ISO/IEC PWI 16248

Information technology — Learning, education, and training — Access-for-All (AfA) Cognitive and Learning Difficulties Access to Resource Content (AfA-cognition-terms) ISO/IEC PWI 16248

Scope

This standard is for people with cognitive and learning disabilities who make or use digital resources. This includes, but is not limited to: cognitive disabilities, learning disabilities (LD), neurodiversity, intellectual disabilities, and specific learning disabilities.
The standard specifies a common, interoperable set of extensible properties for the description of resource content and potential users’ comprehension needs and preferences, to enable network-supported individualization of resources, services and environments to match the unique needs and preferences of the individual
In particular, it defines properties for description of characteristics of content and representations that affect a person’s ability to comprehend the resource in whatever form (sound, image, text, touch, smell) they encounter it. The standard conforms to ISO 19788 and thus includes all relevant mechanisms for the publication of terminology for such descriptions, including publicly available registries of terms and related metadata resources such as application profiles.
The properties do not describe the form of the resource as distinct from its intellectual content but can include a description of the form that may affect content comprehension. Other standards provide terms for descriptions of sensory and other characteristics of resources (see for example, AfA Core Terms, ISO/IEC 4932 in development).
The AfA Cognition terms may also be used to indicate a user’s accessibility needs and preferences for resources. Thus, they may enable resources to be matched to a user’s unique needs and preferences. A set of core AfA Cognition terms can be used in a Digital Resource Description and equally in a Personal Needs and Preferences profile.
This standard takes an inclusive approach to individualization, since any user can experience a mismatch of their individual accessibility needs and preferences and the content or services delivered; it is not restricted to descriptions related to stereotypical medical notions of disability.
This standard aims to maximize conformance of AfA terms with the ISO/IEC 19788 series, Metadata for Learning Resources, and therefore the W3C Resource Description Framework (see https://www.w3.org/RDF/).