[LINK] Web accessibility and Government 2.0

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Thu Oct 22 10:17:39 AEDT 2009


The Australian Human Rights Commission has released its submission to
the Government 2.0 Taskforce:
<http://www.humanrights.gov.au/legal/submissions/2009/20091001_gov2_0.html>. 


The commission is not keen on PDF and recommends the W3C accessibility
guidelines.The Sydney 2000 Olympics web case is described in the
submission and my seminar notes for a seminar at the Oxford University 
Computing Laboratory are cited <http://www.tomw.net.au/2000/bat.html>.

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Summary from: Web accessibility and Government 2.0, Australian Human
Rights Commission submission to the Government 2.0 Taskforce – Towards
Government 2.0 an issues paper, 1 October 2009:

   10.      The Commission believes that government departments and
agencies need to improve their provision of equal access to public
information, especially for people with disability.
   11.      Departments and agencies can improve their web presences by
following the standards promoted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),
the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and the
Commission.
   12.      Basic web accessibility is mandatory for Australian
Government departments and agencies. Allowing sites to be launched that
are inaccessible risks complaints under the Disability Discrimination
Act 1992 (DDA).
   13.      The Commission recognises the value of Web 2.0 technologies
for collaboration with the community, however many of these technologies
are not currently accessible for people with disability. Government
departments and agencies should provide sufficient technologies to allow
participation for all.
   14.      Additionally, the Commission believes that online forums
developed by the Government should have adequate agency guidelines and
Acceptable Use Policies to enable moderators and developers of forums to
be alert to discrimination that may occur online. This will help to
foster a discrimination-free environment when engaging with the community.

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-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274




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