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2011-03-10
2010-04-14
2009-08-16
"It is essential that everybody in the eBook ecology work together to maintain and evolve the EPUB Standards," said George Kerscher (who is blind) Chair of the maintenance working group.
The EPUB standards are open and living specifications. The members of the working group are committed to assisting with corrections and improvements to the EPUB standards that will lead to wider adoption and greater accessibility. Details are available in the IDPF Press release.
2009-03-18
2008-11-06
DAISY Consortium Presents 2008 Culture of Sharing Award to Stephen King, Group Director Access and Innovation at the Royal National Institute of Blind People, UK
Amsterdam, Netherlands and London, UK, November 6, 2008 - The DAISY Consortium presented its highest honor, the Culture of Sharing Award, for 2008 to Stephen King, Group Director Access and Innovation at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), UK. King was unanimously selected for the award by the DAISY Consortium Board of Directors in recognition of his long-term, visionary leadership in support of the Consortium's mission to develop and promote international standards and technologies which enable equal access to information and knowledge by all people with print disabilities and which also benefit the wider community.
The Award was presented by Hiroshi Kawamura, President of the DAISY Consortium, at the Adaptive Content Processing Conference 2008 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
About Stephen King
Stephen King leads RNIB's people working to improve access to information, technology, environment and culture, and to provide core access services to blind and partially sighted people and to businesses and organizations who want to improve access to their services. King joined RNIB in 1990 as Director of Technical and Consumer Services (TCS). He has an MBA from the Scottish Business School at Glasgow University and is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. King was one of the six founding members of the DAISY Consortium in 1996 and continues to serve on the Consortium's Board of Directors. He has led or sponsored many key projects with the DAISY Consortium and RNIB including:
- RNIB's support and role in the development of the DAISY Pipeline, the Consortium's open source, multifaceted transformation software which is in use worldwide;
- RNIB's support and role in the development of a standard protocol for the online delivery of DAISY books and other DAISY content;
- RNIB's support and role in the development of Tobi, the Consortium's open source "DAISY 3" master production software;
- international copyright reform, which led to new proposals in 2004 from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO);
- modernization of RNIB's Talking Book Service to deliver a better way to read for its members;
- development of the original EBU (European Blind Union) User Requirements for digital talking books in 1996;
- RNIB's fully DAISY-compliant digital service which now delivers over 100,000 listening hours of accessible information every day;
- accessible currency design including work with EBU to ensure Euro notes and coins were designed for inclusion;
- audio description which is now a requirement for all UK broadcasters;
- launch of RNIB's web site in 1994.
Stephen King has an exceptional, ongoing commitment to the DAISY Consortium, the DAISY Standards, and bringing DAISY books to all people everywhere.
About the Culture of Sharing Award
The highest honor conferred by the the DAISY Consortium, the Culture of Sharing Award recognizes an outstanding individual or organization that exemplifies outstanding qualities of leadership, the meaning of sharing, and the ethics of service, social awareness and collaboration.
The DAISY Consortium has selected an Inukshuk sculpture as a symbol of the Culture of Sharing Award. The Inukshuk, pronounced IN-OOK-SHOOK, meaning "likeness of a person", are magnificent lifelike figures of stone erected by the Inuit people along the most northern shores of the Canadian Arctic. The Inuit make inuksuit in different forms and for different purposes: to show directions to travelers, to warn of impending danger, to mark a place of respect, or to act as helpers in the hunting of caribou. Enduring symbols of leadership, Inukshuk encourage us to remember the importance of friendship and of our dependence upon one another to achieve what one person alone could not possibly achieve.
About the DAISY Consortium
The DAISY Standard (officially ANSI/NISO z39.86 Specifications for the Digital Talking Book) has revolutionized the reading experience for people with print disabilities around the globe. DAISY, the Digital Accessible Information SYstem, is the world's most widely used assistive technology for reading. Formed in 1996 by like-minded organizations around the world, today the DAISY Consortium consists of nearly 70 non-profit organizations representing 35 different countries and more than 20 for-profit companies which provide products and services to meet the needs of the DAISY community. These organizations are working together to develop and promote international standards and technologies which enable equal access to information and knowledge by all people with print disabilities and which also benefit the wider community. More information about the DAISY Consortium and the DAISY Standard is available at daisy.org
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2008-05-15
The World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, raises awareness on the role of ICT in meeting long-term development goals. The focus of this event in 2008 has been on connecting persons with disabilities to opportunities offered by information and communication technologies (ICT). The DAISY Consortium Press Release announcing the award is available online. Please read the International Telecommunication Union press release for full details about World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, the award, and, the event. Please also read also the information about the Laureates.
2008-05-07
DTBook, the DAISY XML file which is generated from the free downloadable add-in for Microsoft Office Word, is the foundation of the DAISY Standard for reading and publishing navigable, rich media content. This joint project is a major breakthrough in the movement to provide feature-rich, structured information to the millions of people around the world who are unable to read print due to a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability.
The Microsoft Press Release is available online. Additional information and links are also available in the Microsoft "Save As DAISY XML" area of the DAISY Web site.
2008-05-07
This latest release of the DAISY Pipeline features several usability improvements including a new Windows installer, partial Hindi localization, as well as performance enhancements and the inclusion of a validator for OPS/EPUB files, the file format based on the open standard developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Also included are beta versions of several new, pivotal transformers which support the migration of content from one DAISY Standard to another.
The DAISY Pipeline Press Release is available online. Additional information and links are also available in the DAISY Pipeline Project area of the DAISY Web site.
2007-12-11
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p>Washington, D.C., December 10, 2007
2007-11-13
This joint project is a major breakthrough in the movement to provide feature-rich, structured information to the millions of people around the world who are unable to read print due to a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability. It is an open source project and will be hosted on SourceForge.
Details are provided in the November Issue of the DAISY Consortium's newsletter, The DAISY Planet and in the Microsoft Press Release. Also of interest will be the Microsoft Press Pass Feature. This article focuses on the user experience and need for innovation and partnership to deliver increased accessibility support more broadly.
Markus Gylling, International Technical Development Coordinator for the DAISY Consortium, and Reed Shaffner, Microsoft Office Word Worldwide Product Manager, discussed the collaboration between Microsoft and the DAISY Consortium, and the benefits of DAISY during an interview. The video interview was done onsite at the Microsoft TechEd IT Forum held in Barcelona where "Save As DAISY XML" was announced. A direct link to the interview is also available, however, patience will be required as it takes several minutes to load.
2007-07-09
IPA took the initiative to discuss the recommendations of a recent study by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) which highlighted the issue of cross border access to works formatted to suit the needs of visually impaired persons as particularly pressing. Participants at this meeting agreed on a shared work programme to identify and analyse different options for the solution of this issue.
Says IPA President Ana Maria Cabanellas, who participated in the meeting: "Publishers and Visually Impaired Persons share the same aspirations and goals with regard to access of works by visually impaired persons. Together we must find solutions at international level that can replicate the trust and the spirit of cooperation that publishers and VIP charities have built in so many countries around the world."
Notes for Editors:
See the WIPO study prepared by Judith Sullivan
Links to the projects and organisations that were presented at the event:
International Publishers Association:
http://www.internationalpublishers.org
World Blind Union:
http://www.worldblindunion.org
Dorina Nowill Foundation:
http://www.fundacaodorina.org.br
DAISY Consortium:
http://www.daisy.org
FEP:
http://www.fep-fee.be
PLS:
http://www.pls.org.uk
IFRRO:
http://www.ifrro.org
IFLA:
http://www.ifla.org
More about IPA:
The International Publishers Association (IPA) is the global non-governmental organisation representing all aspects of book and journal publishing worldwide. Established in 1896, IPA's mission is to promote and protect publishing and to raise awareness for publishing as a force for cultural and political advancement worldwide. IPA is an industry association with a human rights mandate. IPA currently has 65 member associations in 53 countries.
For further information, please contact:
Jens Bammel
Secretary General
International Publishers Association
3, avenue de Miremont
CH - 1206 Geneva
Tel: +41 22 346 3018
Fax: +41 22 347 5717
mailto: bammel@internationalpublishers.org
http://www.internationalpublishers.org/
2007-03-22
The current DAISY/NISO Standard does not include an explicit method for including mathematics, however it does define how Modular Extensions can be added. The DAISY MathML Modular Extension working group has developed a solution for including mathemathics using a MathML extension, enabling full support for accessible mathemathics in the DAISY/NISO Standard.
MathML is a W3C XML application developed with accessibility to mathematics as a primary goal. It is now critical for the publishing, education and accessibility communities to begin supporting this new DAISY/NISO Mathematics Modular Extension, to ensure rapid industry-wide utilization of accessible mathemathics.
According to Dr. Neil Soiffer, who chaired the DAISY Working Group on Mathematics, "The group looked at many different alternatives to supporting math and came up with a solution that allows advanced players to provide access to mathematics that can be tailored to the needs of the reader while still providing a fallback mechanism so that basic players lose no functionality compared to today's access. By using W3C's MathML recommendations as the representation for math, content authors and producers can leverage existing tools. This will help to jump start the creation of accessible documents containing math and help foster the day when math content can be read by everyone."
George Kerscher, Secretary General for the DAISY Consortium, remarks that, "Now, with support for mathematics in the DAISY/NISO Standard, educational institutions have a comprehensive specification to adopt. The Consortium will be quickly developing additional documentation to assist content creators, such as usage guidelines and sample content. We expect to see integrated support in production tools very soon as well."
Chuck Hitchcock, Director of the NIMAS Technical Assistance Center at CAST, indicates that the publication of the DAISY Modular Extension for math is a welcome advance toward the universal design of math instructional content. "Now that DAISY has integrated a MathML vocabulary into its specification, publishers creating NIMAS-compliant files as part of federal IDEA requirements will soon be able to support a much greater level of accessibility and educational efficacy for elementary and secondary math textbooks."
"Now that MathML is officially part of the DAISY Standard, we have great hopes for continuing improvements in scientific literacy for people with print disabilities," said Jeff Gardner, CEO of ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. "The availability of scientific literature and math materials in MathML will greatly benefit the growing numbers of students with disabilities now pursuing careers in the sciences."
Further commenting on the implications of this development for scientific literacy, Joachim Klaus, Director of the Study Centre for the Visually Impaired Students at the Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH/Germany) remarks, "Internationalization and globalization characterize the Higher Educational teaching, learning and research system. Accessible information and communication technology are vital - we can't imagine our daily lives without it. Mathematic models and equations are used in all study and research fields. The extension of Digital Talking Books for Mathematics is therefore a milestone forward for the inclusion of all into the scientific community."
"The work of the MathML-in-DAISY committee is vital to the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics for the disabled. Disabled people are among the most under-represented groups in the technical fields, and the improved access that DAISY enables should allow more and more disabled people to enter in to new career opportunities" comments David Schleppenbach, President of GH, LLC, a company that manufactures a MathML-aware DAISY software player.
For more information about the DAISY Modular Extension for Mathematics, see the MathML in DAISY website at http://www.daisy.org/projects/mathml/
For inquiries, please use the DAISY Contact Us form on the DAISY Web site.
