization options. Authoring tools do not help authors to fulfill these requirements. Research limitations The sample is not very extensive; nonetheless, it is representative of common practices and the most frequent accessibility problems in this context. Social implications The heuristics proposed are a good starting point to generate guidelines for authors when preparing their papers for publication and to guide journal publishers in creating accessible documents. Low vision users, a highly prevalent condition, will benefit from the improvements. Originality/value The results of this research provide key insights into low vision accessibility barriers, not considered in previous literature and can be a starting point for their solution.This research has been done in the framework of the PhD Programme in Engineering and Information Technology of the Universitat de Lleida (UdL). This work has been partially supported by the Spanish project PID2019-105093GB-I00 (MINECO/FEDER, UE) and CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya

Apoyo de voz en la lectura en el ámbito de la educación superior: informe del proyecto "Campus multimodal" en la Universitat de Barcelona

Se presentan los resultados de una prueba piloto de estudio e impulso de dos herramientas de apoyo de voz en la lectura, ClaroRead y ReadSpeak, en la Universitat de Barcelona, como ejemplo de aplicación de los principios de diseño curricular universal. Para valorar su impacto se realizan diferentes modalidades de encuestas y tests de uso en las que participó una muestra de alumnos bastante numerosa, y también una entrevista orientada al profesorado. Los resultados permiten conocer problemas de lectura de los usuarios, y las mejoras aportadas por la lectura multimodal.

Is the PDF format accessible?

The Adobe PDF format is one of the most widely used in scientific communications in digital format and in administrative documents. In its latest versions it has incorporated structural tags and improvements that increase its level of accessibility. This article reviews the concept of accessibility in the reading of digital documents and evaluates the accessibility of PDF according to the most widely established standards

Aproximación a la accesibilidad del formato PDF

Adobe PDF 1.7 format accessibility is evaluated on the basis of WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0. It's behaviour with JAWS Screen Reader and Adobe Reader is tested. Results indicate that the format is basically conformat with WCAG guidelines, both versions, but presents a bad integration with JAWS

Evolución y tendencias en la interacción persona–ordenador

The author reviews the milestones of the field of human–computer interaction (HCI) from its beginnings to the current state based on three factors: vision, technology and computer use. For the current period (from 1989), the article analyzes the importance of the WWW and of ubiquitous computing, the most influential new paradigm in computing of the last twenty years. Finally, the trends that are reconfiguring post–WIMP interfaces are highlighted