• Information Technology and People with Disabilities - Excerpts from a Department of Justice report evaluating how the IT community is addressing the needs of disabled persons.
• Virtual Reality Secrets Revealed - Dr. John Saunders uncovers what's behind the magic of Virtual Reality!
• Federal Best Practices in Continuous Data Synthesis - Dr. Pang shares his research on data warehousing, operational data stores, data mining, online analytical processing and web accessibility efforts in the Federal Government.

Before the late 1980's, computers were generally easy for most people with disabilities to use. Blind people, for example, could use the same word processing software packages as everyone else. Instead of relying on monitors, they used assistive technology called "screen readers" to read in a synthesized voice all the text and punctuation that a sighted person would read on the monitor. All who used early word processors used keyboard commands to interact with the software. To print a document, for instance, one would simultaneously hit the "control" and "P" keys -- something that could be done as easily by blind people as others.

As technology grew more sophisticated, many changes that generally made it easier for nondisabled people to use computers often created barriers for people with disabilities. For instance, software that required someone to issue commands by "pointing and clicking" using a computer mouse became inaccessible to those who could not see icons. Although the solutions were simple and inexpensive, little thought was given to preserving accessibility. For example, if word processing software allows the user to choose between entering "control-P" to print or clicking on a printer icon, then blind people can use the print function as easily as everyone else.

In the past, most agencies did not focus on the extent to which their mainstream technology was accessible to persons with disabilities. Some employees with disabilities lost jobs or became underemployed due to technological advances that unfairly screened them out from the workplace, even when they otherwise had the skills, intelligence, and knowledge to accomplish their jobs.

An amendment to section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires the Attorney General to report to the President on accessibility of federal electronic and information technology (EIT) -- such as federal Web sites, telecommunications, software, hardware, printers, fax machines, copiers, and information kiosks -- to people with disabilities.

Section 508 prohibits federal agencies from procuring, developing, maintaining, or using EIT that is inaccessible to people with disabilities, subject to an undue burden defense. "Undue burden" generally means a significant difficulty or expense.

On March 31, 2000, the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking containing draft accessibility standards to implement section 508. Once final, these Standards will be incorporated into the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), to which most agencies are subject. Although the law technically applies to federal agencies' existing EIT, by its own terms it is unenforceable except for products procured on or after August 7, 2000; retroactive modification of existing EIT is not required.

Agencies continue to have long-standing obligations under sections 501 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities (including members of the public and federal employees) upon request and to avoid disability-based discrimination, generally. Agencies must comply with section 508 regardless of whether they have employees with disabilities or serve members of the public with disabilities.

The Department of Justice is not charged with enforcing section 508. Members of the public and employees with disabilities, however, may file administrative complaints with agencies they believe to be in violation of section 508; or file private lawsuits in Federal district court.

The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has prepared the Report to the President presenting the results of the first Executive Branch-wide section 508 evaluation. The report is intended to provide guidance to federal information technology personnel, policy makers, and procurement officials, private sector technology designers, manufacturers, and vendors, and disability advocates.

General Findings and Recommendations

While several agencies are models of accessibility, the data suggest the need for improvement in the accessibility of federal EIT to persons with disabilities. Most agencies can also improve the extent to which disability accessibility issues are incorporated into their mainstream technology procurement contracts.

The most significant challenge posed by section 508 is the need for coordination between those with technological expertise and those with knowledge of disability access issues. The rapid pace of technology innovation can further complicate the issue. Increased inter- and intra-agency coordination among relevant personnel -- including information technology personnel, procurement officials, telecommunications staff, equal employment opportunity professionals, and end users with disabilities -- along with the private sector, would benefit everyone.

Procurement Findings and Recommendations

Section 508's enforcement provisions apply only to EIT products "procured" on or after August 7, 2000. [Editor's Note: The Information Technology Association of America has complained that the August 7 deadline does not give companies enough time to make changes to their products.]

Relatively few agencies currently incorporate accessibility provisions into their EIT procurement contracts. An example of one of the better contract provisions is the Department of Education's contract language). Even fewer agencies test EIT products for accessibility prior to bid acceptance. A great majority of agencies continue to address EIT accessibility issues on an ad hoc basis.

The Department recommends agencies take the following steps to improve their procurement policies and practices:

1. Specific Language for RFPs and Contracts. Each agency should incorporate appropriate procurement language that specifically addresses accessibility for persons with disabilities in all EIT RFP's (requests for proposals) and contracts to be in compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation or other applicable federal procurement regulation.
2. Discontinue Ad Hoc Approach. Each agency that has not already done so should develop systematic ways to ensure that it is procuring accessible EIT products, rather than relying on an ad hoc approach. This method will increase the interoperability of different types of technology and is especially necessary as technology increases in complexity. Each agency should review all of its procurement practices and policies, formal and informal, to determine whether accessibility issues are appropriately addressed.

Technology-Specific Findings and Recommendations

Federal Agencies' Web Pages. Federal agencies' Internet and intranet sites contain some barriers to access for people with disabilities. The most commonly encountered barrier is the failure to provide appropriate and meaningful text information for visual images ("alt text" for simple images and icons and long descriptions for more complicated graphics). This barrier, like others that are encountered less frequently, can be eliminated quite easily with minimal design changes.

Part of the reason that agency Web pages are relatively easy for people with disabilities to use is that most agencies have consciously decided to make their pages readily usable by people who use older, less expensive, and less sophisticated technology. Federal Internet pages tend to be free from the "bells and whistles" that require more particular attention to accessibility issues, such as multimedia content or interactive features.

As agencies put more of their programs and services online, they must remain vigilant to ensure they are not inadvertently creating barriers for people with disabilities. Online forms and documents rendered exclusively in Adobe's portable document format (pdf) or Microsoft's PowerPoint format may raise particular concerns.

As most barriers on agency Web sites result from an inattention to detail rather than an underlying difficulty with the design or technology, agencies should invite people with disabilities to inform them when they encounter barriers.

To address these issues and others detailed in the Report, the Department recommends the following:

1. Testing Web Pages Before Posting. Each agency should evaluate for accessibility all of its new Web pages before they are posted. Existing Web pages should be tested as they are updated. Testing should be done with text-only browsers and, where possible, with assistive technology such as screen reading software to ensure that the experience of users with disabilities is comparable to that of others.
2. Agency Web Guidelines. Each agency that has developed style guidelines to maintain a consistent "look and feel" of its Web pages should review those guidelines to ensure that they will maximize the accessibility of the agency's Web pages.
3. The Government Printing Office (GPO). Many smaller agencies rely on the GPO for their Web site design and maintenance. While section 508 does not apply to the GPO, the GPO should provide leadership to ensure that all Web pages it develops or maintains are accessible.
4. Dedicated E-mail Addresses. Because most accessibility problems on agency Web sites result from oversight or lack of awareness of accessibility issues, rather than technical or design difficulty, each agency should prominently post to its Internet pages an e-mail address through which users with disabilities can inform the agency of any accessibility barriers encountered. Each agency should be responsive to any e-mails it receives regarding the accessibility of its Web site to people with disabilities.
5. Accessibility Information Logo. The National Endowment for the Arts, along with the Universal Access Working Group, GSA, and the Access Board, should develop an easy-to-recognize accessibility information logo (and alternative text label). Each agency should use this logo (and text label) to link people with disabilities who use its Web pages with appropriate accessibility instructions and information, including an e-mail address to the agency's accessibility point-of-contact.
6. Location of Accessibility Information. Where it makes sense to do so, such as when placing a link to a text-only alternate Web site or when posting the accessibility instruction logo and label, each agency should place accessibility information in the uppermost left-hand corner of its Web pages. This location will facilitate use of the agency's Web pages by people who use screen readers, as it is the first location from which a screen reader will read.
7. Document Formats. As agencies put more of their programs and services online, each must remain vigilant to ensure it is not inadvertently creating barriers for people with disabilities. Online forms created using any of the various Web technologies pose significant accessibility challenges to Web designers. Documents rendered exclusively in Adobe's portable document format (pdf) or Microsoft's PowerPoint formats may raise particular concerns. If any posted documents or forms are less than fully accessible, each agency should also post ASCII or accessible HTML versions of the same documents, where possible. Where exclusive reliance on an inaccessible format is unavoidable, each agency should provide contact information where users with disabilities can request the underlying information in an accessible format, where doing so would not impose an undue burden on the agency or result in an fundamental alteration.

Software. Almost all software applications contained some barriers to some people with disabilities. Most applications, however, provided a fair degree of accessibility to most people with disabilities. Among the communities most likely to face significant barriers are those who are blind, those with low vision, and those with multiple disabilities.

A sizable majority of the software applications used most frequently by agencies are commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications used without agency modification. The most commonly encountered barriers in COTS software fall into the categories of (1) documentation and support; and (2) programming.

Frequently encountered documentation and support barriers include:

• A lack of clear instructions for keyboard functions (26%)
• Instructions for keyboard use not widely available (30%)
• Manuals and documentation are not provided in an electronic format with text descriptions of charts, graphs, etc. (37%)
• Specialized training is not provided for users with disabilities (53%)

Frequently encountered programming barriers include:

• Lack of shortcut keys (37%)
• Poorly located field labels and descriptions (24%)
• Application won't allow users to override default fonts for printing and text displays (28%)
• Application does not support "print to ASCII" (26%)

The Department recommends the following:

1. Training Needs Surveys. Each agency should develop and distribute "training needs" surveys to all employees. These surveys should explicitly address training needs for people with disabilities, especially those who use assistive technology in conjunction with mainstream software applications.
2. Appropriate, Periodic Training. Each agency should train all IT personnel, procurement officials, "help desks" and other support personnel, and users with disabilities, regarding basic accessibility issues.
3. Software Compatibility Testing Centers. As agencies update and centralize their IT architecture, they should create software compatibility testing centers at which software can be evaluated for compatibility with existing agency platforms and with commonly used assistive technologies. Larger agencies may wish to establish their own compatibility testing centers. An interagency software compatibility testing center should be established to assist smaller agencies, larger agencies without testing centers, and private software manufacturers and developers. Centers at Department of Defense, Department of Education, the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans' Affairs, and GSA can serve as models.
4. Documentation (Instructions, Help Files, User Manuals, Etc.). Many software applications have accessibility features of which most users, trainers, 'help desk' personnel, and others are unaware. Other software applications (such as word processors, Adobe Acrobat, etc.) can be used to create information products. Knowledgeable users can use these applications to create information products that are relatively accessible. Other people may inadvertently use the same applications in such a way that the information products they create are largely inaccessible. Each agency should require its software vendors to include clear documentation of the accessibility features and appropriate uses of their products to maximize accessibility.
5. "COTS Software Accessibility Manuals". Because many of the Federal Government's current software applications may continue to be used for a long time, federal agencies must make the most of the accessibility features built into currently-used software, rather than rely exclusively on procurement of new accessible software. GSA and the Access Board, in consultation with other key agencies and inter-agency groups, should consult with software manufacturers and should develop and distribute supplemental manuals for users of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software applications. These manuals should include clear instructions for maximizing the accessibility of COTS applications currently used by federal agencies and for promoting accessibility and minimizing barriers in the information products some COTS applications (such as Adobe Acrobat) are used to produce. Specific information, such as macros developed to provide shortcut keys where none previously existed, should be incorporated into these manuals.
6. Government-Wide, Low-Cost Programming Solutions. GSA and the Access Board, in consultation with other key agencies and inter-agency groups, should contact manufacturers of COTS software to determine whether software updates, containing programming "fixes" of barriers identified in this Report, may be obtained freely or purchased for a low fee and distributed throughout all federal agencies. Each agency that has already developed programming solutions to remove barriers to COTS applications should be encouraged to continue this work and to share their results with all appropriate agencies.

Telecommunications. Telecommunications poses specific accessibility issues for almost every community of persons with disabilities, including people who are deaf or hard of hearing and those with speech impairments, people who have difficulty pressing touch-tone buttons, persons with visual impairments who cannot see visually displayed information such as message waiting or caller ID indicators, and persons with cognitive impairments or learning disabilities who have difficulty understanding or remembering serial connection choices (press 1 for ___; press 2 for ___; etc.).

Few agencies are fully utilizing the efficient, low-cost services that are available to them, such as the Federal Information Relay Service (FIRS)(which allows deaf and hard of hearing people to communicate via telephone with people who do not have special equipment, such as TTY's). The lack of awareness of such resources has a negative impact on federal employees and job applicants with disabilities, as well as members of the public with disabilities. Training is often all that is required to improve this situation.

Few agencies provide equivalent direct-access TTY connections for serial connection services, automated call sequencing connection services, or other interactive telephone services. As these services can be difficult or impossible to navigate using the Telephone Relay Service, few agencies have automated telephone systems that can be used at all by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. For minimal cost, additional lines with text messaging modes can be installed. These serial connection services and automated interactive telephone services can be made generally accessible to a wide variety of people with disabilities -- including people with cognitive impairments and learning disabilities, mobility impairments affecting dexterity or speed, and others -- simply by providing an operator.

Most agencies that provide employees with pagers have text pagers with vibration signals; these pagers are accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Few agencies have begun using the wide variety of disability-friendly telecommunications products that are now offered by mainstream telecommunications companies.

Fax Machines, Copiers, Printers, and Other IT Office Equipment. Most fax machines, copiers, printers, and other IT office equipment contain barriers to access by people with disabilities. For instance, most copiers give error messages on liquid crystal display (LCD) screens that are generally inaccessible to people who are blind or who have low vision. Many LCD screens are angled so that they are difficult or impossible for people who use wheelchairs to read them.

Agencies generally found that when they used IT office equipment that was attached to their computer network, many of these barriers were eliminated. Most networked office equipment is designed to communicate with the user while he or she is at his or her workstation. Desktop computers can be easily equipped with assistive technology, such as screen readers, for people with disabilities.

For these reasons, and others set forth in the Report, the Department recommends the following:

1. Instructions. Many times, office machines contain accessible features, such as a volume control mechanism on a fax machine, but instructions on how to use these features are missing or inadequate. Each agency should survey its fax machines, copiers, and printers and, if appropriate, contact vendors for a full list of accessible features. The agency should provide clear instructions in accessible formats.
2. Networked IT Office Equipment. The extent to which copiers and fax machines are accessible is greatly enhanced when the user can send commands from an attached desktop computer terminal (such terminals may be easily outfitted with the appropriate assistive technology to meet an individual's needs). Each agency should, in appropriate circumstances, seek out network solutions over stand-alone machines when such solutions would provide a greater degree of accessibility for employees and members of the public with disabilities.
3. Instructions for Alternatives. For inaccessible IT office equipment that is available to the general public or a large number of employees, each agency should ensure that accessible instructions are available on how a person with a disability can obtain accessible alternative services (such as where to seek assistance).

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Above are excerpts from the DOJ report on Section 508, dated April 2000. The full text can be retrieved at: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/report/exec.htm

Early observers would tell you that audiences watching film for the first time early in the 20th century sat in stunned silence. The images they were seeing were unlike anything from their previous reality. Adults seeing Virtual Reality (VR) for the first time early in the 21st century also sit and watch in amazed silence. Much of this amazement is centered upon the sophisticated use of technology to produce optical illusions.

When viewing VR each of your two visual sensors (also known as eyes) are given conflicting visual cues. Typically one eye is shown an image, while the other eye is shown a slightly offset version of the same image. Your central processor, also known as your brain, is then forced to make some sense of this conflicting information. It does this by recombining the information to produce the only substitute it knows - three dimensions. It is possible to see VR without the aid of a computer. But the computer provides the processing power to display movement and to allow a user to travel around inside a vast virtual reality space.

VR can be experienced in immersive or non-immersive modes. Immersive is the mode most people associate with VR. It requires an additional aid such as a helmet, polarized glasses, or a moving screen. Non-immersive mode, also known as 21/2 D, while not requiring special external equipment, does require a sophisticated graphics processor to allow the visual images to be viewed at a comfortable speed.

Immersive Technology

There are several types of immersive technologies. They include shuttered glasses, color filters, polarized filters, and lenticular displays. There are two types of non-immersive technology that provide true 3D imaging. They are parabolic mirroring and laser volumetric display. These various approaches are discussed below.

Shuttered Glasses

In this technique the user wears a pair of special glasses, while looking at a computer screen. (See photo below)

 Photo from the Naval Research Lab

The left and right lenses in these glasses each have a shuttering mechanism, i.e. an electro-optical mechanism that opens and closes the lens. For a short time period only the left lens is open. When the left lens closes, the right lens opens. Then when the right lens closes, the left lens opens. This left eye, then right eye opening and closing process occurs as many as 120 times each second. Simultaneous with the shuttered glasses, the computer screen is being "repainted," e.g. 120 times per second, with not one image, but with two images, called over/under, slightly offset from one another. The repainting is synchronized so that one image appears only to the left eye, and the other image only to the right eye. The brain is then left to meld the two images together - providing the 3D illusion.

Color Wavelength Filters

Each color we see has a different "wavelength". The time it takes the photons bouncing off a colored surface to travel through space and to eventually strike our eyes differs depending on the color. Just like light travels through air much faster than sound, the various reflected photons travel through air at different speeds. Light and other spectral phenomenon are measured in "Hertz" (Hz). One Hz is one wave/vibration per second. The color red travels at about 4.3x1014 Hz while the color violet travels at about 7.5x1014. These differences may be used to dramatize the visual effects of color. By wearing glasses that contain materials that slow the photon transfer of certain wavelengths, a visual effect of greater depth is provided. The Chromatek Company sells inexpensive cardboard frames with plastic lenses which provide this capability. Their web site http://www.chromatek.com will provide you with more detail.

Anaglyphs

An anaglyph is the technical name for the technique that uses glasses with separate red and blue lenses to view pictures. The lenses filter out all colors but their own. Therefore the left eye, which has a red lens, only sees the red shades and the right eye, which has the blue lens, sees the blue shades. The brain is again tricked into combining them to give you the three dimensional images. The disadvantage to this approach is that only limited monochromatic images can be seen.

Polarized Light and Filters

Since it is matter, light photons can be formed so that they are emitted from a source in different shapes. Imagine light that is flattened into a ribbon shape and then emitted. Imagine also a receptor that can only accept the flattened shape, like a flat thread going into a flat needle eye. This is the concept behind polarized light. Light is flattened into a north south polar basis by exposing it to magnetic charges. The images in that polarized light are then emitted outward. An observer who is wearing special polarized receptor glasses can then only see the light striking the glasses along that polar plane. Special polarized glasses are manufactured which contain a vertically (north-south) striated filter in the left eye lens and a horizontal (east-west) striated filter in the right lens. The computer screen is painted with two interleaved polarized images, one to be seen by the left eye, the other by the right. The advantage of this method is that it does allow full color pictures to be seen, but does require both special glasses and projection equipment. Frequently 3D-film technology, such as the large screened IMAX, uses this method.

Lenticular Displays

Lenticular is a derivative of the word lens, which is a critical part of a lenticular display. This method operates by placing lenses between your eyes and the image being displayed. By placing one angle or thickness of lens on one eye and another angle or thickness on the other eye, and by synchronizing these lenses with multiple images being displayed simultaneously by the computer, a 3D effect is achieved. To the viewer without the lenses, the image appears overlapping and double, but to the lens wearer it provides an immersive effect - each eye seeing a different image.

Mirrored Displays

These types of displays use curved mirrors to fool the eye into seeing an image that appears to float in space. Actually the viewer is seeing a reflection of the original image on a parabolic mirror. Because the parabolic mirror can be wrapped around the image, it can be viewed from all angles. The significant advantage to this technology is that the viewer need wear no device such as glasses. The limitation to this technology is that the viewer can only see the display from a pre-set angle. A static mirrored display is seen at the left. The pink pig predominant in the photo is actually a reflected image. The actual pink object (small part visible) rests below it at the bottom of the photo. See three short MPG video clips of this technology at http://www.3dmedia.com.

Volumetric Displays

These types of displays utilize either single or multiple screens, which are typically mirrored surfaces that rotate at a very fast speed, similar to the spinning of the children's toy called a top. The screen motion is sufficiently fast that the eye no longer is able to see the surface itself. While the surfaces are spinning they are being "painted" or refreshed at a synchronized speed. The photon gun sending the picture beam must

be instructed exactly when and where to place the photons in the 3D space. On a standard computer screen, the positions on the screen are known as pixels, which is short for picture element. On a volumetric display these positions known as voxels.

There is another type of volumetric display that works in a static space, i.e. without the spinning surfaces. It utilizes invisible laser beams, which, upon colliding, emit a single point of light. This type of static display requires that the display volume contain atoms, ions, or molecules that exhibit special quantum conversion efficiencies, output fluorescence frequency and decay times. The most promising medium at present employs rare-earth ions doped into an infrared-transparent glass.

These types of displays while providing amazing graphics remain very expensive to build, and need highly customized software and data to operate.

Best Practices in Continuous Data Synthesis
in the Federal Government

Continuous data synthesis (CDS) involves approaches aimed at improving the level of business intelligence throughout an organization. These approaches support the concept of knowledge management, which is the key to mission success within all organizations. CDS includes the following approaches: Data Warehousing, Operational Data Stores (ODS), Data Mining, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), and Web Data Accessibility. Based on a review of 24 Federal civilian government and military CDS projects, best practices were identified and are summarized below.

Data Warehousing Best Practices

• Ensure the accuracy of the source data to maintain public trust of information
• Standardize your organization's data definitions
• Be selective on what data to include in the warehouse
• Select the Extraction-Transformation-Loading (ETL) strategy carefully
• Provide auditing capability

Operational Data Store (ODS) Best Practices

• Consider the less expensive batch mode updates instead of the direct data connections
• Use the ODS approach when forced to reduce the need for a DBA at every site
• Take into account the provisional nature of information when used for making mission-critical decisions

Data Mining Best Practices

• Avoid the privacy trap (do not mine confidential data)
• Use results to identify potential areas to investigate
• Create a economic model based on case histories to justify costs
• Use data mining for supporting budgetary requests.
• Give users continuous computer-based training on mining tools

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) Best Practices

• Leverage the web to reach dispersed users
• Make data available to all knowledgeworkers (not only to managers)
• Supply data in a format readable by spreadsheets
• Restrict or encrypt classified/sensitive data
• Perform analysis during the data collection process

Web Database Accessibility Best Practices

• Consider portal technology to access diverse data sources
• Leverage user familiarity with browsers to reduce training requirements
• Use information visualization techniques such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
• Be sensitive to privacy intrusions
• Protect yourself from hackers

General Overarching Best Practices

• Still need to clean up your source data.
• Establish corporate data standards.
• Engage managers and users throughout the process.
• Be conscious of privacy and security concerns.
• Maintain public trust of the data.
• Avoid being bogged down from management by committee.
• Start small, it will grow by itself.
• Maintain complete and timely content.
• Provide adequate training.
• Ensure strong, consistent leadership and direction.