2001 Conference Proceedings
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Enterprise-Wide Architecture for Accessibility in the
Canadian Government
Rodney Carpenter
rodney.carpenter@tbs-sct.gc.ca
Treasury Board of Canada
Government of Canada
Ottawa, Canada
K1A 0R5
Bill Shackleton
bill@eramp.com
E-Ramp, Inc.
Carleton Place, Ontario
K7C 4L3
This presentation describes the work of the Accessibility
Domain Architecture Team (ADAT) of the Canadian Government. The
background and context from the perspective of the government's
renewal of its IM/IT infrastructure is given first. Then, the
evolution of efforts to ensure the inclusiveness of persons with
disabilities is described. The result of the convergence of these
two tracks - the Accessibility Domain Architecture - is then
presented.
Background: Canadian Government IM/IT
"The Government will become a model user of information
technology and the Internet. By 2004, our goal is to be known
around the world as the government most connected to its
citizens, with Canadians able to access all government
information and services on-line at the time and place of their
choosing."
Government On-Line
Canada is the world's second largest country in physical size,
yet our population is about the size of California. We are a land
of two official languages and multiculturalism. We're more of a
'mosaic' than a melting pot. Given the size of our geography and
the tiny, yet diverse nature of our population, it was natural
that Canada would be at the forefront of communications
technology. Although citizens could always access government
information and services in a diversity of ways (mail, phone,
personal visit), the opportunity to bring "Government On-Line"
through electronic service delivery (ESD) provides yet another
channel to connect Canadians with their government at the time
and place of their choosing. As a result, electronic information
and services will be readily available in all parts of the
country and to all income groups, in both official languages, and
will respect the special needs of persons with
disabilities.
Strategic IM/IT Infrastructure Initiative
A government-wide IM/IT infrastructure that provides a secure and
trusted environment to connect with citizens and the private
sector builds on and leverages the government's considerable
investments in existing infrastructure. However, those
investments have traditionally resulted in systems that were
developed to optimize the strategies of single departments or
programs. In October of 1998, the Treasury Board of Canada
Secretariat (TBS) and Public Works / Government Services of
Canada (PWGSC) developed the SII initiative to renew the
government's IM/IT infrastructure. SII sets out the underpinning
of secure, citizen-centred electronic service delivery in terms
of both technology components and information management
components (eg. policies, standards). SII objectives are:
- Develop a policy that provides a sustainable approach to
managing the federal government's IM/IT infrastructure.
- Adopt a framework that guides the government's investments in
IM/IT infrastructure to support one-stop access with a common
face to service delivery.
- Create interoperability among government programs, both for
information and transactions, to support citizen-centred service
delivery.
Federated Architecture
The Federated Architecture Program (FAP) enables the Government
of Canada to determine what must comprise an IM/IT infrastructure
- the Information Management policies, standards, practices,
components and systems needed to support government-wide
interests and business requirements. Within the context of the
Government of Canada, "architecture" has been defined as:
…a logical set of principles that guides detailed design,
selection, construction, implementation, deployment, support and
management of systems and technical infrastructure. A set of
product standards by itself does not constitute architecture.
What is most important is architecture's guidance on how the
organisation's technologies, products, standards, and
configurations are to be used to achieve program goals by
adapting constantly to changes in the organisation's business
strategy and business processes.
The Federated Architecture does three essential things:
- It guides the development of IM/IT infrastructure and the
migration of information and services to the Internet in a
coherent, progressive, efficient and secure way;
- It makes the best possible use of the "legacy" information
and technology systems already in place;
- It identifies and prioritises the new systems, components,
standards and policies that are needed.
Within the federated architecture framework, some components of
the infrastructure must be commonly held and mandatory across the
government to ensure that it achieves its service delivery goals.
In other cases, groups of departments may cluster around common
solutions. FAP has been specifically tasked with identifying the
common and shared capabilities needed from the IM/IT
infrastructure to meet the government's current and future
business requirements. The Federated Architecture Model,
illustrated below, takes a government-wide horizontal approach,
recognising the central importance of cross-government solutions
to support integrated service delivery, especially client-centred
electronic service delivery. Those 'pieces' of the infrastructure
that are common across all federal departments are of particular
interest.
[D]
Background: Persons with Disabilities
The Past
For persons with disabilities, technology can be a double-edged
sword. In some ways, it can empower an individual to do things
that without technology would be difficult or impossible.
Unfortunately, when technology is designed, purchased and
implemented without considering the needs of individuals with
disabilities it can often raise barriers to information and
services previously available to them. Most recent government
reports have identified and highlighted many of the problems
faced by persons with disabilities such as the fragmentation of
services for persons with disabilities; technical professionals
untrained in the subject of accessibility; and inflexible IM/IT
infrastructures that are incompatible with the devices that many
people use to access information and services.
Low Road
Traditionally, and too often, accessibility is an afterthought to
the design and implementation of IM/IT environments retrofitted
to an already existing system often resulting in a patchwork of
ad hoc 'fixes'. In many cases this results in frustration for the
individual who must wait for what too often is a low quality
'solution'. Recent efforts to ensure accessibility by
'eliminating barriers' to access have helped to ensure that
systems are designed, purchased and implemented in such a way as
to reduce the number of barriers inadvertently created.
Additionally, the big stick of regulations, laws, and policies
have increased the awareness of accessibility issues in the
technical community. Unfortunately, for too many technical
professionals, accessibility means designing down to the lowest
common denominator, duplication of effort, or text only
documents.
Convergence: Accessibility Domain Architecture
High Road
Although removing barriers is a necessary step in ensuring
accessibility, a strategy based on embracing the challenge of
empowering individuals regardless of the severity or complexity
of their disabilities can result in a high quality infrastructure
that is more adaptable, responsive, and flexible for everyone.
For example,
- Solving the challenge of how a person with a hearing
impairment can interact with the system also solves the problem
of another person transacting business with the Government of
Canada at a loud and busy airport kiosk. For example, both people
would benefit from videos that were captioned. The addition of
text to a movie provides the additional benefit of documenting it
in such a way that it can be archived, indexed, and
searched.
- Solving the challenge of how a person with a visual
impairment can interact with the system also solves the problem
of another person reading a government web site while driving a
car. For example, just as a person who is blind has their
computer read aloud to them, a person driving would have their
automobile read to them.
- Solving the challenge of how a TTY user could privately
communicate directly with a government employee using their
'telephone' and the GoC network, also adds live interactive
client support for those preferring to use text messaging.
- Designing information and service delivery systems that
adapted to the learning / communications requirements of a person
with a cognitive impairment also creates an interface friendly to
children.
A human-centered IM/IT environment which effectively responded to
people based on their unique preferences and requirements could
be leveraged to enhance the productivity of even non-disabled
executives as illustrated in the following scenario:
A manager, sitting in her office, loads her project management
software onto her desktop computer to work on a complex corporate
initiative. Being reminded that she needs to catch a flight to
the region, she continues working on her project using her
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) while riding down the elevator
to the car. Driving to the airport, she 'talks' to her dashboard,
continuing her interaction with the software, which feeds back
information to her car, which then speaks to her. Arriving at the
airport, she notes that her flight has been delayed, so she
approaches a public kiosk to continue her work. Later, on hearing
boarding instructions over the PA system, she wirelessly
downloads the current (and freshly updated) project status to her
laptop on which she'll conclude her activity while on the
aeroplane. Although many people have been empowered by targeting
specific technologies such as web pages and PCs, the enormous
potential to leverage the entire IM/IT infrastructure has until
now remained untapped. This is the responsibility of the
Accessibility Domain Architecture Team.
Opportunity
The SII provides a unique opportunity to 'smooth in' and
integrate 'e-ramps' that enable people - regardless of
dis/ability - to access information and services from their
government while the 'cement is wet'.
Objective
The objective of ADAT is to:
Explore opportunities provided by the SII for empowering
individuals with disabilities. Develop government-wide
accessibility principles and technical standards, which will
become incorporated into the Federated Architecture Facilitate
the development of horizontal government wide and departmental
shared components designed to level the playing field. Assist in
the development of architectures from other technical domains
(eg. security, network, e-forms) in order to leverage previously
untapped opportunities for enhancing accessibility for all.
Approach
Accessibility must be done comprehensively. Having an accessible
computer system access an inaccessible web site or having a
technology environment that is incompatible with a person's
assistive technology creates barriers to information and services
for that person. An architecture for accessibility must take into
consideration three elements in order to be effective: Personal
Technologies, Technology Environment, and the Information /
Services being delivered through those technologies.
ADAT will work closely with the members of the Access Working
Group in order to leverage "corporate memory". Although not a
technically based group, they nevertheless possess experience and
expertise in the area of access to information and services by
persons with disabilities. The process through which this
Enterprise-Wide Architecture for Accessibility is to be created
follows:
Common Requirements Vision
The common Requirements Vision (CRV) is the first task in
developing a federated architecture. The Access Working Group
will play an important role in helping ADAT to identify a vision
of perfect accessibility.
Conceptual Architecture
The Conceptual Architecture serves as a roadmap for the design
and deployment of the common and shared components of the
Federated Architecture. It also provides a mechanism to allow
individual departments to respond to unique business needs using
common components, thus ensuring that information and services
will be shared and managed on a federated basis.
Domain Architecture Definition: Target Architecture
The resulting target architecture - Enterprise-Wide Architecture
for Accessibility - will be crafted with both global and domain
specific accessibility principles, standards, and
components.
Snapshot of Existing Baseline Architecture
Various Federal reports and Task Forces, as well as existing
policies, services and infrastructure will help to provide a
snapshot of the existing baseline - especially as it applies to
accessibility.
Gap Analysis
The difference between the target architecture and the baseline
architecture will be analysed in order to facilitate migration
and implementation planning.
Migration & Implementation Planning
The result of the Gap Analysis will help to produce a migration
plan of prioritised steps leading to the target
architecture.
Graphic Description: Federated Architecture Model
The graphic depicts a model of the IM/IT architecture of the
government of Canada. Four blue rectangular boxes, like
buildings, represent each of the various departments of the
government. Each are labelled "Department Unique Components".
They are joined at the bottom by a horizontal red rectangle
labelled "Government-Wide Components". Sitting on that base, but
reaching across only three of the four departments is another
horizontal red rectangle labelled "Department Shared Components".
When viewed from the perspective of a particular department its
IM/IT environment consists of components that are common across
the entire government, components that are shared by some
departments which have clustered around common solutions, and
components that are unique to that department. Along the bottom
of the graphic are arrows labelled "Business Process" that
emphasize the business driven nature of the architecture.
Footnotes
1. Information Management / Information Technology.
2. Speech from the Throne (October 12th, 1999).
3. TBS and PWGSC are two departments of the Government of Canada
which together is roughly analogous to the U.S. Government
Services Administration (GSA).
4. Access for All through Technology, Introduction to Technology
Accommodation and Accessibility within the Federal Public
Service, In Unison: A Canadian Approach to Disability Issues
– A Vision Paper, to name a few.
5. Adapted from Use of GUI Interfaces on the Converging
Telecommunication Appliances: The Need for New Access Strategies
(http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/ihci97_common_table/common.html),
General Concepts, Universal Design Principles and Guidelines (http://trace.wisc.edu/world/gen_ud.html),
and conversations with Gregg Vanderheidden (Trace Research and
Development Center).
6. A TTY, formerly know as TDD (Telephone Device for the Deaf),
is a device used by many people with hearing impairments as an
alternative to a standard telephone. Similar to text messaging,
communication between two people is enabled by each person typing
on a keyboard and reading the other person’s conversation
on a display.
7. The Access Working Group of the Treasury Board Internet
Advisory Committee is composed of public servants from various
government departments who are furthering accessibility within
the Federal Government.
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