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Evaluating e‐book platforms: Lessons from the e‐book accessibility audit
Author(s) -
McNaught Alistair,
MacMullen Ruth,
Smith Sue,
Dobson Vicky
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
learned publishing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.06
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1741-4857
pISSN - 0953-1513
DOI - 10.1002/leap.1143
Subject(s) - audit , reading (process) , dissemination , computer science , world wide web , key (lock) , work (physics) , interface (matter) , set (abstract data type) , order (exchange) , business , accounting , engineering , political science , finance , telecommunications , computer security , mechanical engineering , bubble , maximum bubble pressure method , parallel computing , law , programming language
E‐books are a potential assistive technology, offering significant advantages over print books, and accessible materials are now a financial and legal necessity within UK academia. It is often difficult to find supplier information on accessibility, for example, whether files have been tagged for reading order or whether the interface has been tested with assistive technologies. Equally, library staff may lack confidence in identifying accessibility features, making it hard to promote them to students or demand them from suppliers. This article reports on a crowdsourced e‐book audit of 44 e‐book platforms that was undertaken by 33 UK universities during 2016. The research scored different platforms for a range of accessibility issues, and the resulting open data set is presented in a manner that can be interrogated by libraries looking for specific features. A key finding was that the platform can dramatically affect the accessibility of a publisher's content, making it important for publishers to work with suitable vendors to disseminate their publications.