As many screen reader users have found out the hard way; Microsoft’s SharePoint service is not very screen reader friendly. It can be navigated, but is clearly not understandable for your average user. Microsoft’s apparent lack of interest in adhering to w3c standards further complicates the situation. Despite this, many of us have to use SharePoint in our daily work. So with that said, I am writing this article to share with other screen reader users some tricks, tips and general information I’ve gathered over time while working on the “SharePoint issue”. I have primarily been working with the 2003 and 2007 editions of SharePoint, but most of these items hold true with 2010.

1. Fix the site itself

Before I show you some of the work-arounds, I want to quickly talk about SharePoint deployment. A company that just installs SharePoint on a server and leaves it with all the default settings and out of the box configuration is deploying an extremely less than accessible SharePoint site. Microsoft themselves point to the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS) – http://is.gd/cupBU which is a free set of templates and other items to make SharePoint more accessible. There is also the Unofficial Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (UKS) http://is.gd/cupXF which attempts to improve the accessibility shortcomings of the AKS. Neither of these fixes come with SharePoint or are installed by default so this is something that will need to be done by your SharePoint Administrator and may constitute a fair bit of work if they have already deployed SharePoint, developed their own templates or customized it at all. However, these SharePoint improvements go a long way towards making SharePoint more usable.

2. The SharePoint “more accessible mode”

SharePoint has implemented a setting that users can turn on to make the interface “more accessible”. A user changes their preferences for their own profile under SharePoint and turns this on, see the following article to learn more and get instructions on how to turn the “More Accessible Mode” feature on: http://is.gd/cuqhG .

Rather than do things right the first time in the main interface, Microsoft has elected to build this kludgy secondary interface for SharePoint. If you have customized your SharePoint interface or added any of the third party add-ons or items to your SharePoint server, this mode is often broken, non-functional or these add-ons are completely unusable.

3. Mobile Device Mode

Many screen reader users have highlighted that because the mobile mode for SharePoint is more simplified and contains fewer controls, items and elements on the screen that the mobile mode is far easier to learn and use than the default SharePoint interface. The “mobile” mode was designed for cell phones and other mobile devices to access SharePoint on their smaller screens. Be aware though that it still has a number of shortcomings and removes some functionality you may need to access in the main interface.

The “mobile interface” is a feature that needs to be enabled on the server by the administrator of your SharePoint site. See this link for instructions on how to Configure SharePoint Server for Mobile Device Access http://is.gd/cur83

Once this is enabled, you can use the mobile experience on a desktop web browser. To do this, go to the address bar, hit end to get to the end of the URL for the current page of a SharePoint site and paste the following text: ?mobile=1 at the end of your url. This can be done for a document, home page, web part page, wiki page, list view page, list item details/edit/new form page, or Search center page. This does not work for all pages/lists/documents but can be a convenient workaround for an overly complex page.

4. Accessing SharePoint with Windows Explorer

You can access using Windows explorer all the files and folder structure of a SharePoint’s file repository as if it were just another shared drive. While this is perhaps the most technical workaround, it is also the workaround that tends to work the best and provide the most screen reader friendly way of accessing and working with a SharePoint server that is being used as a document repository. You can use Windows Explorer to read, edit, delete or add files assuming you have the permissions on the SharePoint site to do so. This method of using SharePoint also does not have the full functionality of using the site natively and you may find that your area is using SharePoint for more than just a document library and that those additional items cannot be accessed through Windows explorer. However, with that said, it is far more efficient to navigate the document library with a screen reader from within Windows Explorer.

Figure 1 Screenshot of a sharepoint site opened in Internet Explorer

Figure 2 Screenshot of the same sharepoint site as displayed in Figure 1 but opened in Windows Explorer

There are two ways to get the URL for use within Windows Explorer for accessing a SharePoint document library. Both require you to first go to your SharePoint site in Internet Explorer and navigate to the library (page) you wish to access.

4.1 The Easy Way of Getting the URL for use within Windows Explorer

While on the page for the document library you wish to access within Windows explorer, find the Actions link and then find the Open in Windows Explorer link. Hit alt-d to get to the address bar and copy the URL you find there. With this address or URL, you can return to the site at any time by just loading Windows Explorer and pasting this URL.

4.2 The Manual Way of Getting the URL for use within Windows Explorer

Even though it’s a more manual process and requires more technical knowledge, I’m going to show you the 2nd way of getting the document library address to paste into Windows explorer because sometimes the previous method is not visible. So, alternately, you can get the address of the site from the address bar. For my example, the following URL was grabbed from the address bar of a SharePoint site I have to use occasionally.

Example URL:

http://sharepointcollab/org/1188556/RO-OSC/Wiki%20Pages/Home.aspx

Deconstruct the URL as follows:

1. remove http:
   
2. replace all slashes with backslashes
   
3. remove the last few levels below the folder of the repository
   
4. add \Documents to the end of the URL
   

You should have a URL that looks something like this:

\\sharepointcollab\org\1188556\RO-OSC\Documents

Paste your new URL into Windows Explorer’s address bar to access the SharePoint document library.

4.3 Creating a drive mapping with the Windows Explorer URL

You can then add the Windows Explorer URL we grabbed in the previous sections from Windows explorer as a mapped drive letter by Choosing Tools, Map Network Drive, paste the path copied earlier into the “folder” field and tab to the drive selection field and select the drive letter you wish to use. Tab to and press enter on the OK button and you will now have a mapped drive to a document library that you can then access and use just like any other drive you use in Windows

5. Final Thoughts

As you can see above, none of the “work arounds” are ideal and none of them will work all the time for all situations. It is therefore recommended that you communicate the importance of accessibility to your IT area, that they communicate this as an important business requirement of your organization to Microsoft and urge them to fix the “out of box” experience for everyone by making their offering fully W3C and WCAG AAA compliant right from the out-of-box deployment. Until that day comes, I hope that you have found these work arounds and tricks to be useful and that you will share any additional tricks you have found for working with SharePoint with a screen reader in the comments below.

However, this information is not accessible to the blind and low vision participants who are planning on attending. Because the information on the conference site isn’t designed properly and because of this it isn’t meaningful for blind and low vision visitors in it’s current form; as pointed out in this blog posting: Lack of accessibility of the web site for the conference on technology & person’s with disabilities http://bit.ly/a9IMC9 . This is not because it isn’t possible, nor is it because there aren’t options to make this type of map and route information accessible, it is simply because it wasn’t done.

The conference had the ability to be a leader in this area and provide it’s blind and low vision users with a far greater level of accessibility, inclusion and independence at the upcoming conference as it relates to way finding at the conference. However, the effort to meet needs of blind and low vision visitors attendees hasn’t improved over the last 7 years; as pointed out in this blog post: Don’t forget the blind at #csun10 – http://bit.ly/chWZVT

Inclusion & independence vs dependence

There seems to be some confusion that Providing tours of the area is an appropriate equivalent to providing printed maps and way finding information on their web site. While I agree that O&M type activities are useful; they do not provide the same information as is provided to all sighted attendees. The question is, would you prefer an arranged group tour or an independent technology solution that would benefit you during the whole conference, The conference organizers obviously provide the map in so many places because they recognize that people want this information & they want to be able to take it with them.

I would understand if it wasn’t technologically feasible. If the solutions were prohibitively expensive or there was a lack of awareness of the issues and need for accessibility & inclusion. However, there are at least a half a dozen solutions to this requirement. The conference organizer’s might .benefit from touring their own exhibit hall, as at least 3 companies are showcasing just such a solution. In addition to this, one low cost, simple and extremely valuable such option is the ClickAndGo way finding technology [http://www.clickandgomaps.com/ ] as) it offers both indoor and outdoor guidance, and can be accessed freely by anyone with a note taker, laptop, pda, daisy reader or cellphone. This product was used to provide accessible wayfinding at both the last two ATIA conferences and received from attendees who used it an extremely positive feedback. An attendee simply selects a start point and end point and gets walking instructions on how to navigate the area.

It is unfortunate that some form of independent way finding option isn’t being considered (especially since there are multiple options). Someone should step up and address these important concerns.

Having fixed up the link issues on the page itself, fixed heading issues, cleaned up some of the code, provided some information about the strange table construct intended to visually provide the layout of the exhibit hall, the page is vastly more usable than it was just a week ago when the issues were identified.   The only outstanding issue relates to the information itself, see article:
http://blog.blackspheretech.com/?p=45  Lack of equitable access to wayfinding information

However, my hat goes off to the organisers in even achieving what they have in just a week.

Original Article:

You would think that a conference on technology & persons with disabilities that includes tons of sessions on accessible web design, technology & accommodation’s would consider accessibility as a priority in their web presence; however this does not seem to be the case.

<br><br>Accessibility isn’t rocket science. We have had well defined web accessibility standards (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: http://www.w3.org/wai) in place for almost 20 years. Free courses exist by the droves to explain web accessibility from a whole host of directions for a whole host of audiences. There are also free and for pay accessibility validation software & sites that can pick up the most common problems. So today, there is no excuse for having a site that isn’t accessible (especially for a conference that is guaranteed to have a ton of persons with disabilities attending).

I ran a single page from the CSUN conference site through an html & accessibility validator and got the following results: (It should be noted that this is in no way exhaustive nor a full accessibility evaluation but simply less than 5 minutes worth of work looking at one page of the site and some of it’s html standard compliance & accessibility compliance issues.. .

On the following conference page: CSUN Conference Page That was evaluated http://bit.ly/duzw50 the following errors were identified by the validator:

If one is looking at the accessibility of the site, it should also be noted that it’s full of meaningless links that in no way implicitly identify their destination, pages that are full of data that should really be marked up as a data table and a strange graphical map like construct that they have built with a table.

These are just the easy to find issues. Someone should step up and do the right thing.

Every year, the California state university’s annual conference on technology & persons with disabilities brings thousands of people together who have an interest in disability. This conference is widely viewed as the premier event in North America in this field. Some are coming for a professional reason, some for a personal one, some to open their eyes to the wealth of technology, accommodations, and experience to share, draw on, learn from and share with; in this cornucopia of subtopics. Accessibility is on the forefront of everyone’s mind and the sheer number of persons with disabilities who attend is staggering. I’ve never seen so many wheelchairs, canes, guide dogs and sign language interpreters in one place at the same time in my life.

I personally have attended the conference a number of times over the years and my one observation is that the attention to planning an inclusive conference & will to provide an inclusive conference is there. However, most of what is done to ensure this hasn’t changed overly much in the last 5+ years. Even though the technology and offerings have. No area is this more evident than in the accessibility of aspects of the conference for attendees who are blind.

Way finding

After 10+years of holding the conference at the Marriott in Los Angeles, this year the conference is moving to a new location (San Diego). This is a prime example of an opportunity to showcase technology’s real world application. A new, unfamiliar area reduces the confidence & independent travel options for someone who is blind. Yes, there are people at the conference who will “help” attendees get around; however, the more information and independent resources available will give attendees a far more positive experience at the conference and provide a far greater level of confidence to attendees. One low cost, simple and extremely valuable such option is the ClickAndGo way finding technology [http://www.clickandgomaps.com/ ] as) it offers both indoor and outdoor guidance, and can be accessed freely by anyone with a note taker, laptop, pda, daisy reader or cellphone. This product was used to provide accessible wayfinding at both the last two ATIA conferences and received from attendees who used it an extremely positive feedback. An attendee simply selects a start point and end point and gets walking instructions on how to navigate the area.

Sessions

The conference offers attendees 100s of options for sessions to attend both before (in preconference format) and during the conference. Most of these sessions use a PowerPoint that is projected to the front of the screen. A non-sighted attendee is completely excluded from this information. I can’t count the number of sessions I have attended that focus on the information up on the front screen.

With the widespread number of accessible conference systems out there it would not be very hard to offer this during each session. Serotek, Ideal, talking communities all offer something relevant. There is even a session at the conference this year that compares these offerings, which I bet will have a PowerPoint and be projected up at the front of the room.

The new Accessible Event Hotspot http://serotek.com/new-ae-hotspot-appliance would make this even easier. Each room could have their own inclusive system for attendees with print related disabilities, using this system. Serotek even rents the units.

What you can do

It’s not too late to see these kinds of things this year at the conference….

1. Spread the word, let your voice be heard, let people know this is important
2. Contact Sandy Plotin who is in charge of the conference at sandy.plotin@csun.edu
3. Contact Center on Disabilities Conference, conference@csun.edu, Phone: (818) 677-2578

This device scans its surroundings and finds Bluetooth enabled devices. When it discovers a device it offers it 1 or more files. It uses the standard Bluetooth file sending protocol to send the file and thus no additional software is required on the device.

With the proliferation of mobile devices within the disability community that support Bluetooth file sending, such as:

• Blackberries
• Cell phones
• Laptops
• Notetakers
• Communication aids

Thus, the ZBA broadcaster is a convenient way of temporarily or permanently providing information in an accessible format at a specific geographical location. The ZBA broadcaster requires no computer to operate; it can be installed in a location of choice and will operate continuously and independently without human intervention. It can be used as an easy way to provide electronic copies of material to people and provide that material in an accessible electronic format. With the proliferation of Bluetooth on all cell phones and mobile devices, this benefits everyone including people without disabilities.

Some possible uses for this device:

Service providers

• Pamphlets, menus, directories, documents & other printed material could be provided in an accessible electronic format. I.e. a blind customer walks into a restaurant and gets offered the menu in a format they could read on their portable device or cell phone.

Public facilities

• Directories that are usually only available in printed form at the entry of the building could be available to people who approach the directory for reference on their Bluetooth enabled device. This could be used to provide wayfaring information, safety or evacuation information, signage or other primarily printed material

Conference presenters

• Booths or presenters often only have the printed versions of their information or pamphlets. The Bluetooth broadcaster could be used to provide the same information in multiple formats.

Future possibilities

Currently we are working with ZBA to add the possibility of introducing a catalog or directory of additional information that could be requested by passersby in order to request documents or additional information. This would greatly increase the capabilities and possibilities of using this device in more situations including enhancing its value as a way finding device.

If you operate a business within Ontario you should have already:

1. Establish policies, practices and procedures on providing goods or services to people with disabilities.
   
2. Use reasonable efforts to ensure that your policies, practices and procedures are consistent with the core principles of independence, dignity, integration and equality of opportunity.
   
3. Set a policy on allowing people to use their own personal assistive devices to access your goods and use your services and about any other measures your organization offers (assistive devices, services, or methods) to enable them to access your goods and use your services.
   
4. Communicate with a person with a disability in a manner that takes into account his or her disability.
   
5. Allow people with disabilities to be accompanied by their guide dog or service animal in those areas of the premises you own or operate that are open to the public, unless the animal is excluded by another law. If a service animal is excluded by law, use other measures to provide services to the person with a disability.
   
6. Permit people with disabilities who use a support person to bring that person with them while accessing goods or services in premises open to the public or third parties.
   
7. Where admission fees are charged, provide notice ahead of time on what admission, if any, would be charged for a support person of a person with a disability.
   
8. Provide notice when facilities or services that people with disabilities rely on to access or use your goods or services are temporarily disrupted.
   
9. Train staff, volunteers, contractors and any other people who interact with the public or other third parties on your behalf on a number of topics as outlined in the customer service standard.
   
10. Train staff, volunteers, contractors and any other people who are involved in developing your policies, practices and procedures on the provision of goods or services on a number of topics as outlined in the customer service standard.
    
11. Establish a process for people to provide feedback on how you provide goods or services to people with disabilities and how you will respond to any feedback and take action on any complaints. Make the information about your feedback process readily available to the public.
    
12. Document in writing all your policies, practices and procedures for providing accessible customer service and meet other document requirements set out in the standard.
    
13. Notify customers that documents required under the customer service standard are available upon request.
    
14. When giving documents required under the customer service standard to a person with a disability, provide the information in a format that takes into account the person’s disability.
    

Go here for more information on the AODA

As the newly appointed chair of the TEC committee, I want to first express that I am honored and encouraged by the large amount of excitement and interest I have been hearing within both the TEC committee & within CWDO as a whole. I am hoping that we can put together something extremely valuable together as we move forward on a number of initiatives. The New Year is on the horizon and it portends to be a time of change. I wanted to bring to your attention some of the proposed change and ask you to join me in being a part of it.

Creating New Website & Content management Solution

We are moving forward with a move to Drupal, a content management system that will allow us to have a more accessible, more dynamic, more engaging and more active web site.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED:

The site has grown well past the point where 1 person can do it all on their own. We have tons more work than I can do alone, so we are looking for volunteers to help with this project. You don’t need to be a programmer to participate. We have tasks and activities that cover the whole gambit from technical to non-technical. If you can use a word processor than we’d love your help, we can provide training.

Some Possible Roles:

• Content Movers
• Editors
• Publishers

If you are willing to help out please send me an email at jds.ncr@gmail.com if you know html, css, php or have experience with Drupal, please let me know. Please also let me know how technical you are as that will help too.

If you would like to know more about the website changes: http://blog.blackspheretech.com/?p=30

The TEC Committee:

We are working on raising awareness about barriers faced by persons with disabilities in telecommunications, new technologies that will assist persons with disabilities in their day to day activities and maintaining the most accessible website to both persons with disabilities and those who have an interest in the issues of persons with disabilities living in Ontario. The TEC through the CWDO webinars, reach out not only to persons with disabilities in Ontario but raise awareness, of issues of concern to persons with disabilities, to persons attending these electronic seminars, with and without disabilities, outside of Ontario.

We are seeking your input & direction on these very issues. If you are passionate about technology, have a great idea on how we can innovate in the area of accommodation or accessibility with technology or would like to suggest or put on a webinar on a topic you are passionate about; please contact me directly at jds.ncr@gmail.com because I want to hear from you!

If you would like to know more about the TEC Committee please visit: http://cwdo.org/TEC_welcome_page.htm

For those who would like to know a little more about me:

Jeffrey D. Stark’s Bio:

20 years of experience working in the fields of IT, assistive/adaptive technology & accessibility

Interests: Mobile junkie. Firm believer in the 3 Ts to happiness, Tools, Toys & Technology Poet, bard, lover of life & all that…

For the last 20 years, technology has been Jeffrey’s focus both professionally and personally. Professionally, Jeffrey is widely respected as an expert in his field of interest and has been a guiding voice in a number of accessibility initiatives in Canada. He has provided training for developers, publishers, technicians and a wide variety of other audiences across Canada on topics such as accessible application design, web accessibility & adaptive computer technology. Jeffrey manages a program which continues to be a driving force in the fields of accessibility and adaptive computer technology & has been internationally recognized for the unique services provided to persons with disabilities, injuries & ergonomic requirements.

In his personal life, Jeffrey has been advocating for accessibility & inclusion within Canada. Jeffrey strongly believes in the need for institutionalization of accessibility requirements into all areas with an IT component. There are internationally recognized standards that developers need to follow in order for a system to be accessible. This is a little like the accessibility standards in the build environment (i.e. doorways have to be a certain width to accommodate a wheelchair, ramps, signage, contrasting colors etc). The same exists in web content, applications and other systems. Accessibility means that people with and without disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with information, services and applications. The adoption of accessibility standards, guidelines and best practices ensure that systemic barriers are eliminated prior to individual accommodations.

Jeffrey is very aware of the technology that is deployed across Canada in the general public. He regularly volunteers his technical services in the general public to persons with disabilities and families of persons with disabilities who require technological accommodations.

Read Jeffrey’s Blog at: http://blog.blackspheretech.com

Follow Jeffrey On Twitter at: http://twitter.com/lordJeff

View & Connect with Jeffrey on LinkedIn at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lordJeff

Moving to an open source content management system such as Drupal would allow more capability, quicker page updates, multiple authors, multiple revisions, better integration with social media such as twitter, and a more standard compliant site.

Current Situation

Currently the CWDO.org web pages are manually entered using a Microsoft web design tool. Only one person can enter the material, upload it to the site and make changes.

Content Management System

By implementing a web based content management system; CWDO can have as complex or simple of a system as is appropriate. Having one or more people sharing any of the following roles:

• Creator – responsible for creating and editing content.
  
• Editor – responsible for tuning the content message and the style of delivery, including translation and localization.
  
• Publisher – responsible for releasing the content for use.
  
• Administrator – responsible for managing access permissions to folders and files, usually accomplished by assigning access rights to user groups or roles. Admins may also assist and support users in various ways.
  

A critical aspect of content management is the ability to manage versions of content as it evolves. Authors and editors often need to restore older versions of edited products due to a process failure or an undesirable series of edits.

Another equally important aspect of content management involves the creation, maintenance, and application of review standards. Each member of the content creation and review process has a unique role and set of responsibilities in the development and/or publication of the content. Each review team member requires clear and concise review standards which must be maintained on an ongoing basis to ensure the long-term consistency and health of the knowledge base.

A content management system is a set of automated processes that supports the following features:

• Identification of all key users and their roles.
• The ability to assign roles and responsibilities to different instances of content categories or types.
• Definition of workflow tasks often coupled with messaging so that content managers are alerted to changes in content.
• The ability to track and manage multiple versions of a single instance of content.
• The ability to publish the content to a repository to support access to the content. Increasingly, the repository is an inherent part of the system, and incorporates enterprise search and retrieval.

For more information on what a content management system is, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management

For more information on the options of content management solutions see: http://www.idealware.org/articles/joomla_drupal_plone.php

Recommendations

Drupal

(pronounced /ˈdruːpəl/) is a free and open source Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for many different types of websites, ranging from small personal blogs to Enterprise 2.0 collaboration and knowledge management uses to large corporate and political sites.[4] High-traffic Drupal-based websites include ubuntu.com and seobook.com.[5] In October 2009, the administration of U.S. president Barack Obama adopted Drupal for the official Whitehouse.gov website.[6][7][8]

The standard release of Drupal, known as Drupal core, contains basic features common to most CMSs. These include the ability to register and maintain individual user accounts within a flexible and rich permission / privilege system, create and manage menus, RSS-feeds, customize page layout, perform logging, and administer the system. As installed, Drupal provides options to create a classic brochureware website, a single- or multi-user blog, an Internet forum, or a community website providing for User-generated content.

Drupal was also designed to allow new features and custom behavior to be added to extend Drupal’s core capabilities. This is done via installation of plug-in modules (known as contrib modules) created and contributed to the project by open source community members. For this reason, Drupal is sometimes described as a content management framework.[2]

Although Drupal offers a sophisticated programming interface for developers, no programming skills are required for basic website installation and administration.[9]

Drupal can run on any computing platform that supports both a web server capable of running PHP version 4.3.5+ (including Apache, IIS, Lighttpd, and nginx) and a database (such as MySQL or PostgreSQL) to store content and settings.[3]

Criticism of Drupal

Usability: Some aspects of Drupal’s administration interface can be confusing and intimidating, particularly for new administrators.[41] According to the Interaction Design and Information Architecture program at the University of Baltimore, Drupal lacks an intuitive, easy administration user interface.[42][43][44] The administration area is regarded as clunky and cryptic with Drupal version 5 and 6, but improved ease of use is planned with the upcoming version 7. According to Dries Buytaert, Drupal 7 won’t be released until 90% of the problems identified by the University of Minnesota[45][46] and the University of Baltimore[44] are solved. Usability will be one of the main improvements in Drupal 7 that will close the gap with easier CMSs.

Learning curve: Some users have described Drupal as having a fairly steep learning curve. [41][47][48]

Backward Compatibility (for software development): Drupal’s designers have decided that, in terms of programming, backward compatibility may be sacrificed with each major revision.[49] As a result, sometimes a new version’s code is not compatible with a previous version. This means that contrib module and theme developers may be required to re-work some or all of their previous code to ensure compatibility with the latest version of Drupal. However, the policy enforced for Drupal core development is that Drupal may change an API, but it will not change how it uses your data. This means that while code may need changing between major releases, data from previous versions will still be usable without the need to alter the data itself in the new release.[50][51]

Performance / Scalability: In 2006, performance tests between Drupal 4.x and Joomla 1.x branch demonstrated that Drupal’s Web pages were delivered 44% slower compared with Joomla. To improve performance, Drupal offers caching to store static pages, the use of which resulted in a 508% improvement. Static pages are typically delivered to only anonymous visitors who have not logged in; contributed modules must be installed to allow page caching for authenticated users.[52] Thus, dramatic performance improvements from caching may not reflect real-world usage of a Drupal site.[53] Like performance, scalability, or the ability for a Web site to handle a growing number of concurrent visitors, can become a concern on large interactive sites. Scalability is typically improved by optimizations of the code.[citation needed] Particularly, SQL query caching can help offset the load to the database server caused by Drupal’s high query rate.[54][55] Since version 6, Drupal caches database schema as well as elements such as blocks, forms and menus.[56] Development versions of Drupal 7 increase performance in database queries with simultaneous performance decreases in PHP code usage

The down side

• All content will need to be moved over to the new site (time consuming)
• The current site’s “look” might need to be changed
  • Or someone may need to be hired to develop a template in Drupal that matches the CWDO site
• Each person in a content creation, publishing, editing, moderation or administration role will require training on Drupal
• New processes and procedures will need to be developed for CM workflow

Conclusion

With limited resources, volunteers and a need for information in a timely fashion, a Content Management System approach is necessary. This would allow more people to get involved in managing and maintaining the website. Drupal, while not the only content management system, has no cost in it’s usage and provides a wealth of features.

I just wanted to extend an invite to anyone who would be interested in participating in an on-line public consultation with Charles Beer October 22, 2009 from 7-9pm EST The provincial government has hired Charles Beer to do an independent review of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). The AODA calls for a review of itself every 5 years.

People who have been attending local meetings about the standards have told us that few people with disabilities are there. That means the loudest voices are those who do not want these standards. If it matters to us, we need to get involved. This is a time to show our strength.

If you need accessibility, inclusion or care about the AODA and accessibility standards make sure you log on for this meeting. A good turnout will show that we care about this legislation, and do not want things to be slowed down or cancelled.

Our rights may be in the balance.

A survey has been created to help set the agenda & to capture questions from people who cannot attend:

http://bit.ly/2ATZI

You can click here to register in advance:

http://bit.ly/18i1cS

or you can just attend on the date and time by going to this link:

http://bit.ly/lNdMo

For those who are not familiar with DVS, the Described Video Service is an extra audio track that describes the visual elements of a broadcast in real time to supplement the standard audio track in order for the show to be understood when watching as a person with vision loss or who is blind. Without this audio track much of the action & items on the screen are missed. This material is already available with the original broadcast but not being passed through from the source to rogers customers

From Rogers: “You are absolutely correct that Rogers committed to passing through DVS on

the digitized versions of the U.S. channels.

This was something that had been discussed internally when Rogers first

began configuring our digital signals to support a second audio stream for

described video.

Over the course of the past year, we were focused on supporting those

Canadian programming services that have formal DVS programming commitments.

The list provided to you reflects the full range of Canadian services for

which Rogers passes through DVS on digital.

With the exception of PBS, which you had noted, it has been our experience

that the U.S. television stations offer little, if any, DVS programming.

Our Engineering team has confirmed that WPBS Watertown has a DVS audio

stream. This stream has now been properly configured to pass-through along

with the main WPBS signal. It can be activated by selecting the SPANISH

audio setting (or by using the single-button feature on your current

remote). Our customer service information will be updated to reflect this

change. Unfortunately, the pass-through of the DVS audio stream for the

four commercial U.S. television stations requires extensive network changes.

These changes are required not only to pass-through DVS, but also to ensure

that we can continue to perform signal substitutions for Canadian

broadcasters offering identical programming.

The same issue doesn’t apply to WPBS because it is commercial-free. Given

the complexity associated with upgrading our equipment, we hope to be able

to pass-through any DVS on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX by early 2010, where

available from the Broadcaster.

That said, we have been in touch with these stations and they advise that

the amount of DVS they offer today is either minimal or non-existent. ”

So essentially, to save a few bucks and a little work they have not been passing through all the DVS programming available. Thus excluding many blind Canadians from fully enjoying the cable service they pay for.