Inclusive Design Institute

Web Page: http://wiki.atutor.ca/display/atutorwiki/Google+Summer+of+Code+2010

Mailing List: atutor-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

The Inclusive Design Institute (formerly the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre) is a not-for-profit organization that develops mainstream open source software with an added focus on accessibility and usability by people with disabilities. People with disabilities may find themselves unable to participate fully in various Internet activities when developers do not consider accessibility as part of their development practices. The IDI educates developers about accessibility issues and why it is necessary, not only from a legal perspective but also from a social perspective, that people with disabilities not be excluded from everyday social activity, including access to information and the Internet. The institute is located at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) (formerly at the University of Toronto). The core IDI is made up of a multi-disciplinary team of 30 (+/-) professionals from varied backgrounds including computer science and engineering, education, psychology, sociology, and occupational therapy, among others. The IDI is made up of 8 collaborating institutions including Ryerson University, York University, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Ontario College of Art and Design, George Brown College, Seneca College, Sheridan College and University of Toronto. In addition to developing leading edge software, the IDI plays a key role in introducing accessibility into emerging international standards. Such standards include those of the W3C, playing a significant role in the organization's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), of the IMS Global Learning Consortium, the IDI being largely responsible for the introduction of the IMS AccessForAll standards (AFA), and of ISO, playing a lead role in the introduction and development of the FDIS 24751 collection of accessibility standards.

Projects

• ATutor mobile theme This is a proposal to develop set of mobile themes for ATutor based around Web a11y standards & mobile best practices.
• Integration of Vamolà Validator into AChecker The goal of this project is the integration of Vamolà new checks and functionalities into AChecker, so that AChecker will provide more complete Web page evaluations, including new functionalities: (i) CSS validation and (ii) CSS accessibility evaluation (parsing and checking errors and warnings).
• Native iPhone application for ATutor Social with VoiceOver support and push notification The project I wish to develop is a native iPhone application for ATutor Social. The iPhone application will make use of the RESTful web service, allow the user to sign in via OAuth authentication and access 4 different types of information: network activity, contacts, OpenSocial gadgets and network groups. To further benefit the user, the iPhone application will also support push notification and accessibility features like VoiceOver.
• OPENCAPS VIDEO CAPTIONING MODULE FOR ATUTOR The development targets the integration Atutor (Learning Management System) and OpenCaps (web-based captioning tool). The integration will use a modular architecture and deliver a component providing Atutor’s instructors access to OpenCaps captioning services. The core idea is a communication and administration layer reusing current functionality, and not modifying the core files in the existing applications. This will allow easy and secure installation as well as future upgrades.
• Student Proposal: Mobile Electronic Aids for Daily Living The past work has already shown the effectiveness of the accessibility of mobile device through wheelchair control and Bluetooth Serial Port Protocol. However, further work needs to be done for the complete design of the system. My proposed design has three major components -- Input Processing Module, Mobile Application for Basic Functional System, and Accessibility to Mobile Device Features. The system will be designed to be extensible to any feature add-on requested in the future.