HERMOPHILOS: A Web-Based Information System for the Workflow Management and Delivery of Accessible eTextbooks
In this work we present the functional specifications, architecture and implementation of the HERMOPHILOS web-based system developed to auto-mate and accelerate the accessible eTextbooks’ production, workflow management, and delivery in an a higher educat
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Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece {pino,koupe,p.riga}@di.uoa.gr
Abstract. In this work we present the functional specifications, architecture and implementation of the HERMOPHILOS web-based system developed to auto-mate and accelerate the accessible eTextbooks’ production, workflow management, and delivery in an a higher education environment. We describe the redesign of the relative manual procedures and we show how HERMOPHILOS makes things easier and faster for the print-disabled students, as well as for the personnel involved. The web services of HERMOPHILOS include user sign up, user authen‐ tication, user rights management, students’ accessible textbooks re-quests, digital textbook requests to publishers, requests’ progress monitoring, original digital text‐ book copy submission, scanning, OCR, version and archive management, copy‐ right protection, distribution, and digital content usage statistics. Implementation specifications included support for all browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices, accessible user interfaces (WCAG 2.0 AA), and advanced encryption and security policies. The HERMOPHILOS system sup-ports multiple formats for eTextbooks: plain text (.txt), rich text (.rtf), accessible markup (.xml, .xhtml, and .html), large print (.doc), audio books (.mp3), DAISY 2&3 (text only or full text - full audio), Braille (.brf or .brl), MS-Word (.docx), portable document format (.pdf) and LaTex (.tex). Paperwork was dramatically reduced, and the need for students’ visits to the accessibility office was eliminated. Τhe results show that, compared to the traditional procedure, the HERMOPHILOS workflow manage‐ ment system reduced the overall production and delivery time by 47 %. Keywords: Accessibility · eTextbook · Accessible books
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Introduction
Accessible digital textbooks production and distribution is one of the core services that the Accessibility Unit1 of the University of Athens has undertaken to benefit students with print-disabilities [1]. This service supplies accessible eTextbooks mainly to students who are blind or with low vision, those with upper limbs motion disability resulting in inability to manually handle printed books, and students with dyslexia. 1
University of Athens Accessibility Unit - http://access.uoa.gr/.
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 K. Miesenberger et al. (Eds.): ICCHP 2016, Part I, LNCS 9758, pp. 409–416, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-41264-1_56
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A. Pino et al.
Although the Unit’s experts and personnel lived up to the increasing requests for new accessible eTextbooks for some years, the man-hours needed to meet the overwhelming production requirements have surpassed their potential. A new web-based Information Technology (IT) system has been recently designed and developed in order to automate and accelerate the accessible eTextbooks’ production, workflow management, and delivery. In this work we present the functional specifications, architecture and imple‐ mentat
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