Okay, we're now recording. So thanks everybody for joining us today.
We have, Jen Jensen and Ed Beck from Oniana here today to talk to us about.
Their work with incorporating accessibility into the institutional repository.
So I, with further ado, I will pass it over to you. Jen and Ed.
Okay. Oh, let's make sure I can share my screen correctly.
Do I have to put this in like a.
Slides here. First, right there we go. Okay. Oh, good.
Screen.
Okay, are you guys seeing my slides?
I'm seeing a bunch of windows.
A bunch of windows. Okay, I went to the wrong screen.
For some reason stop the share. Sorry about that. I'm not used to zoom.
I'm a teams user screen one again.
And go here. Okay, is that working?
Yay!
That looks great. And I just wanna thank you again. So much for joining us on such an important discussion.
Yeah, no problem. So I really appreciate this invitation. And to get to know all of you.
My name is Jennifer Jensen.
I'm a scholarly communication librarian at Cinnamonia, and I invited my colleague at Beck, who is a open and online learning specialist in the Teaching Learning and Technology center at and he is kind of like my go-to person for accessibility questions.
Like you have to come with me. This is cover, so I I guess Yvonne invited me to talk about sort of a project that we had going on starting last summer on this campus and it's kind of I'm just gonna share some slides that I actually had used in a
different presentation to our campus eit group. When I was sort of trying to figure out what I was.
Gonna do. But it's mostly like, just kind of a story of me learning about accessibility.
I am not an accessibility expert, and I am I'm hoping actually feedback from you guys today is going to help me improve what we've started here.
So let's just go forward with with that.
So I wasn't sure how much all of you knew about our repository.
Probably you know all about it, because I know some of you run it, but just in case I guess Jamie's new to the to the Sunni area.
So what I'm talking about is our instance on Sunny, on campus of the Sunni Open Access repository or soar.
It's a d space based platform kind of customized by admire for the Sunn system.
It was launched in 2020, and was designed to support green open access or self-archiving policies on our campuses.
That's the image of the sunny onion version or pages, or community, or whatever you want to call it.
And here at sunny Oniana, the repository is managed or administered by me, and it obviously supports our campus.
Open access policy. As I just mentioned. It's a mediated repository, which means that everything that comes in as a as a submission.
I touch which is not true for all repositories, but which does make it so.
I have a little more control or a lot more control over the accessibility of things coming in.
It also means that our repository is pretty small because we're starting from scratch.
We didn't sort of bring a bunch of materials in from a previous repository.
Some campuses, did. We are starting afresh, so I know that makes us a really different situation.
It also makes the process a lot slower, being a mediated repository.
But again it gives me a chance to kind of see what things look like in terms of accessibility as they arrive.
We collect, published journals, different versions of those versions of records and accepted manuscripts and book reviews.
We are now collecting our graduate student theses and masters, projects which has been really interesting because we have not only sort of typical theses, but we have some kind of fun projects that we are finding different ways like audio tours.
And things that we can also collect. We have some artifacts that we collect from scholarly and creative events around campus.
Our student poster research conferences, things like that.
We were trying to collect those things, and a college hosted student run, journal.
So if you wanted to check out our specific repository collections, you could go to sort out.
So you need that, Edu, and just choose the Ownana section.
And then I had seen previously, just in the exploration of so, as you know, as we are all getting used to setting up our systems and starting the process since October 2020, that there is a sore sore wide sunni-wide accessibility statement in the sore content
guidelines. Page of the Repository, and I saw that it says there submitters.
We asked if I follow guidelines developed by campuses, and I was like, I don't have guidelines for people, so what should I do about that?
So this is sorry a big fly here, but this is my sort of storytelling moment.
I guess so last summer I was attending a virtual.
The Southern Mississippi Institutional Repository Conference.
It was all online which was super helpful, and they had tons of sessions about accessibility and repositories, and I kept seeing Yvonne, and all the same sessions that I was in online, and maybe some of you were there, too.
I just didn't know yet, and I learned a lot there about what other campuses were doing.
And I also learned that this is something that nobody has figured out yet like this is not.
There's not like a right way of doing this from my understanding, like people are still trying to figure this out, because it's really hard to work with a bunch of materials that are coming from a lot of different places.
And people and we really want them to be accessible. But we can't do it all just by ourselves, as the people collecting these things.
So how do we start talking about it on our campus?
How do we start working with the folks who are doing the submitting?
And what can we do? To communicate to our users what we're trying to do?
So after that conference I reached out to Ed because he's my go-to guy for accessibility, and I said, I wanna figure something out here.
I don't even know where to start, and he said, Let's start with an accessibility statement.
And so he kind of showed me some resources about what that means and what kind of information you might want include in that.
And he talked about accessibility statements for your entire website, and then also for individual items.
And what that might look like. We also started kind of reaching out.
We worked with our Sunni wide Eit group.
I talked to the director of our Accessibility office. I talked to Yvonne.
What are people doing? And basically just kinda like tried it just wrote some accessibility statements based on materials that Ed had shared with me in conversations that we had realize that making an accessibility statement meant that we also had to have a plan if someone comes and asks for more
remediation than I can provide in my initial paths through.
We didn't have a plan on our campus, for, like what?
How do people make the request? And then, once they make the request, what we do?
So I had to figure that out in the library that's still a little bit of an ongoing conversation, but at least I know like who I send things to.
We haven't ever had a request at this point. But again, like this is all since last summer, so we'll see if we get some.
So another part of that process, I guess, was deciding what level of remediation I was willing and able, mostly able to do and this was a conversation I so I heard a lot in that I our conference.
You know we can't do all of this ourselves like we're not gonna be able to fix everyone else's work.
And so I but I wanted to figure out what I could do, and I think that's an ongoing sort of conversation with myself, too.
And hopefully with you guys, maybe I'll learn some more things that I could be doing better as I go along here.
And then I guess the last kind of thing that happened was, I found out about like there's other repositories that had accessibility metadata fields where we could make it clear to users I think there's a lot of different ways people are doing this and it can
be very complicated, or we ended up doing something very simple in store, which is full, is created a or Yvonne, and admire, and others created an accessibility statement. Metadata field.
That's now available for anybody who's updating materials into sore and which I now use for every item that I upload right?
So the results, so far so all of that kind of happened in the spring and the fall, and I've been doing it.
I've been using the accessibility statements on every item that I upload to source.
Since then I record all the remediation that I do in sort of simple language, basically that I understand, because if I don't understand it, my users aren't gonna understand it.
And then I I feel that we have a more transparent kind of approach to accessibility.
In our repository. It's not perfect. Our materials are not perfectly accessible, but at least we have a way for folks to request specific types of remediation if they need it.
And yeah, oh, yeah. And then, just like working with all these folks on our campus and now, you know, meeting you guys and working with Sunni level folks on these issues, I think having those stronger partnerships and like knowing that to go to with questions is a huge has been a huge help to me
and yeah, so I guess what I was gonna do from here was just show you our accessibility statements.
In. So is that an appropriate thing to do? Is that okay?
Absolutely.
Okay.
So I want, is that okay? Oh, yeah, looking at some of the resources I'm gonna share later. But what did I wanna do?
I wanna go to store. So you guys are looking at sort what you're looking at.
Google, right now, you're looking at sore right? Okay, great.
So in our instance, in actually so preparing for this presentation, I realized I had never updated the front page of the Oregon collection with our specific statement.
So I actually did that yesterday, based on the one that we use for all items.
So thank you for kind of helping me go back and improve this.
So the page wide accessibility statement is right here, just in the general information, and it includes the the Sunni Oniana statement about providing our desire to provide equal access to users, and this comes straight from our electronic and information technologies website for our college and then I have and you'll see this
is true also in the item level statements. I have a statement about like what I do, and I try to be a really transparent about it, because I know I'm not using like the most high-tech tools.
I'm not. I'm not doing this in like the most cutting edge way.
And so I try to be really clear about what tools I'm using, and what I'm doing.
So the second statement is about our second sentence is about what's being checked and what tools I'm using.
So right now, what I use is adobe, acrobat, and then in brackets.
This is sort of as an example in this one in brackets for the item level materials is the specific remediation actions that I've taken for that item and remaining hazards.
And I'll show you that in a second, too. And then the last one, the last sentence of the accessibility statement is what I mentioned before.
Like, if people need more help, how they can get that help.
And that email address goes to me and our library director.
And then, if the request is something I can handle, or I can go to ed and ask him to help me handle it.
I will do that, and if it's not, then I will escalate it to my supervisor.
The library director and or the electronic and information Technology group who have access to like better tools than I do potentially.
Okay, so that's the page wide, can we?
If there was a request that came in that said, Oh, I need this, and you're the place to get it.
Could we use like able docs, for example, as a way to remediate so that we have some fun set aside for doing things like that, but that we're not we're not, you know, sending every single thing we do to able docs so like what is our defensible standard that we do
this much, and this is what we think that we can do with our own labor and build it into our processes and then what do we need to outsource because it goes above and beyond.
And I appreciate my connection with them, because they know, like what the new tools are, what they have access to what they're testing out.
I don't know all that, and so I can go through them for that.
So that's really helpful. And then I guess I'm just gonna show you the item level.
Could we?
The item of accessibility statement. So I'm just gonna go to our our most recent item.
And so it used to be before we had the accessibility statement, metadata.
I would put it in just the general description. Metadata.
But now we have this special area for it. And so it's a Dublin core accessibility statement.
Can you guys see that? Okay, not okay. I'm gonna type.
Here we go. Can you see that now, Rebecca?
Okay, so this is, you know, the general field that we use, and then you'll recognize the accessibility statement for this particular item.
Once again I use the exact same statement from our website about the colleges.
General desire to do this right, and then this is what a specific item level description looks like.
I guess so again I checked it with a adobe acrobat.
The accessibility check, and I remediated with the following result, I fixed the metadata title, title, information.
I tagged on Mark Content, and then the remaining hazards that I cannot or do not or will not fix in this case, or I didn't.
In the this example. I don't add all text.
There was an issue with the table headers, which I think is a typical issue, where, if they probably had table headers, but if they make a double layer table header where the second layer is split, which a lot of people design their tables like that it's gonna always result in a
table, headed header, issue and Table Regularity. I think those are related.
So this one was actually pretty good, because I didn't have to make a lot of changes.
And then again to request for their accessibility remediation on this particular item.
Same thing like this is who you contact. And I would elevate the the request.
So. Not only is that information cause I know you're like, oh, well, that's way far back in the minute, you know, who even looks at the additional metadata I'm going to go back to the main page right?
It's not even on the front page here, but users of the Ir actually generally are coming in directly from Google Scholar, where they're gonna actually in many cases not be even looking at this page but are going to be directly given access to the download file and one thing that we did do
Ivana and I talked about. Can we make sure the accessibility?
Metadata statement is on the page that's created by anybody for any item.
That's downloaded from sort. It always has this cover page right?
So here's the actual item. But here's the cover page.
That's generated every time someone downloads from store and they accessibility statement is part of that.
So they'll always see it so, even if they never come to our actual repository.
And see my! You know my homepage statement, or the statement in the way deep number.
They will have it here, and this is the place that are most likely to see it.
Anyway. So I think the last thing I was just gonna show you is that is what I do and don't do with remediation.
I think this was probably what you want. Actually ask me to talk.
And so this is where I am, and I would love feedback on this, because maybe there's better ways.
I could be doing this. But what I do we'remediate is when I get the word version of something which is not that often.
But I do sometimes for the thess and accepted manuscripts.
I will go through, and I will do the paragraph styling.
I'll add headings and make sure that things are nested correctly, and all that.
I checked the table headers, although I can't fix it if they've done a double layer header.
That's you know, that's a design decision that they've made, that I can't change.
And I'll add publisher statements if it's for I'm using an author accepted manuscript and the publisher requires that you mentioned the doi. There.
I think the example I just showed you actually had one of those on there.
I put it in the the heading area, and then for Pdf.
Versions, which is really this is where I live a lot more and maybe the rest of you doing repository work.
I run the adobe accessibility check, and I always fix the title metadata, even if it says it doesn't have a problem.
It often is incorrect, so I fix it there.
The language, metadata. All added, if it's not there, and then I will check, and I'll fix basic tagging issues.
So, if there are no tags I will run an auto tag and I know that is not.
It doesn't always work, but it's definitely, I think, totally argue with me on this.
If I'm wrong like, teach me, but I think it's better than nothing.
So I'll run the auto tag, and then I will.
Whether it's tagged or I auto-tagged it.
I'll check on. The tags, are they actually tagged as headers, like the different sections?
So people can kind of move through a little easier, recognizing things as heading ones and heading to things like that.
And then I look for unmarked content, and I try to tag that, and I'll mark some things as artifacts if it's tagging all sorts of wacky things that we don't want screen readers to be pausing on, and then I try
to fix the tag and reading order as much as I can.
I have to spend a lot of time on that with the posters actually.
And then what I do not remediate is, I do not add all texts.
Unless it's something really simple or it's a decorative image.
And there's like one of it. But I'm not going through, and I'm adding all text to people's work.
You know their publishers articles. I'm not doing that, and I have to sort of like walk away.
If there are issues that are complicated, related to like. Auto tagging fails to the table header.
Example I gave you before, but I report whatever adobe acrobat is calling an issue, and I use the language that adobe acrobat accessibility check. Give.
So I'll say there's a table regularity issue.
There's this issue. There's a that issue in the hazards list of the accessibility statement for that item.
And that's all. So I just included some of the resources that I used.
Now, I'm gonna use your resources that I see on your web pages that Yvonne just shared with me.
But I learned a lot from the Dq. University. I did the basic Pdf.
Accessibility course, and that was super helpful. And I actually downloaded all their materials.
And I like open up their materials when I'm doing checks.
Sometimes, when I need to something more complicated, these Cornell meditata guides are things that when I first got started I use them as an example of somebody else who is already doing this in the ir are having accessibility statements, and that's that's it.
That's that's terrific. I popped a whole bunch of questions in the chat.
I'm sure I'm sure other. That's okay.
Oh, okay, I can't see it.
I just wouldn't want to forget. I've got like, you know, senior Brains.
So, I just didn't want to forget. So first things first for you as a helper.
Are you part of Dax Castro's? Pdf.
No!
Accessibility group on Facebook, you totally should be so Dax Castro is amazing, and for anybody else who's dealing with Pdfs, I would highly suggest, if you are able to take a workshop with him and Chad Chilias, I'll put the names
Okay. Thanks.
in the Docs Castro and Chad. Julia, so you know they can't always help me, because a lot of what I deal with that the Purchase College Library in dealing with course content is scans.
Right, so so that's a different. It's a slightly different animal than what they tend to deal with.
But Chad is oh, you had Chad for a workshop, Laura.
That's amazing. Chad's wonderful. And so is Dad's.
Dad's. He's got his stick, but he's amazing, and they have a great, really awesome Facebook group where you can ask any question about a Pdf.
And somebody will answer you. So it's pretty amazing. There's also a whackak professionals group on Facebook.
So if you're on Facebook, I'm happy to send you invites to these groups.
But there's professionals, and I think it's just called Pdf.
Accessibility, but I can check that in a minute, so I give you.
That's awesome.
I give you a gift before I before I bombard you with, and everyone is in this group knows I have a tendency to do that right.
So, so, yeah, I I'm wondering if there's any effort to encourage people to submit in the native word files or to make their materials accessible before submission, and how can we begin to do that?
Because ultimately it seems to me right, if we're getting really Meta about our jobs as educational institutions.
I know Ed is gonna is gonna nod and agree right like ultimately, isn't this what we should be turning out in terms of content?
Creators for the next generation of people who understand this and want people want the largest possible audience to be able to consume and digest the work that they're doing and sharing.
So is there an effort to do that? And then my guess.
My last question is, I love the idea of being able to have able docs as a backup.
There is no possible way that is going to happen at purchase right now.
We don't have a dollar for collection development.
We have no collection development budget right now. So the question is, how do you get funds to do that?
And is there a way that perhaps you know we've we've done so much in the cohort?
I think, in really teaching each other, and learning and benefiting from each other.
And sometimes these groups can, you know, get help from. You know we had the Dei Collections group got a grant from Ebsco host.
Wasn't that? Wasn't that that group? And it wasn't much.
Maybe $250, but something is better than nothing.
And is there a way we can band together to try to move the needle on getting some help to get these materials made accessible when we can't?
You know this? That's a conversation we have constantly in our Eit group.
I'm on the Eit group from my campus.
I'm there representing, course. Content not the library and the Eit officers are CIO.
We have to look at it from a holistic perspective, and our E, it group is able to budget funds for document remediation that we need to target towards the highest priority documents.
And so we are trying to do a kind of two-pronged approach.
Here. We're trying to set up standards for ourselves when we create new things and build it into the workflow.
And we're also trying to identify when it doesn't make sense for us to do it anymore.
And we've got to pay someone. So.
Our campus map wasn't inaccessible document on our web page that we need to get remediated.
Making a map accessible is beyond my capabilities, and I think I could invest 40 h of work in that map.
And it still wouldn't be accessible.
Yeah, we have the same. We have the same issues and discussions. But.
Yeah.
Able docs like charges, 40 bucks. It was the best $40 I ever spent.
Yeah, that's why I'm saying even something small, right?
I would have paid it out of. Do not tell my CIO.
But even.
I said that, but I would have paid out of pocket, but we so the discussion we had yesterday in our meeting.
We just thought yesterday we were saying, Okay, we have this funds, and we are pushing some things towards us.
But we were. We budged it. Thousands of dollars for our Middle States Review to have our Middle States review we've done by 8 docs.
Now I had said to them, that's a text based document.
Yes.
We just put headers in there. We do the tables in there, and they're like, and we're going to put the budget away just in case, because we're not going to if this, if we get complex tables in there, we get money and if we get things in there, that are you know
screenshots of excel data tables, you know, who knows what ends up in the appendix of a Middle States?
Right.
Document. Oh, gosh, we're recording I always speak highly of our middle state, not processes. Everyone.
It's okay. Listen. I mean, we're human.
We're human.
You remember that was smooth and was a pinnacle of so who knows what's gonna end up in that appendix that we're gonna have to remediate right?
So we budgeted for it. The CIO did it himself.
We've been working on building capacity. We've been working on making sure that we know what standard we can get to and he took it on himself to be able to do it.
It's restarted a conversation with us where we want to train some students that can do some accessibility or mediation.
But what I always say when we get there is we need to understand the difference between what we need to have an expert look at and pay for and what we can change students to pay for because the first thing that happens after we say, oh, we're training a student in accessibility is someone walks down with the Ap p form is that a
standard form across all Sunni. The Ap. P. Form.
. Oh, I don't know the Ap. P. For him.
The Ap. P. Form is a form, that is, it's like a choose your own adventure, form.
You have to bit. Fill out boxes 1, 5, and 4.
Oh, yeah.
If you're doing an extra service payment in boxes 1, 2, and 6, if you're hiring a new faculty member, it's a form that gets you paid in su me at a state operated campus, either a new job or an extra service it's the most complicated format i've
ever seen, because this one form doesn't like 7 different jobs.
So the first thing that people always ask when we go and say, Oh, we've hired a student.
They're like, Oh, could you make forms accessible? Could you make that accessibility degree of that Ap form accessible which is not just a form of like the most complicated form in the world?
And I'm like we are. Get those off of our desk.
We need to be able to train students to a defensible standard.
And then also we need to have a budget that when things are beyond our abilities we'll just pay for it.
Yeah.
No one's gonna wanna give us a grant to keep the wheels running for document remediation.
It needs to be budgeted for, and the corrections department doesn't have a budget for it.
This isn't Jen Jensen's money that she's spending.
The institution has created funds that will push towards a higher priority, projects.
And if we got a request, that means it's a high priority project for us, and we would put that in the queue to be remediated by able docs.
And who ultimately gets that request. Does that go? You're in the Tltc rate.
So does that go to you? Who's the are? Who's the arbiter?
No, the orbiter's got to be the CIO.
Okay.
That's our. You know. We have chief.
Is that Sean Moriarty at your school? Am I at the wrong school?
I. E. It, officer, that's the CIO, and so that lets that be pushed to a bigger conversation, and one of the things that he has been really big on, and you know that's us, we go.
The florist.
I'm at the wrong school. Sorry I started with an O.
Oh, okay.
Steve Madiskelco. Other admin. So yeah, he's been really good about this, because one of the things we didn't.
We researched these accessibility statements as we said, okay, we need to create an action-oriented accessibility statement.
What are we doing in order to do these things, and just be honest about what we're doing?
She says. She looked at the one from the open lab, which which is what we wrote.
Our open lab as a wordpress website. I, here's a link to Wordpress's accessibility statement.
Here's a link to the accessibility statement of the plugins that we're using.
Here's what I do when I choose themes. Once a year I do a review of the open lab to make sure that the lot, you know the theme and the logical clicking and things like that.
Here's what I am doing in my accessibility statement, and then I point out what the potential hazards are.
This is a website created by students, some of them aren't great.
Putting Alt texts on right?
I love that you call it hazards. I actually have been in the space a long time, and I see you know we use the word barriers a lot, but I like that. You. I like that.
Barriers.
Okay.
You call it hazards, actually I think it's more it more seems like a big hole in the road that you might run into right.
I got that that term from the cordell documentation.
I think.
They use it actually, slightly differently than I do. But I like the term.
I'm willing to change it if the standard is to say barriers, I wanna be clear. I want to.
Right, clearly, but we don't. We're still growing, and we're still learning.
And so we're depending on people who know a little bit better, that if, like, I'm saying something that's wrong, we'll pull me aside. Be like, yeah, never say that again, you know, like we gotta build that community.
Can I ask a question? So you mentioned that you get well?
I mean, you get some creative works. But I'm not sure exactly what that means for you.
I'm obviously I'm at the Fashion Institute technology.
So our final projects are a lot different. I know you mentioned that you don't necessarily do alt text.
Have you dealt with with purely visual projects? So either images or videos?
And what's the workflow like for that?
Yeah.
What do you work on? Yeah. How's the statement?
So when I get things like videos or audio, I always try to have a transcript.
And I basically won't put things in that they won't provide a transcript for at this point it's pretty easy to get, you know, computer generated basic transcript.
Of course it's better if people can go through and fix it a little bit, because the computer is inevitably going to get sunny on Aunta wrong.
So for videos and things like that. Yeah, there's always a secondary text based version for things that are purely visual I haven't really had anything that's purely visual.
I mean we do posters that's purely visual. I mean, we do posters, but they generally have some information you know, text-based information with them.
They almost never have all texts, and I just allow that they're mostly student created.
Some of them are faculty created. We are actually doing a student poster workshop today where we will talk about like this is something you should do.
But you know they're still just like learning how to make a poster.
So that's kind of advanced for them. But we do have a I see, Lorries here. I don't know. She's with me. Wait a second, but we do have a project on the docket where which is kind of up to alley what you're talking about I think carly
we're we're gonna hopefully start collecting our the catalogs created by the art galleries on our campus for each show.
And we have talked about how we can create really effective all text in house and in partnership with the art gallery for that.
So that we haven't worked it out quite yet, and this goes back to one of your questions to Rebecca about like you know, as as a artist is presenting their work in the gallery.
I would love to see, you know these are the images that are going to be in the catalogue.
How would you? Just in the old text, and so generate some of that ahead of time?
Lori has offered as someone with an artic background to assist with that process, and then I also just wanted to jump for 1 s to Rebecca's question.
I see in the chat about. Of course it's easier to work on these things in a native word, file.
I do request that when, if I can get the thesis in a word file, I do sometimes it's not possible, based on like signature stuff.
But a lot of times it is, if it's an author accepted manuscript so like a pre version of record version of a journal article that I can often get that in word.
But the worst offenders are the journals themselves are putting out like materials that are not accessible, and so I run accessibility, check on, you know a version of record. I'm allowed to use it.
I'm gonna use it, but it's gonna be like one of the ugliest things accessibility wise in our repository. And I'm going to fix what I can. But those are going to be the ones.
They're more on Mark content. So I actually struggle a lot with the professionally made Pdfs.
Oh! And then one last thing is Rebecca.
You also asked about? Is there anything you missed about alert people that their submission should be made accessible?
So I do have that especially in the graduate student, thesis.
I have a whole live guide for the grad students and I have a little section in there about accessibility where I have video tutorials, and I and I don't think they look at any of it except for when I work with their faculty members and they make it a requirement as part of
their like, it's like part of the rubric now.
And those programs are giving me accessible materials, or more accessible.
So that's been exciting. I have 2 departments that have taken it really seriously, and it turns out the faculty members themselves needed a lot of education on this.
I mean, I didn't know this, either. I'm not surprised.
People don't know all of this information, how to check where the all text is. All that.
So so I am trying to work with them. Kind of programmed by program.
And it's that is growing.
I had a really interesting learning experience of mine working with sunny press and seeing what they do as they build a textbook and what they do is they build a book, and some of the things from the professional publishing world are so surprising to me as someone who understands accessibility for example, in sunny press when
they go through and do a manuscript and get it ready for publication.
They create custom, styles style 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Going down the list that are their heading levels that are not mapped, even though they're doing it.
Microsoft word. They are not mapped to the accessible heading levels of 1, 2, 3, and 4.
So what their workflow actually is going through it is they do all of this, tagging every single thing in the word document is tagged according to their custom.
Structure which is not the same as mapped to the Xml structure that we really need for accessibility, or what a computer would need.
Then they transfer from word to indesign, and then they build it again.
This time putting, taking the formats and making them into the visual display of the book, and then they pay someone afterwards to take the Pdf.
From indesign and manually tag intermediate.
The document. So the book basically gets tagged 3 different times.
And this is not like me, like Bashagon, Sunni press like they don't know what they're doing.
They're professional.
No, but that's so stupid. Why, why, why, why?
That's what I'm right as someone who publishes impressed books, and we build the headings from the very beginning and build an HTML first document, and that export accessible Pdfs an accessible epubs because it's already in the Xml and don't remediate
afterwards we're building it into the source material first, and then.
So all of our alternate formats retain the same accessibility as the initial debt.
It blows my mind, but that's like when Jen told me that the worst ones that's it blows my mind. But that's like when and if you're preparing a manuscript and you're
following their standards that they give you, and they might even give you a file that has their premade codes, put in that once again.
Also do not map to the accessible heading level. You know, it's it's a discussion that. Well, our the journal industry is failing us because they're not at the good place and so building repositories of stuff that they're building is very difficult.
You're muted.
Team
I'm interested in the workflow that you undertook to actually, individually scan those files and get those accessibility statements, particularly because I have 1,400 student projects of varying formats.
Like some. I did some spot checking, and some of them are just like I'm just like how much time did you take with each one?
Were you able to do them in mass and generate multiple statements like, you know, per 2030, you know, projects, files, and you are doing, or did you have to do them individually?
Did you have to sign like 5, 10 min to each one?
So I'm not using scanned projects I'm using things that are the things that are downloaded from the publisher are usually like Pdf, like, well, not accessible.
But they're like they have metadata. And they embedded.
And they're not just like scams. And then anything else I'm getting from students and faculty.
They're just their digital files. So I am not starting with scans.
Thank goodness, probably will have to do that someday, but I haven't had to do that now, and in terms of how much time I spend.
I try to limit the time I spend, but I do things one at a time.
And so I you know a lot of things. I can finish it in 3 min if if it's kind of a simple case, or if I started with the word document and I went through, and I fixed the headers basically the headings.
Is this your whole job? I was gonna say, like, What's your whole job?
But as not right. No, I'm the only solid communication librarian on our campus.
So I do a lot of different things. This is a very small part of it.
But yeah, I try to limit each like, once I start to hit a lot of snags, I have to just record them as hazards.
Yeah, and so that is my approach, because I also think, hope that the accessibility statement is helping me with.
You know, if you need help on this item. That's what I want to know.
Yeah.
I think you could.
For all the ones you already have, especially since you have so many.
Yeah.
Maybe you could just like programmatically add a accessibility statement that basically he may be says that it hasn't been scanned, or, if not even just a statement that says if you need help remediation focus on going forward cause I mean, I just don't see how any campus can go back and do
1,400.
Yeah, that's what I'm starting to think. And this is probably really sad terminology that's kicking on my brain.
But I'm thinking I'm going to end up with a accessibility disclaimer rather than a statement.
Well, but I think it can focus on like also pointing people to how to get remediate like.
That's the part of it that I think you could really focus on is just.
And then that way, it would help you focus your efforts, because if you get one request you probably would be able to set uside some time to work on that one.
But you're not gonna presumably get 1,400.
Request tomorrow, so it can help with the prioritization of that backlog, and then.
Is everybody who's real up on the legal ramifications.
Be careful about using the word discount but, Carly, this is probably more your area than mine, because you have a legal background.
But I think listen. We we are legally obligated to to make a reasonable effort right?
And it's going to be that reasonable that's going to be the deciding factor.
Oh!
If there's something, it's not yeah. I mean, Carl.
Well, I mean not. I can't offer legal advice, but I would say that like a lot of it, it's also focused on a willingness stop, or accommodations.
So I think that if you really focus that statement on like, here's how you approach us.
If you need something to be made accessible, and then you have an actual process like that shouldn't obviously just be getting like sent directly somebody's email trash needs to actually be like, have then a plan for what you're going to do.
I think that will be a good first step at least, and then if somebody you'll work with people if they actually need it, there's a lot of content out there in every library that isn't accessible right this minute that doesn't mean we have to proactively scan every book we own it just
means that if somebody approaches us we have to have a plan implementation.
Usually how people act so I would, I think, focus on it that way, like not so much a disclaimer, or maybe not even an accessibility statement.
But you could just have a footer across every page of your Ir.
Even that just says if you run into any accessibility issues here.
So you contact, or something like.
Carly, let me step one and let me see how you think about it.
We are working to make all new submissions into the repository accessible.
We are working through the backlog as time allows. And if you need access to a specific document, here's my email address, and we will buff it up in the prioritization list.
I guess my thing is always you do want to be really as specific as possible, so I always try.
I'm working towards something being accessible, because nothing's going to be accessible for it.
Every single person, or almost nothing. People might always need an additional accommodation, so I think it might be better to say, you know something more specific, like what you do with each of the new submissions.
If you have a process in place, so we run it through like your statements had adobe accessibility checker.
I think so. Maybe something like that, like new submissions are run through adobe accessibility, checker, past submissions may not have been.
But here's you can contact something along those lines just because it's hard to say anything is fully accessible. At the end of the day.
Right, right.
Who knows? Somebody might run into a problem, especially since everybody uses a different setup of aive technology.
It's just really hard to say. Anything is perfectly accessible for all scenarios.
That was one of my big takeaways was just like, okay, let's focus on actions.
Let's focus on what are the things that we are actually doing and able to promise to do?
And then how we follow through on that.
And making sure that you feel comfortable. That is is what I just wrote down, defensible and actually actionable.
Oh, thank you!
I'm just seeing your comment right now, Carly. How about a way publishing?
Yeah, I do think journals don't think about it and need to more.
And I kind of get very annoyed because I actually do a lot of stuff with open access as well as accessibility, because I work with a journal that's open access.
Good.
And I. Nothing annoys me more than when people are talking about accessibility and they're not talking about like the stuff actually isn't 88 compliant. But they're talking about it being accessible like worldwide or something.
It just very annoyed, or like talking about how open their materials are, and then you run a simple accessibility check, and they're not at all accessible.
But I don't think journalists are thinking about it just like so many other things.
I think people don't necessarily thank you about people with accessibility needs as their primary readers, which obviously they should.
But I just don't even think it's something that occurs to people.
Yeah, I've submitting your journal, or making your journal eligible to like the directive, open access journals.
And what if we could advocate for it? There should be an accessibility.
I look like a digital accessibility element to that or something and sort of standardize it as part of the package of things you have to do to be recognized as a sort of legitimate with an access journal by that like international group.
That would be. That would be really great.
I mean it. Seems it seems like common sense, right? It seems like.
But I'm biased. So I mean access should not just be about money right?
Right.
And especially when you consider that people with disabilities often have a disability tax in terms of you know, if they really needed it.
And you didn't have a process for it, they would have to figure out a way to get it done for themselves.
Yeah.
And that's what's been happening. So I mean, it seems like it should be folded into processes.
I'm I'm shocked. I've lived as long as I haven't it hasn't been as much of my focus until the last couple of years.
And Ed, you and I will talk about course, content and libraries another time.
Yeah, yeah. But you know, I I think one of the things.
Because half of my remediation is issued by going through the library almost.
You know, I think one of the big things that I've try to notice more as I start to grow in the space is when technology gives us good workflows for open access so when you talk about open access journals.
And you say, like, okay, I know that a lot of the open access journals are using that.
Open journal system from the Public Knowledge Project, and that they, in their next aversion, are coming out with a idea that the primary version of the of the primary version in the Daily will be the Xml based version, there'll be displayed in HTML and then the
Pdfs be generated, not just alongside of that, but generate from the Xml version, and that it will inherit some of the accessibility from that like.
Okay? Well, then, we have to notice these things. We need to make sure that we're updating our processes to use the accessibility features if they're being built in because you can build a inaccessible journal in Ojs, and you can build a great journal in Ojs, but also what I want to notice
is, when do? When does the technology make the accessible version?
The easiest thing to do. We're like the default is already accessible, not the you have to like.
Find it in the 15 dropdown menus in the section that no one ever goes to, but like I was really impressed that in sunny mir able able to get that accessibility statement right on the front cover of the download, I think that's awesome.
But like, how do we not only have a statement, but not just hide away somewhere where no one ever sees it but get it printed on the front page everywhere.
Yeah, is that is that is that because you just worked with Yvonne?
And is that like something that's like now, standard for every Sunni that's Gen.
No, it was I mean Avon and I worked on it together.
That was you. That was so. It's now standard.
But Yvonne is the one who worked with that mayor to get that to happen, because we realize that's how users experience it.
Right. But now that you've done it is everyone. Is everyone doing it now?
Well, it's available to everyone in Zoom to do it.
That's and is that being pushed? Who is pushing it?
In other words, I mean, I think this is, you know I know we're recording.
But this is part of the problem with eit and sunny right is that you know, we really need that that leadership from above to ensure that that structure is there and it, and that that road is maintained right.
It's one thing to have a road, but if it's covered in weeds you're not gonna get through.
So, yeah, I'd like to see more of that. That's terrific.
So thank you.
This has been really fun. Thank you, guys, for hosting us.
Please plug away!
And okay, Kai plug. Just one more thing. Well, one of the things that I am thinking about constantly is, what is the entry point to communities like this like, how do we invite more people to be part of the community?
And so one of the things that Jen and I did recently on campus is we did some basic screen meter training.
And we did some basic accessibility training to our core group of people because that was my first step.
Rhyme.
Inaccessibility was go into like a 3 day training with my Blind Spot and Dq.
And doing screener stuff. I'm doing that set. I'm gonna try to do that session again at C.
It's a pre-conference workshop.
If there's people that we want to like, invite into the space which, even though it's like working with screens which can be difficult and can be frustrating, we're trying to build that first step opportunity where people who are like our true believers, yet that aren't like fully ingrained.
In it can.
Yeah, I mean, this is something that I really struggle with, and everybody who's been on this group for some time knows that I have not imposter syndrome.
But I have a lot of insecurities around my use of a screen, reader, and I, it it is like learning a new language, and you do have to practice.
I don't practice enough, but.
I think I think it's a hard place to start for a lot of people, because of all of the you know, keyboard controls.
I can turn it on. I can't always turn it off like a veteran. Nvda.
Then I am a Jo, you know I'm learning.
But I did a workshop yesterday for an outside library system.
The South central Regional Library System in the Finger Lakes, and you know one of the appropriate that I used in this workshop which I think might actually be a good hook.
Is that people don't really understand accessibility. I think, as a whole, and it's really overwhelming, and they don't know how to start engaging the practice as almost a Yoga practice.
And one of the things I did, and I'm not sure it worked.
I mean, you have to ask the attendees, and we'll have to wait for the evaluations to come in.
But I really focused on social media because I feel like so many people are using social media it's a good place to personally start the practice.
And so one of the videos that I had was, I'll just pop.
I'm not gonna play it, but I'll pop in the link to the chat.
It's a newer video I found. Unfortunately, it's like auto captions and I mean, it's it's pretty good, though, but it talks about decorative fonts, because now people are beginning what their own little pod cast tiktoky things and they're using all these
decorative fonts. And there are, you know, auto captioning, you know, like Homie, or whatever.
And there it's really bad. So getting people to understand that you're creating this problem for your neighbor, you're creating this problem for your fellow, Congregant. You're creating.
Yeah, that's what I wanna get to is.
So I think I'd like to. I'd like to work on this approach, because I think it begins with us.
And yeah.
Yeah. And that's what I wanna focus on is, when when is it not an accessibility? Error?
When is it not a Wqq. 2.1 violation, but usability issue?
Right. It's yes, it's Jargony, all of our stuff in accessibility is very jargoning and scary.
Right.
And so like being able to demo somebody.
Here is a website that passes an accessibility checker with flying colors.
And here's what the actual user experiences. And maybe I'm not training people to be to the point where they can do it themselves.
But maybe they could just sit and watch the demo, and maybe they can navigate a page by headings and that's the extent of their ability.
Yeah.
But they come out with a little bit of more of awareness of why we're doing this.
That's what I that's what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I was proud of myself because I I just put in another link.
I use futureme.org to get people to create goals.
And I'm like, all right, if I'm going to use it in a workshop, I got to make sure it's accessible right?
So I gotta practice what I preach. So I I did my job.
Look at it, and I'm like that. I didn't hear the public versus private.
So there is one thing that's inaccessible, which is that defaults to so future me.
You write yourself a letter in the future, and it gets emailed to yourself, and it defaults to a private letter.
If it had defaulted to a public letter, I wouldn't have been able to use it, because that actually, that piece that where you toggle is not accessible, but everything else is so I I kind of figured that out.
And then I asked a friend of mine who's blind to also like user test it. And they were able to do it.
So I'm like, okay, it's not the greatest it could be cleaner. And then, of course, I followed that with all a let me email them.
So i' all the pieces of if this is the diet by which I'm going to try to.
How do I prepare my food? How do I eat my!
Right, measure it, eat it and evaluate it. So I mean, I think we'll get there.
But I think it really is a very, it feels very big and overwhelming to people and people in this group know that I've literally had people physically run away from me like faculty physically avoid me.
At events, because I've been trying to rope them into.
Let me help you with your course material, and and that's like the kindest, sweetest off offer somebody could make.
So? Why are you running a. But it's because it's overwhelming right?
So I think we can get there, and I think that.
So emails feature me about the issue. Cool.
I did. Yes, they said they, of course. Yeah, but they, you know, they sent me their standard, you know. You're awesome.
Yeah.
We are happy that you use our cool website. But I'll get to them again.
It's all right. It at a base level. It works for the for the for the function. I needed it to.
And it's a great example of using the screen reader to try to find what the problem is and whatnot.
But it's building that confidence to. Didn't miss it, did it?
Not miss it. Let me try that again. Okay, yeah. It did miss it alright. Let me test it now, and see if somebody can use it.
And and I'd love it if you would engage more with your more technology.
Based brethren, because one of the things that I do is my part, my thing of advocacy is I open issues on Github.
Here, you go. Yeah.
Most of the Internet runs on open source software and like being willing to open an issue at Github is a scary, scary thing for a lot of people.
Yeah.
But reporting accessibility issues with actionable ways to fix it is is really satisfying with me.
Yeah, I first wrote to them and said, it's not completely accessible.
And then I waited for them to get back to me, and then I said, Okay, because they said, we'll have our team.
Look into it, I said. Have your team specifically look at X and it didn't take very long.
But it's I think it's the kind of like walk the walk thing that we need to do.
But we need more you're right. We need more of these meetups.
The the New York City Ally meetups are great, and they're they're usually hybrid events, and they're done really well.
But we need more of these discuss groups, and you know we were doubt you know we have 9 right in here right now, but we've struggled to keep this group alive, and I I'm stalwart about it because I feel like it just has so much value so today's a perfect example of bringing Jen
in for, you know, a new in for a discussion that we know is something that people are dealing with and we'll have the recording.
And people can use that perhaps learn a little bit more and at least know who they can reach out to.
Oh, terrific! Anybody else have any last questions. I know we're running late.
Thank you so much.
Yes, thank you very much.
Yes, thank you so much, and I hope everyone has a good weekend.
Yes, thank you very much.
Go ahead. They weren't.
Thank you. Thanks.
I will post. I will post the recording in in base camp for everyone.
Thanks.
You're the best. Thank you so much.
Is, can I join the base camp? How do I do that?
Thank you.