New Directions
Dear ATRC community, colleagues, partners, sponsors, clients and friends,
I am delighted to announce that the ATRC will have a new home and a new identity as of August 1, 2010. We are moving to the newly renamed OCAD University. We will be reconstituted as the Inclusive Design Research Centre and the Inclusive Design Institute. Our mission will continue to be the inclusive design of emerging information and communication systems and practices. All of our ongoing projects and services will come with us. The University of Toronto will be an ongoing research partner in the Inclusive Design Institute and we will continue our long-standing collaboration with researchers from across the University of Toronto.
OCAD has the agility, energy, imagination and innovative thinking that will enable us to thrive and realize our inclusive learning and research vision. Our new home has fully embraced inclusive design and made it an academic priority. We will be building an academic program in inclusive design at the undergraduate, graduate and professional development level. In addition to a venerable and rich history in art and design, OCAD includes programs such as the Digital Futures Initiative that perfectly complement our work and offer a vibrant, expanding academic community to situate our research.
Please stay tuned for further updates as our moving and launch dates arrive. You are all invited to our celebration!
Jutta
Director, ATRC
What's New?
A new report which explores the potential economic impacts on individuals, markets and communities in Ontario from the implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act by the Province of Ontario will be released on Monday, June 14. "Releasing constraints: projecting the economic impacts of Ontario's proposed AODA standards" was prepared by three leading research organizations in Toronto; the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, and the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre.
The ATRC had the pleasure of contributing to the ITU-G3ict e-accessibility Toolkit. The toolkit is now available online to: support organizations in understanding the requirements of Article 9 of the UN Convention on Persons with Disabilities; promote accessible ICT and eliminate accessibility barriers; provide a framework for the development of policies and strategies for mainstreaming digital accessibility; serve as a global repository on digital accessibility and facilitate the design of effective policy frameworks responding to the needs of e-inclusiveness.
The AEGIS project includes the development of a screen magnifier framework for the GNOME desktop. The ATRC is building upon GNOME Shell, the next generation desktop manager for GNOME. As of May 25, 2010, basic magnification functionality was incorporated into GNOME Shell including magnification factor, mouse tracking, screen positioning, movable lens, and cross hairs. The magnifier also exposes itself as a DBus service allowing other applications to control magnifier functions. More information about the magnifier is available from the GNOME wiki.
ATutor 2.0 Beta is now available for testing and feedback. See ChangeLog for a list of new features, and visit the demo to try it for yourself!
OpenCaps Beta released! OpenCaps is a free, web-based, open-source caption and subtitle editor developed by the ATRC. OpenCaps can be used as a plugin for the videos that are a part of the Matterhorn Project.
The Fluid Project is very pleased to announce the release of Fluid Infusion 1.2.
tagin! The tagin! project is pleased to announce that the Javascript API 0.1 has been released. The API can be used to create tagin!-enabled applications on any platform with full browser capabilities. Additionally the tagin! Firefox Add-on 0.6b has been released.
A research paper, written by Jutta Treviranus, chronicles new user experience (UX) design approaches utilized in the Fluid Project.
AChecker v.1.0 web accessibility evaluation tool is available for anyone interested in determining their websites accessibility.
New Products
Highlighted Products and Websites:
WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media Publishes Free Guidelines for Describing STEM Images for Use within Digital Talking Books and on Web Sites.
Proloquo2Go - is a new augmentative communication software now available for the iPod Touch and iPhone.
Project Possibility - a non-profit community service project committed to creating groundbreaking open source software for people with disabilities.
WebAIM conducted a survey of screen reader users and has published a summary of the results online. This may be read at: http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey/