[Irl-dean] EuroAccessibility: European Certification of Web Accessibility.

[Barry McMullin]

Folks -

Just for information I would like to draw your attention to the
announcement this week of a "euro-accessibility" project.  In
brief, the concept is to establish a europe-wide web
accessibility "mark".  Sites could use this mark only after
evaluation by an independent audit; individuals or organisations
providing such an audit service would have to be certified as
carrying it out in accordance with standardised criteria and
procedures.

Note that this is not intended as any kind of alternative or
substitute for the W3C guidelines.  Indeed, it is a basic premise
of the project that the evaluation criteria will be, precisely,
those of the W3C (and W3C is a member of the project
consortium).  Rather, the project is about providing for
certified, independent, testing against those criteria - as
opposed to self-certification (by service providers or
developers) which is the current practice.

In any case, you can find more information in the press release
at the following URL:

  http://eaccess.rince.ie/press/28-Apr-2003.html

It is very early days on this.  In particular, at this point in
time, there is no funding from any source (national or european)
to support it - so one of the first priorities is to investigate
possible sources of funding support.

The eaccess lab at RINCE is an initial member of the consortium,
so feel free to contact me directly if you have any queries on
the initiative.  Note also that it is intended that there will be
a mechanism for new members to be admitted to the consortium on
an ongoing basis.

Best regards,

- Barry.

-- 
Barry McMullin
http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~mcmullin/