For a list of who is serving on each of the four working groups listed below, please visit this link.

Outreach, Training and Piloting Working Group

These goals address how we make it easier to create and use accessible images by spreading the word about how and why to use DIAGRAM tools and best practices. They are an answer to the challenges we face communicating to our stakeholder constituencies regarding the importance of image accessibility and the contributions we have made and will make to the field. The piloting aspect of this set of goals refers to more targeted piloting of DIAGRAM-created tools with key user groups, such as teachers.

• Conduct end-to-end piloting of the accessible image process, from the creation of the original image through the distribution and processing by a publisher to the final use by an end user, so everyone understands how we’re improving the process.
• Create a library of training videos and demos so everyone has easy access to our information.
• Reach out to authoring software toolmakers to support adoption of DIAGRAM technology.
• Conduct field-testing and piloting of all software created by DIAGRAM so we’re delivering quality software. We will do a new pilot of Poet with high school teachers in late 2012 to determine whether an image description tool is helpful to them at the point of instruction.
• Articulate clearly goals, mission, and benefits so we can inform and inspire. This will take the form of talking points and presentations geared specifically for key target audiences.

Content Working Group

These goals address how we make it easier to create accessible images by demonstrating clear examples, and how we make it easier to discover accessible images by providing a way to search for them. They will result in a concrete increase in the availability of accessible images and tangible references for what an accessible image looks, sounds, and feels like.

• Create a single book/brochure explaining DIAGRAM concepts with 10 sample accessible images that have been comprehensively treated so others have tangible examples of the kind of content we are trying to facilitate.
• Design an image library or image registry that can include some images with cleared licensing so people have access to accessible images as examples. Users, content creators, and content platforms alike would be able to search the library in order to discover accessible images in a variety of formats.
• Explore the Learning Registry as a means of searching images across multiple libraries so we make it easier to find accessible images.
• Understand the content creation and consumption workflow so we identify addressable gaps in the process and fill them. This will include conducting interviews with publishers and accessible media producers to better understand their processes.

                Tools Working Group

These goals address how we make it easier to create, discover, use, and interact with accessible images by developing new tools to do each, especially for emerging modes and formats across broad bodies of content. They will result in tools that have a targeted emphasis on gaps in the content production or usage cycle that we have identified and continue to identify through our research, piloting, standards, and outreach efforts.

• Undertake reference implementation of tools supporting accessible math, multi-modal accessible images, and the DIAGRAM Content Model so tool builders and content creators know what works. The DIAGRAM community at Asilomar identified these areas as key areas to make progress in because of gaps in available tools (e.g., accessible math) or the need to take leadership in cutting edge areas (e.g., multi-modal accessible images, the Content Model).
• Provide support for interactive accessible image widgets so we can inspire more smart image creation.
• Enhance accessible math navigation and explore math manipulation and annotation so students can work better with math content. Accessible math content was identified early in the life of the DIAGRAM Center as a consistent unfulfilled need for STEM students who must grapple with math that is expressed in flat images, even in digital content.
• Create an accessible Image Coverage checker for EPUB 3 (the mainstream commercial ebook standard) so content creators can tell if they are creating accessible materials. This activity acknowledges the emergence of EPUB 3 has a key format for digital educational content.

            Standards Working Group

These goals address how we make it easier to create, use, discover, and interact with accessible images by providing the framework for building authoring and reading tools, and exchanging data so images can be shared. These goals refine the standards development work that we have been committed to from our inception and reflect adjustments in our emphasis due to changes in the technology landscape.

• Add an official DIAGRAM representative to the IDPF for the EPUB 3 commercial ebook standard so we can even more effectively advocate for ebook standards that support image accessibility.
• While continuing to monitor HTML5, the next-generation standard for the Web, spend more time on educationally relevant standards such as LRMI, ONIX, IMS standards so we make sure accessible images are part of learning systems and other educational content.
• Provide DIAGRAM Content Model support for alternative, multi-modal image representations so we can facilitate as many modes as possible.
• Support multi-modal, smart image standards so we can advocate and demonstrate good models for the latest, cutting-edge forms of accessible images. Smart images are digital images that contain rich non-visual information that can be explored by the user.