The Seminar:

Overview

The Participants

Closing Remarks

Selected Draft Plans:

• Czech Republic
• Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro
• Hungary
• Lithuania
• Slovak Republic
• Slovenia

Regional Challenges

Organized by:

The Institute of Rehabilitation in Ljubljana, Slovenia

A parallel substantive activity in the
Sixth European Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technologies

In collaboration with the
United Nations Voluntary Fund on Disability

Presented by

and

Final Report

Seminar on
Internet Accessibility for All
in Central and Eastern Europe

Ljubljana, Slovenia, 3-6 September 2001

The Sub-regional Workshop entitled Internet Accessibility for All in Central and Eastern Europe took place at Ljubljana, Republic of Slovenia on 3-6 September 2001. The workshop was a parallel substantive activity at the Sixth European Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technologies (http://aaate2001.ir-rs.si). The seminar was funded in part by the United Nations Voluntary Fund on Disability and was organized by the Institute of Rehabilitation of Ljubljana, Slovenia (http://www.ir-rs.si).

The Seminar is an extension of government requests for technical exchanges on Internet Accessibility that began at the thirty-seventh session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development (New York, 9-19 February 1999). Initially, the seminar series was intended to discuss the role of Internet Accessibility in furthering equalization of opportunities of persons with disabilities, and has since adopted a theme of "Accessibility for All" in keeping with other Accessibility initiatives of the UN Programme on Disability.

Internet Accessibility for All is a key area for the application of concepts and principles of Universal Design. It reflects a concern with providing:

• good design of Internet services and content for all users,
• options for choices about the use and manipulation of Internet-enabled content, and
• Internet-enabled solutions that meet the needs of as many users as possible.

Participants

Twenty-six persons attended the seminar/workshop: 16 participants were nominated within ten Central and Eastern European countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Yugoslavia-Montenegro. There were two participants from Japan and eight observers from Slovenia who joined the seminar in an individual capacity. The working language of the seminar was English.

Opening

Mr. Cveto Ursic, director of the Institute of Rehabilitation of Slovenia, opened the seminar on 3 September 2001. He spoke for AAATE 2001 Conference chairman Dr. Crt Marincek, and was also a participant from Slovenia to the seminar. Mr. Ursic talked about how the Internet affects his personal and professional life and how useful a tool it is. He also acknowledged that there are many things on the Internet that are not accessible to persons with disabilities. He hoped the participants would come away from this seminar/workshop with a greater understanding of the Internet and the issues of accessibility.

Mr. Clinton Rapley, Senior Social Development officer of the United Nations, provided a brief overview of the mandate of the Programme on Disability as an implementation of the UN Standard Rules for the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities. Citing information sessions and pilot action to support Member States' requests for a better understanding of Internet Accessibility, the information programme has attained high visibility through regional exchanges. He also provided anecdotes on how the seminar became a substantive session in the AAATE 2001 conference.

Programme of the Seminar

The international Presentation Team assisting the Institute of Rehabilitation that organized and conducted the Seminar established an accessible Internet presence on the World Wide Web to publish materials and proceedings, at http://www.worldenable.net.

The Seminar used lectures, mini-panels, multimedia CD-ROM presentations, hands-on workshops, round-table discussions, and Internet chat to review and discuss information policy, technology and structural issues and trends and their implications for designing and implementing accessible Internet-based resources.

The following summarizes the activities of the four-day seminar.

Day 1: Technology and Structure: Issues and Trends

The main theme of the first day of the seminar was the discussion of issues and trends relating to the technology behind the Internet, and the issues of access.

Mr. Charles Kuhlman, Director of Telecommunications for New York University, presented The Four Forces of the Communications Revolution (CD-based presentation). The technical presentation on the state of Internet technology provided a near-term forecast of the impact of wireless networks to the increase in the Internet population. Following the presentation, attendees discussed the applicability of the technological aspects, encouraging the use of the Internet, security and auto-translation. An important issue was the high cost of accessing the Internet in all of Europe, and the availability of telecommunications facilities.

Maria-Cristina Sara-Serrano Mathiason, president of AIMS, presented via CD-based video on her first experience using the Internet to participate in a distant conference. She emphasized the equalization potential of an accessible Internet, and how the Standard Rules help determine the rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding the accessibility of information. She was unfortunately unavailable for a text chat. Presentation team leader Mr. Leo Valdes related how a municipality provided high-speed Internet access to the city's homeless population with both negative and positive results.

As a workshop activity, participants provided what they knew of the current state of telecommunications, and the issues, trends and usage of the Internet in their respective countries. The underlying concern related to the lack of telecommunication facilities or the cost of Internet access. The challenges in each country or area within a country varied depending on the level of development of the information infrastructures. For example, certain areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina require rebuilding towns destroyed by war, and reconstruction and reducing poverty have funding priority, delaying telecommunications projects. However, countries like Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic could start looking into Internet Accessibility issues as telecommunications facilities are at least available in urban areas.
More details on this workshop.

Day 2: Technology and Techniques for Internet Accessibility

The main theme for Day 2 is the practical application of established Accessibility technologies and techniques.

Leo Valdes, Managing Director of Vision Office and the leader of the international presentation team, opened a mini-panel session by reviewing an earlier presentation by European Union representatives regarding eEurope eAccessibility. The eEurope objective regarding the investments in People and Skills has a specific subobjective on "participation for all in a knowledge-based economy". The programme of action for 2001 and 2002 include the adoption of Web Accessibility Initiative standards and development of "Design for All" standards. The related European Union 5th Framework Programme has the theme "eAccessibility for all", and discusses barrier-free technologies and empowering technologies.

Paul Panek of the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, made a brief introduction to Assistive Technology, an illustration of Smartrooms, and the features of Autonom, which is a computer-based system to support persons with severe disabilities. His presentation included digital movies of a Smartroom and of a user of Autonom. Participants asked Mr. Panek about the costs and location of Smartrooms and would want more information about how they are set up.

Jonny Axelsson from Opera Software in Norway joined the session via text chat to answer questions about the Opera browser for which basic licenses were provided to all seminar participants. Participants asked about the full licence price and the main search engine used by Opera. Mr. Axelsson also listed the accessibility features of Opera, such as magnification, keyboard navigation and support for Cascading Style Sheets. (http://www.opera.com)

At the end of this mini-panel, participants commented on various means of using computers such as the use of a joystick and clickable screen keyboards. Participants wanted to get more information about assistive technologies, and their availability in the region.

Leo Valdes presented Accessible Internet, Technologies and Techniques for Making the Internet Accessible, emphasizing on simplicity of design in web sites. At the end of the presentation, participants added their experience, such as in designing sites that had good colour contrast to improve readability for those who are color-blind. Some participants were interested in finding a free online facility for the Disability community to create web sites, and without having to study HTML. They were also interested in techniques for taking their content into web pages, having had problems with charts and graphics coversions.

In the workshop room equiped with ten Internet-enabled workstations, participants were introduced to HTML basics, using Windows Notepad and the Opera browser. Mr. Valdes introduced the use of ALT tags to describe graphic elements in a web page. He demonstrated the use of a screen reader and how it reads accessible and non-accesible web pages. He also provided a demonstration on the use of HTML validators, such as CAST Bobby (http://www.cast.org/bobby) and the free HTML editor called HTML-Kit with HTML-Tidy. Both features provide advice on how to correct web pages to make them accessible.

Day 3: Internet Accessibility and the Standard Rules

A CD-based presentation entitled Accessibility and the Standard Rules features the expertise and the research of John and Maria-Cristina Mathiason. This presentation provided concepts and ideas on implementing the Standard Rules in favor of accessibility. The presentation provided opportunities for participants to review their current situation and see how the Standard Rules can help set policy/guidelines.

At the end of the presentation, an invited observer, Dr. Rodolfo Cattani of the European Disability Union provided his comments on the importance of the Standard Rules to promote the rights of Persons with Disabilities. Participants echoed his advocacy and asked if there was a possibility of having regional seminars on the application of the Standard Rules.

Participants were provided models for strategic planning and were asked to use what they have learned so far to create their own strategic and action plans. Presentors John and Maria-Cristina Mathiason were available on text chat to answer questions. Participants submitted their strategic plans to the Seminar Leader, and these were posted in the seminar web site.

Day 4: Strategic Plans and Closing

Mr. Valdes provided a brief introduction to the Seven Principles of Universal Design and the practical aspects of Web Usability: how visitors are using web sites.

Country representatives made brief presentations about their Strategic Plans. The presentations were of very good quality and content. The common theme was that of improving awareness of Internet Accessibility through education. Mr. Valdes presented the summary of the seminar activities, what was achieved, and what will happen as follow-up in the future. The seminar closed with acknowledgements for all participants, support personnel and the AAATE conference organizers.

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Copyright (c) 2001 AIMS/VisionOffice.
Last updated 11/02/03.