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The MIT OpenCourseWare Update: May 2003
A Monthly E-mail Newsletter for Users
and Friends of MIT OpenCourseWare
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The May 2003 MIT OpenCourseWare Update Contains:
1. Improving Web Accessibility
2. Digging Deeper: Course 1.138J
3. Technology Tip of the Month
4. A Frequently Asked Question
1. Improving Web Accessibility
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Since MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) launched last
September, we have been making great strides to
improve the accessibility of the MIT OCW Web site.
We have moved the site from standalone, hand-coded
HTML to a template-based content management system
(CMS). This resulted in a great number of changes:
* The CMS templates are valid HTML 4.01 and meet the
accessibility recommendations of Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act, and those of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C).
* Our styleguide has been revised to include validating
and checking the accessibility of our HTML as part of the
course authoring process.
* The CMS requires that all images contain "ALT" attributes.
* And most importantly, our data tables now contain heavy
use of "scope" and "header" attributes that should make
it easier to navigate using screenreaders such as JAWS.
We are focused on improving the accessibility of PDFs. We
no longer use PDFs that include Type 3 or "bitmapped" fonts.
We are also running PDFs through Adobe's "Make Accessible"
plugin before finalizing the documents:
http://access.adobe.com
As of yet, JAWS does not read mathematical symbols,
equations or formulas. We are examining the use of
MathML in the future, especially now that Acrobat 6.0
will support more XML within PDFs.
In order to ensure that the 500 courses we release in
September are as accessible as possible, we are working
closely with the MIT Adaptive Technology for Information
and Computing (ATIC) Lab:
http://web.mit.edu/atic
To find out more about issues surrounding Web accessibility,
visit the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
Bobby is a comprehensive Web accessibility software tool
designed to expose and repair barriers to accessibility and
encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines.
Bobby tests for compliance with government standards,
including the U.S. Government's Section 508, and allows
developers to test Web pages and discover and address
accessibility issues before posting content to live servers:
http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp
What is Section 508? On August 7, 1998, then-U.S. President
Bill Clinton signed into law the Workforce Investment Act of
1998, which includes the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of
1998. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments
requires that when Federal agencies develop, maintain, or
use electronic and information technology, they shall ensure
the technology allows Federal employees with disabilities to
access and use information and data that is comparable to
the access available to Federal employees who do not have
disabilities. Read more about Section 508:
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/508standards.htm
Our goal is to make MIT OCW Web site as accessible as
possible, and we welcome feedback and suggestions on
how to make our content even better.
2. Digging Deeper: Course 1.138J
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Each month, this newsletter offers subscribers an in-depth
guide to one particular subject. This month, we delve into
"Course 1.138J/2.062J Wave Propagation" from MIT's
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, a
subject that is cross-listed as Course 2.062J in the MIT
Department of Mechanical Engineering:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Civil-and-Environmental-Engineering/1-138JWave-PropagationFall2000/CourseHome/index.htm
MIT Professors Chiang C. Mei and Guangda Li's subject
focuses on the linearized theory of wave phenomena in
applied mechanics. Basic concepts covered in the course
- including scattering, transmission, and reflection;
dimensional reflection and refraction across an interface;
diffraction and parabolic approximation; surface Rayleigh
waves and Love waves in elastic media; and waves on
the sea surface and internal waves in a stratified fluid -
are outlined in the course Syllabus:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Civil-and-Environmental-Engineering/1-138JWave-PropagationFall2000/Syllabus/index.htm
A full set of Lecture Notes are offered in PDF format,
including two sets of additional materials and notes on
Forced Dispersive Waves Along a Narrow Channel and
Internal Waves in a Stratified Fluid:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Civil-and-Environmental-Engineering/1-138JWave-PropagationFall2000/LectureNotes/index.htm
Visitors are encouraged to view the set of animations
demonstrating wave propagation for group velocity and
scattering objects, in the Simulations section:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Civil-and-Environmental-Engineering/1-138JWave-PropagationFall2000/Simulations/index.htm
Visitors to this subject site who may be interested in
discovering additional courses in MIT's Fluid Mechanics
Modules Program - including "Transport Processes in the
Environment," another MIT OCW course from the
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering - can
find a list of courses under the Related Resources:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Civil-and-Environmental-Engineering/1-138JWave-PropagationFall2000/RelatedResources/index.htm
3. Technology Tip of the Month
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In early June, the MIT OCW Web site will convert to a
content management system (CMS) and pages within
the site will be published dynamically from that system.
Visitors to MIT OCW who have created bookmarks to
course materials within the existing site will need to
recreate their bookmarks after the cutover to CMS-driven
publishing.
Visitors trying to access the MIT OCW site using an old
bookmark are likely to receive the following error message:
"HTTP Status 404 - The page you have requested is not
on this site." If this occurs, delete your old bookmark, go
the MIT OCW home page, navigate back to the page in
question, and create a new bookmark.
This change to a CMS environment is in preparation for the
release of 500 courses in September 2003. The CMS
environment will allow for greater searchability and increased
usability for visitors to the MIT OCW site. We thank visitors
for their patience during this transition.
4. A Frequently Asked Question
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Q: Does MIT OCW offer discounts on textbooks or software
applications utilized in the course materials?
A: MIT OCW does not sell, offer vendor discounts for, or
represent any vendor who may sell the software, books,
or other materials that visitors may find referenced on the
MIT OCW Web site.
In addition, since MIT OCW is not a distance-learning or
degree-granting initiative, there is no registration
process required to view course materials. Thus, the
course-pack materials that accompany most MIT courses
are also not available. These course packs often contain
proprietary information and copyrighted materials that
MIT Faculty only use in their classroom interactions with
MIT students. These materials are not available, nor will
they be in the future through the MIT OCW Web site.
