Ismael Ghalimi's Office 2.0 is an attempt to use Web 2.0 applications for all office work and has a <a href=''>database of Office 2.0 programs.

Ismael Ghalimi's Office 2.0 is an attempt to use Web 2.0 applications for all office work and has a database of Office 2.0 programs.

The Open Source Assistive Technology Software (OATS) project web site has now been officially launched.

http://www.oatsoft.org

It aims to improve Accessibility and Assistive Technology provison by
bringing users and developers together over Open Source tools and will
provide a one stop shop for users. The collaborative community
principles that underpin Open Source development are being used to
improve existing OATS solutions and fuel innovation.

The BCS Open Source Specialist Group are supporting the project and will
be holding a meeting dedicated to it in August.

OATSoft site: http://www.oatsoft.org
Press release: http://tinyurl.com/ggszs
In Computer Weekly: http://tinyurl.com/f8rh7
BCS OSSG: http://ossg.bcs.org/

I'll post more details  soon.

Until programs that natively support the Open Document Format (ODF) have
good accessibility, users of Office Assistive Technology are concerned
that they will loose their access when their employer switches to ODF. 
Organisations such as Commonwealth of Massachusetts choose ODF to ensure
that they retain control of their documents by using an Open Standard
format that avoids vendor lock-in.

The OpenDocument Foundation have announced a plug-in for MS Office that
provides a way for users of MS Office Assistive Technology tools to work
with ODF documents. The plug-in allows them  "to easily open, render,
and save to ODF files, and also allow translation of documents between
Microsoft's binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF."

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060504015438308

The recent launch of the www.oatsoft.org site for Open Source Assistive Technology Software (OATS) is a landmark for users of accessibility tools. It also feels like a personal landmark, even though I've have had minimal involvement with it as a volunteer over the last year.

OATSsoft is a new service that collects the best Open Source and Free assistive technology and accessibility software. It makes such OATS easy to locate, download and install. OATSsoft is also a community where users and developers get together to solve users needs and improve software accessibility. Users can vote and leave comments and developers will find useful tools.

I have been dabbling in OATS as a volunteer for several years and now OATSoft has made OATS easy to find and use. During this year it has developed into the great site it now is with the help of the work and funding from the members of a consortium, lead by the ACE Centre.

Many moons ago I got in touch with Simon Judge who then worked for MERU and we agreed that Open Source had much to offer Assistive Technology users. The main strengths were seen as cost, quality, customisation and innovation and as a result Simon started a project called Speechmakers. The idea was to create a community of users, developers, students and volunteers creating solutions to specific individual needs. The focus was on communication devices that give a voice to those with speaking difficulties (think Stephen Hawkins).

A few of us got together on Simon's Speechmakers project and bounced ideas around from software and to design an architecture.  Progress was slow due to everyone having other commitments. During that time a letter from someone with aphasia asking for help with making a presentation appeared in Ability Magazine. This lead me to the create PowerTalk which automatically speaks the text on presentations as they are operated. From the start it was created with Speechmakers in mind and released as Open Source on the GPL license. There have been a steady stream of downloads (from sourceforge), mostly as a result from Google searches. It has been useful as a concrete example of OATS, though I suspect most users just think of it as neat 'free software' and miss the other advantages of Open Source. So far it has not attracted much development activity, perhaps as it does one simple thing fairly well.

Then over a year ago the Ace Centre got in touch with Simon as they were interested in investigating the effectiveness of Open Source for AT. The Ace Centre is a charity whic "provides a focus for the use of technology with the communication and educational needs of young people with physical and communication difficulties". It provides assessments and other clinical services and uniquely also has a software development team.

The OATSoft concept was for a years trial of a site making OATS easy to find, download and install. It was to be a one-stop-shop for finding AT software. The idea was also to foster a community helping users to get involved by contributing to and getting the features and innovations they want. It would help developers wishing to improve their project's accessibility. This should make the software better for all users and thus increasing the userbase.

During the last year much work by the team has gone into producing the website. Once Plone was chosen as the development platform the required features were developed and suitable OATS programs were found to populate the site. The foundry side was also crafted to be an attractive environment for developers. Many people have provided their skills and support.

We have a PR effort ahead, needing to work on the general understanding of the application of Open Source ideas to the AT field. The AT market is relatively small, with a few large companies and several small companies and charities, many resistant to Open Source. Support agencies such as AbilityNet and ITCH have plenty of work supporting existing Windows only tools and are resistant to the thought of more options. Users are often unaware that there are quality alternatives. A common myth is that Open Source is low cost or free and there therefore 'cheap and nasty'. Software that is 'Cheap as Chips' is powerful when it is of high quality and better tools and services can be created with it. That is just what AT users need.

We are convinced OATS will provide a good deal in the long run. Open Source is not just hobby projects of hackers with woolly hats written in their bedrooms (a gross media distortion from the start). It is fast becoming the way that software is developed and licensed by many small and large companies. The collaborative ideas of user centred innovation are taking root in other areas and having many successes. The emerging Web 2.0 seems to be part of this movement.

Developers of Windows accessibility tools in particular have had to use trial and error to discover usable operating system features which are undocumented and often change. That knowledge will better serve users if it is available for all devleopers and especially if encapsulated in shared components. Even more effective will be effort spent on creating Open Standards for AT and accessibility, and Open Source is highly compatible with Open Standards.

The next steps that I see are growing the community, bringing more developers on board from the larger OS projects, getting more OATS developed and customisation, refining the site and possibly introducing Web 2.0 technologies to enhance the collaboration. I'd like to see folks with disabilities using OATSoft as a vehicle for getting a better deal and improving their opportunities. A long term possibility is working on Open Standards for accessibility APIs.

If OATSoft is to develop as a great service to users and developers improving AT provision it's going to need to grow as a commuity so please visit, explore, try software, leave feedback or add your project. As it is at the end of the 1 year trial it needs funding and support to continue and develop so if you have any ideas...... 

---o0o---

Footnote 

Unfortunately the ACE Centre (and others) will be hard hit if BECTa disband their Inclusive team. They may have to stop development or cut jobs. 

I've just spotted a Tag this product section for products on Amazon.com. I guess it may have been there a while as I only dip into the .com site to check for more reviews. Along with Listmania! that's some nice use of social software (as befits Amazon). No sign of tags on amazon.co.uk though.

Here's the Amazon page explaining tags and giving ideas for using them.

In this slash dot thread on ODF accessibility I picked up these points

>The whole point to having a well documented, open FORMAT, is that any
>APPLICATION (proprietary, open, free, expensive, shoddy, polished,
>whatever) can implement that format and interoperate with all other
>applications that do so, and be guaranteed to be able to continue to
>interoperate for as long as they want.

Actually the point is that *PEOPLE* can communicate and interoperate via the format *USING* applications. The trouble is most office application (including hosting Operating System) assume all users can operate a limited set of controls (keyboard,mouse,screen). If users want/need alternative interfaces then they have to use adaptive technology that bodges them on. What can be done to improve this situation? Create OSs and thus programs that natively support a much wider range of interfaces.

>Yes, MS Office is still in many ways a superior product to "alternative"
> office software,

Well actually for accessibility it is mostly 3rd party tools by developers who have had to work out how to hook in.

This comment is also important:

"Bame ComputerWorld, Carol Silva, and Slashdot for poor headline writing. Wincke says, in the very last paragraph of the article, that he has *NO* problem with FOSS or ODF. His complaint is that the third party accessibility tools don't support {Open|Star}Office. So, in otherwords, Wincke would have no problem at all with ODF *as long as it was supported by Microsoft* whose Office applications are supported by third party products "

 

Online Newsletter by Christine Vincent, Director of Learning and Teaching.

 "moving from being a government agency that has supported the development and delivery of ICT and e-learning for schools and the learning and skills sector, to an agency that directly supports government in the leadership and co-ordination of the e-strategy “Harnessing Technology”"

 

I've posted an article on OATSoft to summarise the issue and the opportunities.

Version 2 of the advice to agencies takes heed of feedback from the Open Source Community and is now a clear guide for the legal issues when using OSS licences, especially the way propagation works when making derivative software with licenses such as the GPL.