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Journal Article Tag Suite Conference (JATS-Con) Proceedings 2023 [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Center for Biotechnology Information (US); 2023.
JATS4R Accessibility Progress Report
Jonina Dames, Audrey Hamelers, and Stephen Laverick.
Author Information and AffiliationsAbstract
Print-disabled readers in university have spoken out about the serious problems inaccessible journal articles create for them [1]. The JATS4R (JATS for Reuse) Accessibility group has been working to define best XML tagging practices for including sufficient information to derive accessible rendered products (e.g., HTML, PDF). This article will provide an overview of the group's work on developing accessibility tagging recommendations for various content types within JATS, including Figures, Tables, Audio and Video, Math, Links, and Accessibility metadata.
The session will provide a review of the work done so far, including the challenges faced and solutions proposed for each area. The session will also cover the estimated impact of these accessibility models on the overall usability of JATS content for users with disabilities. We will address what can be done without changes to the JATS model and list any potential recommendations that have been or will be made to the JATS Standing Committee for the next revision to JATS.
We will also encourage people to get involved during the public comment period.
Introduction
Accessibility is the practice of ensuring there are minimal barriers to access and interact with websites and other electronic information for users with physical or situational disabilities. Accessible design ensures that there is equal access to information and functionality for as many users as possible, including those with permanent, temporary, or situational impairment of, for example: vision, hearing, mobility, memory, attention, or cognition; as well as those with economic or technological restrictions, such as on internet speed and bandwidth.
Rendered electronic derivative products of the JATS, including HTML, PDF, and EPUB, are presented to users on the web, or on electronic devices with a variety of accessibility controls and functions. Inaccessible journal articles present problems for readers and researchers [1], and there may be legal requirements, with financial ramifications for providing inaccessible articles and unequal information access. The JATS4R (JATS for Reuse) Accessibility group has been working to define best practices for including sufficient information during XML tagging to derive accessible rendered products.
Accessibility standards
The goal of the practice of accessibility is to be as inclusive as possible, and to provide equal access to information for users in a variety of circumstances. Thus there can be a wide range of issues and details to consider. As users of the JATS already know, it is helpful to have a standard. Luckily, the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c) issues the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a set of comprehensive standards for web accessibility broken down into four principles:
- Perceivable (“Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.”)
- Operable (“User interface components and navigation must be operable.”)
- Understandable (“Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.”)
- Robust (“Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.”)[2]
Each of these principles is further broken down into testable Success Criteria within WCAG 2.0, and there are 3 levels of WCAG conformance: A as the minimum, followed by AA, with AAA as the highest level of conformance to the WCAG Success Criteria. Legal regulations have been written in various countries that reference or otherwise align with these standards.
Legal requirements
Laws regulating equality of access to public accommodation, including electronic services, for people with disabilities exist in many countries, and often carry financial ramifications for noncompliance.
- In the United States, web accessibility is enforced through the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires non-discriminatory access to public accommodations, as well as several other laws and regulations [3]. It is defined for government entities by Section 508, which aligns with WCAG 2.0.
- In the European Union, the new European Accessibility Act is a non-discrimination law that requires EU member states to enforce compliance with WCAG 2.0 AA standards for public and private company services by 2025 [6]. The compliance of the public sectors of EU member states is already enforced through the EU Web Accessibility Directive. Many member countries have further individual regulations [7].
- In Japan, all ministries and the national public sector are expected to comply with guidelines established in JIS X 3241-3, equivalent to WCAG 2.0 [8].
At least 24 countries or polities have established policies or regulations around web accessibility. Compliance with WCAG 2.0 at AA level will meet most established legal requirements [9].
Further reading
- For more information on the legal requirements for journal article publishers, and tools for auditing and improving accessibility practices, see: Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing: Recommendations for Digital Accessibility Best Practices on The Scholarly Kitchen.
- For information on specific technical requirements for accessible journal articles, including many recommendations for the JATS XML, see: An Incomplete Guide to Creating Accessible Content, a JATS-Con 2022 paper by Joni Dames.
JATS4R
JATS4R (JATS for Reuse) is a working group, under the auspices of NISO [10], which develops best-practice recommendations for tagging content in JATS XML to optimize its reusability [11]. JATS4R organizes volunteer subgroups which develop recommendations around different sections and concepts of the JATS in an open process. All developed recommendations and the procedures for JATS4R operations are available on the JATS4R website, these recommendations include areas such as Abstracts, Article Publication and History Dates, Authors and Affiliations, Ethics Statements, Funding and Peer Review Materials. The general process for the creation of new recommendations is as follows:
- The JATS4R steering committee considers a topic, often initially raised through community engagement, and assigns a subgroup chair, who puts out a call for participation.
- The subgroup is formed from volunteers, who meet regularly to gather tagging samples and discuss and create the draft recommendation.
- The finalized draft recommendation is reviewed by the JATS4R steering committee.
- The draft recommendation is released as version 0.1 for a public comment period of 1 month.
- Feedback is incorporated into the draft, and it is published as version 1.0.
- The JATS4R steering committee then endeavours to review each recommendation on a 2 year cycle or as deemed necessary by the steering committee.
The JATS4R Accessibility Subgroup has been meeting regularly since July 2022 and is currently creating its draft recommendation.
Accessibility recommendation scope and status
The scope of the draft accessibility recommendation is the JATS XML. Consideration of potential products of the JATS is included when explaining the reasoning for the inclusion of particular JATS elements or attributes, or for what content must be included in the JATS to be considered sufficient in creating accessible products. However, many choices affecting accessibility can be made in the creation and rendering of products, and those will generally not be discussed in the recommendation.
The consideration of accessibility should be part of the creation of electronic information at all steps, and thus the recommendations of the JATS4R Accessibility Subgroup touch many different areas of the JATS XML. The text and order of these recommendations may change before finalization. The finalized recommendation will be published along with JATS4R Validator updates and tagging examples.
Draft accessibility recommendations
Figures and Images
- 1.
<alt-text>. This element is required for accessibility for all images and/or figures. The content text should describe the image/figure as a whole in a brief yet meaningful way. To support reuse of images, <alt-text> should be applied to the <graphic> element.
<alt-text> content must not be a duplicate of the figure caption or figure title plus caption.
<alt-text> should contain only pertinent information and be kept brief for a good user experience. A lengthier description can be tagged using <long-desc>, see below.
If an image is decorative rather than substantive (this would usually be an Editorial decision), use
<alt-text>null</alt-text>
. The explicit "null" value is preferred because an empty <alt-text> could mean that the value was simply forgotten. This will allow screen readers to skip images included in a document for esthetic reasons only or those that are illustrations of provided text. For a deeper discussion on decorative text, see the Web Accessibility Initiative on Decorative Images.In the instance of “text as an image”, the text depicted within the image should be stated within <alt-text>.
Where a table is depicted as an image, please refer to the recommendations regarding tables.
Multi-panel images should include, in <alt-text>, a framing description of the whole image (e.g, “A figure consisting of 4 panels.”) followed by a description of each panel (e.g., “Panel 1, an image of a cell. Panel 2, an image of a cell nucleus.”).
- 2.
<long-desc>. Include this element when <alt-text> cannot sufficiently describe the complexity of an image or figure. The use of <long-desc> is especially important for figures such as graphs or tables which communicate such information as measurements, values, trends, and conclusions.
<long-desc> may be a child of the <graphic> or a child of <fig> if the description applies to a whole figure that includes multiple <graphic> elements. It should not be both places.
A figure or image may link to a long description that is contained elsewhere within the document with
<xref ref-type="custom" custom-type="long-desc" rid="{targetID}"/>or externally with @xlink:href on <long-desc>.
Tables
The scope of this recommendation is for tables used for tabular data, in which values are organized into rows and columns and row and/or column headers are present. It is not a good practice to use tables for layout alone, and it should be avoided.
- 3.
Data tables must be tagged using the XHTML-based model outlined in JATS. OASIS (CALS) tables are not recommended for accessibility and should not be used.
- 4.
<table>. Data tables must be tagged using the <table> element and should not be supplied as images or other non-tabular content. Images can be used within table cells, but they should not be used in lieu of table tagging.
- 5.
<th>. This element is required for data table accessibility. It can be used to define headers either horizontally (within a single <tr>) or vertically (across multiple <tr> elements), but it must be present.
- 6.
@headers. For more complex tables, where the relationship between the headers and the data is potentially unclear, this attribute is recommended for data table accessibility. It can be used on either a <th> element or <td> element to explicitly define the relationship between a header and its associated cells.
- 7.
@scope. For tables with irregular or merged headers, this attribute is recommended for data table accessibility. It can be used on the <th> element to provide additional information about the table’s structure.
- 8.
<caption>. This element is recommended to help users identify a table and understand what it is about.
- 9.
@summary. If you wish to provide a longer summary, we recommend using the @summary attribute on the <table> element. See the W3C’s technique for using the summary attribute to give an overview of data tables.
Links
- 10.
<ext-link>. The text wrapped by <ext-link> should be concise and should meaningfully describe the linked object including when the link is removed from its context. e.g.,
Read <ext-link xlink:href="https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/archiving/tag-library/1.3/element/ext-link.html">more about linking in JATS</ext-link>
is preferred over
<ext-link xlink:href="https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/archiving/tag-library/1.3/element/ext-link.html">Read more</ext-link> about linking in JATS
A URI is not descriptive link text. <ext-link> should not wrap URI text content.
If for any reason the <ext-link> cannot contain fully descriptive text, a description of the link can be provided in @xlink:title.
Links in transformations
- 11.
<uri>, <self-uri>. A URI is not accessible link text. If a URI is turned into a link in any product of the JATS, care should be taken to provide a meaningful description for the link based on the surrounding context. If @xlink:href is included on the element, an accessible description of the link should be provided in @xlink:title.
- 12.
<xref>, <pub-id>, <related-article>, @xlink:href. <xref> is often turned into a link in products of the JATS, and there is a large list of elements which accept the @xlink:href attribute, any of which could be turned into links in the results of transformations from the JATS.
If any elements are turned into a link in any product of the JATS, care should be taken to provide a meaningful description for the link based on the surrounding context. Following JATS4R recommendations for relevant areas can help to ensure that the context is complete and enough information is available to create an accessible link. If @xlink:href is included on the element, an accessible description of the link can be also provided in @xlink:title.
Care should also be taken in products of the JATS to ensure that the target size, or clickable area, of links is large enough to be physically accessible by users. This can be especially important to consider with <xref> links, for example to references or footnotes, where the text can be as short as a single character. Prefer more than a single character as link content, or when creating transformations and styling the results, create link elements with target sizes meeting WCAG21 target size requirements.
Headings
- 13.
<title>. JATS requires that <sec> (and similar elements taking <title> that also take <sec>, such as <abstract>, <ack>, and <app>) be properly nested. To create accessible headings, <title> must be included in each <sec>.
In transformation, any <title> or other element that is used to create a heading must do so in proper ranked/nesting order: starting from rank 1, and with no levels skipped when beginning a new section.
- 14.
@disp-level. Do not use @disp-level or otherwise include sections in which the display and hierarchical heading level differ from each other.
Lists
- 15.
<list>, <list-item>, <def-list>, <def>, @list-type, @prefix-word, @continued-from. Use list and definition list elements and attributes according to the JATS specification.
- 16.
<list-item><label>. <label> overrides the @list-type with a custom list label for each <list-item>. This is less accessible and machine readable, and should be avoided if a standard ordered-list numbering or unordered-list display @list-type can be used.
Language and Pronunciation
- 17.
@xml:lang. @xml:lang must be used to indicate the document language at the article level, and should then be used to indicate the language of any elements or phrases which differ from the main language used. Declaring the correct language of text affects the pronunciation used by screen readers. Follow JATS language code specifications.
Phrases which differ in language from their containing elements can be indicated using @xml:lang on <named-content>, as well as the @content-type="foreign-phrase" attribute.
- 18.
@alt. Use to provide a short textual alternative or pronunciation guide for components such as abbreviations and emoticons—for example, to indicate that “WHO” should be pronounced “W.H.O.” or “World Health Organization”, and not “who”; or that “:-)” should be interpreted as “smile”.
Special Characters
- 19.
For the correct reading of your special characters by screen readers or other text-to-speech or text-to-braille systems, ensure that you use the correct Unicode value in each instance, rather than any character that looks similar to the character desired. For example, when indicating temperature, take care to use the degree symbol (°) and not a modifier small O (ᵒ) or the masculine ordinal symbol (º).
- 20.
<private-char> Do not use <private-char>. Use the correct unicode values for any characters that should be read. Do not use graphics for character representation.
Recommendations in progress
The JATS4R Accessibility Subgroup is currently developing recommendations for these remaining areas:
- Audio and Video transcription
- MathML
- Accessibility Metadata
XML tagging samples sought
An assigned task of every JATS4R subgroup is to gather actual tagging samples, where possible, to use for discussion and as examples in the final recommendation. If you or your organization has tagged samples for any of the areas listed above that could illustrate what to do, or what not to do, to create accessible journal articles please send them to our corresponding author and co-chair of the JATS4R Accessibility Subgroup, Stephen Laverick.
Public comment period
After the draft recommendation is finalized and reviewed, it will be released for a 1-month public comment period as version 0.1. Public feedback on JATS4R recommendations is integral for ensuring their completeness and correctness—feedback suggestions can be incorporated into the final, published version 1.0 of the recommendation. The public comment period for the accessibility recommendation will be announced on the JATS4R twitter account and the JATS List. The JATS4R Accessibility Subgroup would greatly appreciate your feedback.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the efforts of all of those involved in this sub-group:
- Jeffrey Beck (Co-chair), NCBI/NLM/NIH
- Joni Dames, Inera | Wiley Partner Solutions
- David Haber, American Society for Microbiology
- Audrey Hamelers, EMBl-EBI/Europe PMC
- Melissa Jones, Silverchair
- Bill Kasdorf, Kasdorf & Associates
- George Kerscher, DAISY Consortium
- Stephen Laverick (Co-chair), Green Fifteen Publishing Consultancy
- Jennifer McAndrews, AIP Publishing
- Adam Palumbo, NIEHS/NIH
- Olly Rickard, Atypon/Wiley
- Tzviya Siegman, Wiley
- Guy van der Kolk, Typefi
- Jonathan Watson, Emerald
- Mark Weiler, Laurier University
References
- 1.
- Bruce C, Marsden M, Martiniello N, et al. Ensuring that the “World’s Knowledge is Accessible By All”: Canadian Blind Scholars Share their Experiences of Journal and other Digital Content. Presented at: 2022 CRKN Conference: Strength in Community; 2022, Oct 3-Nov 2;Montreal, Canada. Video: https://vimeo
.com/770786119. - 2.
- W3C. Introduction to Understanding WCAG 2.0. Understanding WCAG 2.0: A guide to understanding and implementing WCAG 2.0 Retrieved from: https://www
.w3.org/TR /UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/intro.html. - 3.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). United States. Web Accessibility Laws & Policies. Retrieved from: https://www
.w3.org/WAI /policies/united-states/ - 4.
- Government of Canada. Accessible Canada Act (S.C. 2019, c. 10). Retrieved from: https://laws-lois
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- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Canada. Web Accessibility Laws & Policies. Retrieved from: https://www
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- European Union Publications Office. Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the accessibility requirements for products and services (Text with EEA relevance). Eur-Lex. Retrieved from: https://eur-lex
.europa .eu/legal-content/EN /TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32019L0882. - 7.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). European Union. Web Accessibility Laws & Policies. Retrieved from: https://www
.w3.org/WAI /policies/european-union/ - 8.
- 9.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Web Accessibility Laws & Policies. Retrieved from: https://www
.w3.org/WAI/policies/ - 10.
- NISO. JATS4R. Standards Committees. Retrieved from: https://www
.niso.org /standards-committees/jats4r. - 11.
- Beck J, Harrison M, Laverick S, et al. What JATS4R can achieve, with a little help from its friends. Journal Article Tag Suite Conference (JATS-Con) Proceedings 2019. Journal Article Tag Suite Conference;20-21 May;Hinxton, United Kingdom. Retrieved from: https://www
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