Hello all,
I wanted to forward this announcement to the list and to encourage you all
to share it with friends and colleagues.
Rick
--------------------------------------
Date: Friday, January 26, 2001
From: Mary Watkins <[log in to unmask]>

Sending along information about a major new initiative, a partnership
between WGBH's Media Access Group and IMS Global Learning Consortium.  I've
also included below two edited job descriptions related to the project.  If
you are interested in the full descriptions including specific
responsibilities, please e-mail me at [log in to unmask]  Feel free to .
Resumes and further questions about these positions may be sent to the same
address, and will be forwarded to appropriate IMS and WGBH staff members.

Mary Watkins/WGBH
***************************************

Press release - January 2001

Contact:  Mary Watkins/WGBH
+ 617 300-3700 voice/fax, -2459 TTY
[log in to unmask]

Caroline Oldershaw/IMS
[log in to unmask]

WGBH'S NATIONAL CENTER FOR ACCESSIBLE MEDIA AWARDED
$1.8 MILLION TO DEVELOP ACCESS SPECS FOR ONLINE LEARNING

PARTNERSHIP WITH IMS GLOBAL LEARNING CONSORTIUM TO BENEFIT
E-LEARNING INDUSTRY AND DISABLED LEARNERS WORLDWIDE

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting/WGBH National Center for Accessible
Media (NCAM) has been awarded a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department
of Education's Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships program* to establish
an alliance with industry to make online learning (or e-learning) resources
accessible to people with disabilities.

The initiative, called SPECIFICATIONS FOR ACCESSIBLE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES,
or the SALT Partnership, is a four-year initiative to develop and promote
open access specifications and effective models that will help level the
playing field for learners with disabilities.  Millions of permanently or
circumstantially deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision and
mobility-impaired learners and learning authors and providers are
increasingly disadvantaged— at home, at school, in their communities, and in
the workplace— because they cannot fully utilize online learning resources.

NCAM, the research and development arm of the Media Access Group at Boston
public broadcaster WGBH, will lead the project working closely with IMS
Global Learning Consortium, a worldwide coalition of more than 230
educational institutions, Federal agencies and private companies developing
technical specifications for online learning.

The scope of this problem and the potential of online learning to empower
people with disabilities are reflected in the report recently released by
Congress’ Web-Based Education Commission, available at:
http://www.hpcnet.org/webcommission.  The US government has begun to
address this issue by establishing minimum access requirements, available
at:  http://www.access-board.gov/news/508-final.htm. A statement by the U.S.
Department of Education about these new rules is available at:
http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/12-2000/122100b.html.

NCAM and IMS will establish an industry-led Working Group on Accessibility
to identify the features needed to make online learning accessible, and to
specify the resources and technologies needed to implement solutions.  The
IMS Working Group will engage leading companies involved in product
development, institutions implementing distributed learning environments,
and international standards organizations.  Initial partners include
Blackboard, Inc., Educational Testing Service (ETS), Microsoft Corporation,
Pearson Education, Sun Microsystems, PeopleSoft, Saba Software, and the
United Kingdom's Open University.

Industry partners have committed to serve as early adopters of
specifications. With NCAM’s help, technology providers will work with
publishers to enable and implement access features within platforms,
applications, and content.  Blind, low vision, mobility impaired, deaf and
hard-of-hearing consumers will contribute to identification of barriers and
evaluation of proposed solutions.  Specific capabilities which will be
implemented into various partners' products and services include:

o means to enable alternate presentation in response to learner profiles
o means to identify and activate accessibility features within content
o solutions to enable accessibility of text— HTML, XML, PDF and E-books
o solutions to enable accessibility of multimedia content— audio, video,
illustrations
o solutions to enable accessibility of special material— mathematical
notation, graphs, charts

* Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships (LAAP) is a program of the Fund for
the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), Office of Postsecondary
Education, U. S. Department of Education.

NCAM and its fellow access departments at WGBH (The Caption Center and
Descriptive Video Service®) make up the Media Access Group at WGBH.  WGBH,
Boston's public broadcaster, pioneered captioning and video description on
television, the Web and in movie theaters.  NCAM is a founding member of the
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
NCAM works with standards bodies and industry to develop and implement open
technical standards for multimedia, advanced television, and convergent
media that ease implementation, foster growth and lay common groundwork for
equal access to new technologies.  For more information visit the Media
Access Group's Web site at access.wgbh.org.

The IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. is a member-supported worldwide
coalition supported by colleges and universities, the Department of Defense,
the Department of Labor, and industry leading providers of education and
training technology solutions. IMS' mission is to facilitate the delivery of
internet-based distributed learning to all users and all user environments,
worldwide.  IMS develops specifications designed to ensure the creation of
content and learning management systems that permit sharing across
institutions and across technical environments.  For more information visit
the IMS Web site at www.imsproject.org.

Positions Available:
1.  New Position:  Accessibility Project Manager/Director at IMS Global
Learning Consortium

A new and senior IMS staff member, Accessibility Project Manager/Director
(100%) will be dedicated to this Project and the Access Working Group. The
Accessibility Project Manager/Director will be responsible for overall
management of design, development and implementation of Access
specifications in all IMS specifications. The Accessibility Project
Manager/Director will ensure that specifications development reflects the
requirements of the entire IMS membership, the accessibility community, as
well as the online learning community at large. The Accessibility Project
Manager/Director will also ensure that Access activities are integrated with
other IMS activities and efforts by other organizations.  Project Manager
will work closely with the CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
(NCAM) under a new Federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education's
"Learning Anywhere, Anytime Partnership."

Qualifications include:
Education: Masters Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent
required; Ph.D. desirable.
Experience: 5-7 years distributed system experience. Teaching experience at
the undergraduate level required; familiarity with the World Wide Web and
online learning course development necessary; use of XML (eXtensible Markup
Language) or SGML very desirable.

2.  New Position:  Project Manager - SALT Project (NCAM/WGBH)
Full-Time

The Project Manager will lead NCAM's involvement in SALT project. Activities
will include co-chairing a working group to consolidate technology
requirements and develop XML-based specifications for accessible online
learning resources. This work will be done in partnership with the IMS
Global Learning Consortium (www.imsproject.org).  Candidates for Project
Manager for the SALT Project must have experience with distance learning
technologies. Basic familiarity with internet and W3C technologies and
standards and background in accessibility and assistive technologies are
desirable. Strong commitment to collaborative work and good written and
spoken communications skills are essential. BA/BS required; higher degree
preferred. Travel to IMS Working Group meetings will be required
approximately 6 times per year. Position will report to the Director of
R&D/Media Access Group at WGBH.

WGBH IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

--
Mary Watkins
Outreach Manager
Media Access Group at WGBH
(The Caption Center, Descriptive Video Service®,
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media)
[log in to unmask]
access.wgbh.org
125 Western Avenue
Boston, MA  02134
617 300-3700 v/fax
617 300-2489 TTY

WGBH Boston informs, inspires, and entertains millions through public
broadcasting, the Web, educational multimedia, and access services for
people with disabilities.


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