Apparently it’s no bull….Makes you wonder.

Just about all of the “tools” in GAFE can be used by anyone using the “public” version by opening a free Google account. In other words, anyone can create a Google account and instantly have accessed to many if not most of these free tools. The tools include:

• Gmail – the e-mail system, including mail servers, storage and archiving.
• Google Docs – a series of three “office suite” applications including word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications.
• Google Sites – a web page hosting and page maker utility.
• Google Groups – an application service that creates custom mailing distribution lists.
• Google Calendar – an application that allows users to create multiple calendars and share them with other users.

What makes GAFE different from the public form of Google Apps is that for an annual domain license fee of $10, an educational institution can control all of these services within one domain name, manage their users’ access and control access to the content. Like the public form of Google Apps, all of these services are provided through the use of a browser (or special Google application for mobile devices) and server-based software in the so called “Cloud.” Apart from the annual fee, schools only need computers and access to the internet to be able to use this service.

Many schools and institutions of higher education around the country have signed up for GAFE as it can provide a tremendous savings to the organization. With the GAFE services, the institution may no longer have to maintain their own servers for web and mail services and may also no longer have to purchase and support desktop office suite applications like Microsoft Office. GAFE is operating system agnostic meaning it can run on any computer linked to the internet.

So what’s the problem?

The major problem comes in the form of issues related to the accessibility of GAFE by students with disabilities and the accessibility of content created by GAFE tools.

In a research study conducted by the Access Technology Higher Education Network (ATHEN) Google Apps Accessibility Interest Group published in October 2011, a comprehensive functional assessment was made of the Google Docs tools in GAFE by a cadre of people using a variety of common assistive technologies (AT) (ATHEN, 2011). In the executive summary, they state:

“These tests show that many people with disabilities are currently unable to successfully use these applications. No assistive technology tested was able to fully perform every function within these applications, and the level of support for assistive technologies ranged from being able to perform many, but not all of the functions to not being able to use the applications at all. Some of the major problems include:

• Speech recognition software users cannot dictate text into, or interact with the application.
• Keyboard-only users often cannot access the application menu, and thus, much of the functionality of the application.
• High contrast users cannot see many of the toolbar buttons and other user interface elements.
• Screen reader users cannot interact with the application reliably and effectively, reach and perform the desired functions, and cannot always determine what is being asked in “popup” windows.

Because of these and many other problems, which prevent entire populations of people from fully or sometimes even partially using the software, Documents and the Document List cannot be considered accessible.”

Some additional highlights from the initial ATHEN report were:

• The keyboard focus is not always visible.
• There is inconsistent implementation across browsers.
• There is no ability to apply established web accessibility standards when generating content.
• There is no ability to save user preferences for AT.

In a subsequent report published in February 2012 [PDF], ATHEN reviewed the results of a comprehensive functional assessment of two additional GAFE tools: Gmail and Google Calendar. The findings of that assessment suggest that Google had made some advancement in both the GAFE product and its documentation but it concluded that “there were still significant problems.” The authors concluded: “Google could easily do much more to make the entire interface more accessible. Significant work still needs to be done for visually impaired users, especially screen reader users. Many of the problems encountered in this report could have been solved if standard user interface elements had been used in ways specified by the W3C through the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).”

In a March 20, 2012 webinar hosted by EASI: Equal Access to Software and Information and presented by Greg Kraus and Scott Williams, two members of the ATHEN Google Apps Accessibility Interest Group, the following was learned:

• Despite an ongoing “conversation” with representatives at Google, progress to resolve the accessibility issues with GAFE has been slow in coming.
• Google appears most interested in pursuing a way to get GAFE to work with its own browser and text-to-speech plugin (ChromeVox), rather than working to ensure GAFE works with all browsers and all popular screen reader AT.
• For users of screen reader AT, there were issues with the large number and over-dependency on the use of “hot keys” (access keys) to complete common activities and the occasional conflict of the GAFE access keys with those used by other screen readers.
• Documentation on the use of the accessibility features of GAFE, while extensive, is not complete or easy to understand.
• Google Docs, the content-generating, office suite tools in GAFE were particularly difficult to use with AT including with ChromeVox which often crashed while using Google docs. (Note: This behavior was also observed by this author during a subsequent test of ChromeVox on a MacBookPro using OSX Lion.)

Conclusions

Again in citing the ATHEN report, it is important to note that GAFE is a relatively new product which has grown considerably in popularity and in functionality. Google has expressed some willingness to achieve success in terms of accessibility of the product and continues to work in that direction.

However, this consultant agrees with the final conclusions stated in the report:

“Google has made significant improvements for screen reader users when using Documents and the Document List, but these tests show that support for screen reader users is still poor and the needs of people with other types of disabilities have not been met. Considerable work still needs to be done to ensure that people with all types of disabilities can fully use the Google Application suite.” (ATHEN, 2011, p. 12) [PDF]

References

Access Technology Higher Education Network (ATHEN). Report on the accessibility of Google document. October 18, 2011.

Access Technology Higher Education Network (ATHEN). ATHEN Report on the Accessibility of GMail and Google Calendar. February 29, 2012. [PDF]

Kraus, G. & Williams, S. Report on the Accessibility of Google Apps (from the CSUN Conference), EASI Webinar: How Accessible Are Google Apps? Presented on March 20, 2012.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the announcement from Google that they had markedly improved the accessibility of various free apps they deliver to the public. In a article from the E-Access Bulletin of October, Brian Gaff, an accessibility columnist says “not so fast!”

Google Gaps:

Our regular correspondent Brian Gaff, who is on the committee of the Kingston upon Thames Association for the Blind, writes in to grumble about accessibility issues relating to Google services.

“Judging by the comments in the Google group ‘accessible’ it seems that Google have painted themselves into a corner with their new online apps like Google Plus and Google Docs,” Gaff says. “Half of them won’t work with most basic screenreaders and so they add ChromeVox to their Chrome browser. Hardly what blind folk would want, to have to alter access technology just to use Google’s stuff.

“The failing here surely is that the folk writing the code are not aware enough of what works and what does not for blind access. It’s sad that in this age we are still saying that the writers of code are not educated in making sites that just work out of the box, so to speak.

“Surely in this age when people want more users to generate more revenue, it ought to be a no-brainer to get as many folk as possible to be able to use web sites, software and online systems, but it seems it’s not. We are invisible I suspect.

“I block Google’s ads now as they persist in trying to sell me Venetian blinds… grin.”

Copyright 2011 Headstar Ltd http://www.headstar.com .

We’ve recently made some accessibility enhancements to Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites. Improvements have been made in keyboard shortcuts and support for screen readers among other items.

Google Calendar: Google Calendar now has new keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support for our blind users. Members of the blind community can now use JAWS, VoiceOver and ChromeVox to manage your calendars, create and edit events or simply browse your events.

Google Docs and Google Sites: New keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support with support for two screen readers: JAWS and ChromeVox.

Read the rest of the report

As reported here, you will recall that Google had gotten into some hot water with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) last spring. NFB had lodged a formal complaint to the Department of Justice on concerns it had regarding the accessibility of these free applications. We’ll be checking them out and spreading the word.

According to their official blog, Google reports that they have worked closely with the American Council of the Blind (ACB) to develop a survey that would give them “a greater understanding of how people choose and learn about the assistive technologies they use.” They go on to note that the survey “will help us design products and tools that interact more effectively with assistive technologies currently available to the blind community, as well as improve our ability to educate users about new features in our own assistive technologies, such as ChromeVox and TalkBack.”

The survey for people in the blind community, reportedly takes about 20 minutes to complete (link to the survey is here) and includes incentives by way of random drawings for gift certificates to Amazon.com.

———-

Photo credit: Licensed by Creative Commons by Robert Scoble

First, the on-line captioning system that I described in my March 10^th blog – Universal Subtitles – is just one of a number of on-line services. Here are some more:

• CaptionTube
• dotSUB
• OverStream
• Subtitle-horse
• Easy YouTube caption creator (from accessify.com)

There is also this great resource that provides lots of information about captioning video that is supported by the National Association of the Deaf.

Another point of information

I have long heard, and often preached that one of the advantages of captioning your videos was to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization). What I had heard was that the search engines were able to spider through your caption file, index the content and add it to their inventory. Well that is not exactly correct. The big boys and girls – Google and Bing – do not index caption files. But the good news is that I have discovered a new service called 22frames.com that intends to do just that. Here’s how they describe themselves:

By continually indexing videos from these multiple hosts, this site offers an increasingly comprehensive catalog covering many different topics. Indexing is mostly automated using APIs and specialized web crawlers. User submissions of videos and channels also play an important role.

22frames is still in early development and there is no indication how many videos they have already indexed. Their technology sounds interesting and hopefully will be mainstream someday.

In closing, one of my upcoming blogs will discuss the inaccessibility of Flash video like YouTube for screen reader users. I’m working on that now.

—–

Photo credit: Image licensed by Creative Commons by matsuyuki

Over the past few years increasing number of universities – including the University of Maine – and more recently an increasing number of public school systems have adopted Google Apps for Education and G-mail as their mail system. On the Google Apps for Education home page, they claim “more than 10 million students” use the service.

But there might be a problem.

Last week, amid the news surrounding various world crises, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) posted a press release indicating that they had “requested that the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, investigate civil rights violations committed by” two major universities for using Google Apps for Education. They state that this is “because the schools have adopted technology that is not accessible to the blind.” A similar request for investigation has been filed against four Oregon public school districts that are using Google Apps.

The press release cites the fact that “United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of Education have specifically warned all university presidents against the adoption of inaccessible technology.”

NFB has included links to videos they prepared showing the inaccessibility features of the Google Apps in question.

It should be noted that there are probably other mail systems and applications used in schools and universities that are not accessible to people with disabilities, but now that Google Apps for Education have been called on the carpet, it would be pretty hard to defend their use now. That is unless Google puts their tremendous technical skills and considerable wealth into fixing the Apps immediately.

Read the entire Press Release from the National Federation of the Blind.

I had this feeling today when I read a series of articles from this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education about accessible and universal design in college websites (links to all articles below). The cover story for the series tells the story of Darrell Shandrow, a senior at Arizona State University at Tempe. Mr. Shandrow is a journalism major who at age 37 would be considered a “non-traditional” student. But what makes Mr. Shandrow all the more non-traditional is the fact that he is blind student who isn’t afraid of making a few waves.

The right place, right time comment has to do with the fact that I had just blogged a few days ago about this exact topic. It’s nice to see some supporting documentation for my position.

If you are interested in the stuff I write about here you should absolutely read these articles. And like most on-line news stories today there is a place to make comments. I find reading the comments to often be more informative than the article. In this case, the comments made by a few people prove the point of why we need to be advocates for accessible and universal design and why we need to be vigilant.

After reading the articles the first thing I did was send the links out to a half-dozen colleagues and put links on Twitter. Then I went and testing the home page of my alma mater. St. Francis College of Brooklyn would probably score in the lower third.

As someone who started their web design career as a university webmaster, I have a particular affection for this topic. But to me web accessibility for a college/university website is a no-brainer.

The series:

Chronicle of Higher Education article “Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online”

Sidebar: About Cal State’s success

Sidebar: Chart ranking the best and worst college web sites

Universal Design, Usability, and Accessibility

I just finished writing a Privacy Policy for the jebswebs site and will be adding a link on the blog to point to it.

Personally, I am not overly concerned about privacy on the web, but many people are, and I can certainly understand this. I am concerned about some of the “biggest offenders” who have made the press lately. It’s one thing to have an online service that gather’s information, it is something else when you don’t let people/visitors know about it – or if you constantly change the requirements to keep your information private. The “biggest offenders” are also guilty of creating a false sense of security by creating the illusion of a “gated community” when all the while, their patrons’ personal information is available to those beyond the “gate.”

So, I am a bit ashamed that I didn’t catch this a few weeks ago when I stated adding GA to several of my sites. Rest assured I’ll be remedying that in the next few days.

For those who don’t know about GA and wonder, why all the fuss, let me explain.

Google Analytics is a neat and free service provided by Google to website owners and developers. The developer inserts a small amount of JavaScript code on the pages of their website, and every time someone visits that page, the script grabs some information about the visitor and adds it to the owner’s GA account database. The website owner and/or developer can access this database information by logging into their GA account and seeing charts and graphs which aggregate the data collected. The information collected ranges from what pages are being visit, what browser is being used, and how long they stayed on the site. It should be noted that no personally identifiable information (i.e., names and addresses) are gathered through this interaction. There may be some debate about the use of IP addresses. GA’s policies say they are not harvested, but GA does give you location data – at least in terms of country of origin – and that would have to come from IP data.

It is important to note – and this is where the Privacy Policy comes in – that nearly all of this information is rather innocuous and completely anonymous. But, because the information is also sent to Google, and in the theme of complete disclosure, it is important that visitors know this. I guess you could make the case that by virtue of visiting your site, the visitor’s data is already collected, but let’s not go there…

BTW, just to play it safe, Google offers a free browser plug-in called the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on which, when installed in a browser [at this point available for Internet Explorer (versions 7 and 8), Google Chrome (4.x and higher), and Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and higher)], the information gathered by GA will be shared with the site owner, but not Google. So, if you are concerned about your privacy, you may want to install this.

Note: In researching for this blog entry, I came across an Australian news article on just this topic. Reading it next.

UPDATE – March 10, 2010: Yes, it is true. Google has announced that the “automatic captioning service” first detailed in November, is now available to all accounts (channels). It appears that, for now, you have to “request” the service (although it appears they automatically had captioned my latest video which was posted several months ago), and they will eventually get to all of them. Pretty cool. More on the announcement. Directions on how to caption

I recently heard the news about the new “automatic captioning” that Google is providing to certain YouTube accounts. According to the “Official Google Blog:”

…we’ve combined Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions, or auto-caps for short. Auto-caps use the same voice recognition algorithms in Google Voice to automatically generate captions for video. The captions will not always be perfect (check out the video below for an amusing example), but even when they’re off, they can still be helpful—and the technology will continue to improve with time.

Apparently, Google is rolling this out with a select group of partners and on specific channels. My understanding is that Google will simply start captioning videos in these groups using this new automatic system.

Anyone who knows anything about captioning knows that automatic systems are fraught with problems. It seems the best captioners are still human beings. And, well, I’m guessing Google is not interesting in hiring half the population of the planet and training them to become transcriptionists. Cause that’s what it would probably take to get enough human power to deal with the zillions of YouTube videos out there.

But if you can’t wait for Google to automatically caption the home videos of your kids opening their Christmas presents, you can use another, lesser-known, and equally free service called CaptionTube. It is not clear from my reading if CaptionTube is a service that Google Labs developed themselves or whether is was acquired through some kind of company merger, but in any case, the price is right. I’m still playing with it so I don’t have an official opinion yet. If you are a master user, send me a comment or an e-mail.

I have, for a year or so, been also playing around with an application called MovCaptioner that runs on the Mac OSX. SynchriMedia, the maker of MovCaptioner has been promising a Windows version, but I’m thinking CaptionTube might be the right product at the right price. MovCaptioner costs $39.95 for one license which provides free updates. Multiuser licenses are also available for a discount.

Both MovCaptioner and CaptionTube work essentially the same way. You load your video (in the case of CaptionTube, you can work off an existing YouTube video that has already been  published). As you play back your video in the application, you can stop (marking the time code automatically) and type in what the people on the video are saying. It is not really easy to do, so I have developed an new affinity for the people who do this work professionally. People do not talk in nice tight sound bytes, so you will quickly find it is hard to “stop the tape” at the appropriate spot and add the caption. You also have to have pretty good listening skills. You will end up often repeating the clip to get the wording correctly. Again, it’s not easy.

After you have created the text for your captions, you click some buttons, uploading the caption file, and check back in a little while and see your YouTube with captions. In the case of MovCaptioner, you have a number of options for saving and publishing your video. MovCaptioner has the advantage of saving a file that can use it with, or converted for use with any media player, not just the Flash media player that YouTube uses.

Both captioning systems appear to use an “closed caption” method meaning the caption transcript is kept separate from the video file (not embedded like subtitles in old movies). It can be turned off and on by the user, and the transcript itself can be saved and used separately – with or without the time codes. This is a nice option.

I’ve made this all sound very simple; it’s not. But, it is not all that difficult either. Like anything, it is an acquired skill.

I am hoping this new automatic service from Google takes off and become universally available soon. At the very least, Google could first provide this as a service for folks who need to get their videos captioned now (e.g., educational institutions, governments, etc.). Maybe even open it up with invites like they did with GMail and GoogleWave. I’d be happy to be a beta tester.

Anyway, a solution to finding a quick and inexpensive way of captioning short videos is coming closer to fruition. Exciting times. Stay tuned!