Disability no Hindrance

Action plan by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, which put focus on accessibility in the IT- and telecom area in the Danish society.

• The goal is to
  • enhance accessibility to public information and to public workplaces
  • secure that the public services, which are offered digital, are accessible for all

Center of Competence in the National IT- and Telecom Agency

Purpose: to strengthen the consciousness in the public sector about accessibility

• IT-political initiatives
• E-government
• Increases the awareness in the accessibility area
  • different information strategies
  • conscious-making activities
• Development of a public procurement toolkit for accessibility in e-government systems
  • focus on standards/recommendations and universally applicable product design.
• Member of the Work Group responsible for the Danish version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and related materials.

Establishment of an investment fund of DKK 5 million (approx EUR 673,000)

The goal of the fund is to support the development of products and services, which includes disabled people in the network society

• Setting up a help-desk/hot line at the Danish Center for Accessibility
• Developing a Danish Speech recognition system

Best on the Web

National project from 2001 - 2003 evaluating public web sites (more than 1500 sites). Has been an important driver in motivating all authorities to develop websites of high quality, usability and accessibility.

There was specific attention to accessibility-issues as a consequence of the focus generated by the disability year 2003. An important part of the rating system looks at Web Accessibility. It was not possible to obtain the maximum rating if the homepage was not accessible.

Planed activities

The Center of Competence is working on or planning to make:

• Work shops for web designers
• Seminars about web accessibility
• Information materials to different audiences
  • web designers
  • decision makers
  • web masters

Best on the Web

• Continues in a different setting
  • mainly self evaluation
  • now run solely by the National IT- and Telecom Agency

Credits

This information is kindly supplied by Harald J&olash;rgensen, Department of IT-strategy and statistics, The Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affairs

E-Norway 2005

Status of Public web sites June 2003.

• 606 sites evaluated
• 2 sites got maximum points(6 stars)
• State web sites better that municipal web sites
• Big variation in the results
• Very few sites complies to WCAG

ICT strategy for 2003 - 2005:

• Public web sites must be
  • user friendly
  • comply with international recommendations (W3C/WAI)

Public Information on the Internet must be compliant to the WAI Standards, announced as official policy by the government on June 13th 2003

ROBACC - ROBot assessing web ACCessibility

Purpose of the project: Develop an Internet robot assessing the accessibility of web sites.

• Validate web sites compared to Open standards (W3C and IETF)
• Provide quantitative accessibility indicators
• Demonstrate use of Open Source
• Raise awareness, to encourage competition for better web sites, publication-tools, and requirement specifications
• http://osys.grm.hia.no/fou/robacc/robacc.html

European Union Initiatives

Accessibility is an interpretation of non-discrimination. Improving eAccessibility at the European level are of three main types:

• Human rights policy
  • From the human rights policy perspective, eAccessibility is an extension of general accessibility measures and activities for disabled people.
• Social inclusion policy and Employment policies
  • From the social inclusion and employment policy perspectives, there are a number of initiatives aimed at disadvantaged people as a whole (including disabled people) for whom positive actions are deemed necessary. Particularly in relation to ICTs, the term eInclusion is used. A key document in this respect is a Commission Staff working document on: Inclusion - The Information Society's potential for social inclusion in Europe
• Support for RTD&D and standardization actions.
  • In research and development, eAccessibility has been substantially addressed in the TIDE Initiative as well as in the Fourth and the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technical Development (5FP). In the Information Society Technologies (IST) thematic programme, Key Action 1: "Systems and services for the citizen", and especially the area 1.2: "Persons with special needs including the disabled and elderly". In the Sixth Framework Programme (6FP), the IST programme has a subprogramme on Major Societal and Economic Challenges, where eInclusion is one of the themes.

eEurope 2002: An information society for all

Public sector web sites and their content in Member States and in the European Institutions must be designed to be accessible to ensure that citizens with disabilities can access information and take full advantage of the potential for e-government. In relation to 'designing-in' accessibility to all information society technologies, training for designers in this area is relatively new and therefore fragmented across Europe.

• Policies to avoid info-exclusion will be more effectively co-ordinated at European level through benchmarking of performance and exchange of best practice between Member States.
• Adoption of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines for public websites.
• Review relevant legislation and standards to ensure conformity with accessibility principles.

eEurope 2005: An information society for all

Council Resolution on the implementation of the eEurope 2005 Action Plan

• the vital importance of an inclusive approach (e-inclusion) by all stakeholders to the information society.

Progress during eEurope 2002

• Internet penetration in homes has doubled
• Telecom framework in place
• Internet access prices have fallen
• Almost all companies and schools are connected
• Europe now has world's fastest research backbone network
• e-commerce legal framework largely in place
• More government services available online
• A smartcard infrastructure is emerging
• Web accessibility guidelines adopted and recommended in Member States

Different approaches in Member Countries

Countries with legislation

• General legislation
  • The Disability Discrimination Act 1995, Part III Access to Goods and Services (GB)
• Special legislation
  • Barrierefreie Informationstechnik Verordnung (BITV) (GE)

Countries with non-binding soft laws

• Projects and standards
  • Drempels Weg, Quality Mark for Web Accessibility (NL)
• Recommendations/Guidelines
  • Recommended Guidelines for Public Sector Organizations (IRL)

W3C/WAI Policies Relating to Web Accessibility. Links to governmental policies that have some bearing on accessibility of government, commercial, and/or other kinds of Web sites.