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Research Seminar - December 06, 2000

Seminar Announcement


Title: Olympic Failure: A Case for Making the Web Accessible
Speaker: Tom Worthington FACS
  Visiting Fellow, Department of Computer Science, Australian National University, Canberra
Date: Wednesday 6th December, 2000
Time: 3.00pm
Venue: Seminar Room 1.24

Abstract

In August 2000 the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games was found to have engaged in unlawful conduct by providing a web site which was to a significant extent inaccessible to the blind. The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission ordered the web site be made accessible by the start of the Sydney Olympics. The details of the case and its global implications for government policy and commercial practice on the Internet is examined by one of the expert witnesses who gave evidence to the commission. The wider issue of the public interest in Internet, web and IT development is examined. An analogy with town planning, inspired by the Lake at Blenheim Palace (near Oxford), is explored. Details: http://www.tomw.net.au/2000/bat.html

About the Speaker:
Tom Worthington is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Computer Science at the Australian National University. He is an independent electronic business consultant and author of the book Net Traveller. The first Web Master for the Australian Department of Defence, in 1999 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. Tom is a director and past President of the Australian Computer Society and a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery. He is a consultant to the Australian Government's Business Entry Point and teaching in the ANU's new e-commerce unit.

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