EIAO-newsletter december.
Welcome to the first EIAO-newsletter. We will inform you regularly about project development, results, reports and dissemination activities. Do not hesitate to send us any comments or questions.
Project development.
First measurements scheduled for release in April 2006.
The partners responsible for the Internet robot, the web accessibility metrics and the data warehouse met in Grimstad last month, to coordinate the technical development. The first version of the EIAO Observatory will be tested in March 2006, and the first data is scheduled for release in April.
New participant from FTB.
Annika Nietzio has joined the Forschungsinstitut Technologie-Behinderenhilfe (FTB) and will be a participant in the EIAO project. Annika will be an important contributor in defining the Web Accessibility Metrics (WAMs) used to measure Internet accessibility.
Students work with research questions derived from the project.
The course Web-mining and data analysis, given at Agder University College, has ended for the semester. The course is closely related to the EIAO project and several student groups have projects related to Internet accessibility. Students can follow this course remotely via the web and participate in a distributed project collaboration with follow students. The final project reports and presentations are available at the Web-mining and data analysis website.
A Unified Web Evaluation Methodology (UWEM) to evaluate web accessibility.
24 organisations collaborating in three European research projects in the area of e-Inclusion (including EIAO) have developed this first draft of the UWEM. The methodology should ensure that large scale monitoring and local evaluation are compatible and coherent among themselves and with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines from W3C/WAI. The methodology will be synchronised with the foreseen migration from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0 in the near future. Thus, UWEM will sharpen the support for evaluating, certifying, and benchmarking web content.
The draft is now being discussed. Further more, user testing of UWEM is being conducted in the EIAO project.
Read more on the WAB-cluster website.
Presentations and dissemination
DigiTalk.
The EIAO member Patrizia Bertini is invited to participate on the Italian TV channel DigiTalk for the second time. The previous show with Patrizia is available online at DigiTalk Episode 21 (in Italian). Read more at the Digitalk WebSite.
Open Source - Basis for synergies in the ICT education and research.
EIAO has participated at the WSIS official side event, Past, Present, and Future of Research in the Information Society, with a presentation on Open Source - Basis for synergies in the ICT education and research. Read more at EIAO publications .
Further information on the EIAO project and contact details can be found at the EIAO website or from the Project Co-ordinator Mikael Snaprud, Agder University College, Norway, Tel +47 37 25 33 23, Email mikael.snaprud@hia.no.
Project partners.
In this section we have a short presentation of each EIAO partner.
Agder University College
Agder University College is located in the southern part of Norway, known as Sørlandet. With more than 8000 students and 850 teaching and administrative staff, it is one of the largest University Colleges in Norway. The University College offers a wide variety of study programmes within Business and Economics, Engineering and Technology, the Humanities, Mathematics, Nursing, Teacher Education, Fine Arts and more.
Vista Utredning AS.
VISTA Utredning AS is an independent consultant company established in 1990, owned by the employees and working mainly with projects related to town planning. The staff's expertise and experience covers land use planning and transport planning with a focus on public transport, cycling and aviation, including master planning for airports.
The company has for a long time carried out projects related to universal design and accessibility for the disabled for national and local public bodies and organisations for disabled.
Forschungsinstitut Technologie-Behinderenhilfe.
In the first place the work of FTB is committed to the needs and interests of persons with disabilities and older persons. However the close co-operation with service delivery, manufacturers and institutions is an important issue, too.
According to the concept of FTB with its multidisciplinary approach, the institute's staff consists of an interdisciplinary working team. The scope of functions and project activities is devided into synergetic centres.
The Manchester Metropolitan University.
The Centre for Research in Library and Information Management was established in 1993 to undertake a wide range of research in the field, with a focus on technological and social issues. The Centre moved from the University of Central Lancashire to The Manchester Metropolitan University in 1998.
Current research:
Current research projects are concerned with:
- Community cultural development.
- Distributed delivery of library and information services.
Evaluation:
- Evaluation of projects and programmes.
- User testing and evaluation.
- Accessibility and usability of information.
- Quality management techniques and performance measurement.
Nettkroken AS.
Nettkroken AS was founded in June 1999. Nettkrokens mainly focuses on:
- Small and medium sized companies.
- Norwegian municipalities.
- Tourism.
- Animal health.
- Special development of Internet solutions.
University of Tromsø
The establishment of a university so far north has been described as a regional policy experiment. Today the university is a driving force in this part of the country’s development. The experiment was – and is – successful. The University of Tromsø has become one of the central education and research institutions in Norway.
FBL S.R.L
FBL actively participates in the development of a dictionary of the Italian language. The first customers were people with functional disabilities, for them to use personal computers without mouse and keyboard. Furthermore, FBL focuses on vocal, and other application products, in cooperation with Dragon and IBM.
Warsaw University of Technology
Warsaw University of Technology is a research intense, doctoral level academic institution focused on undergraduate and graduate programs almost exclusively in engineering and applied sciences. With over thirty thousand students served by over two thousand professors and instructors, Warsaw University of Technology is the largest and the highest ranking engineering university in Poland.
Aalborg University
Breaking away from the traditional university concept and form of teaching, Aalborg University (AAU) emerged in 1974 with a profile very much its own. The key concept in both research and teaching is inter-disciplinarity, and the study programmes are organised around problem-oriented group work. The University emphasises cooperation with businesses, organisations and institutions within teaching as well as research. Likewise, internationalisation has a very high priority at Aalborg University.
Aalborg University is divided into three faculties - Humanities, Social Science and Engineering and Natural Science - and offers more than 60 different study programmes. The University has close to 14,000 students.
InterMedium
InterMedium is a Norwegian full-service provider of Competitive Intelligence. A professional information broker with special focus on the Nordic market. The company was founded by Jan Hansen and Petter Amundsen in 1998, both with 15 years of business experience from the IT/Telecom industry. Svein Hjorth-Olsen entered the company in 2001 as partner and head of business development, and is now Managing Director. He has 20 years of business experience, mainly from the oil/offshore industry. He was a co-founder of MCG - Marine Consulting Group, now named APL - Advanced Production and Loading and owned by Statoil ASA.
