Oliver Burmeister, Swinburne University; Gian Sampson-Wild, Stanley &Milford
For community networking to function its resources should be accessible to all its members. Resource developers face the challenges of the implications of this. Electronic communities are composed of heterogeneous users with varying skills and access needs. One of the principles of community networking, is that it is an international movement was founded on the idea that 'all citizens' of a local community should have access to low cost electronic public space to communicate and form communities of practice or interest that may or may not represent local geographic areas. Such citizens include the aged, people with various disabilities and the general public.
Community networks have great potential, but they are very dependent for their success on the availability of technology that permits all members of the community to equally share in the benefits of membership. Such communities seek to engage members in a rich environment to be developed by people often ignorant of community member needs.
Transfer of development skills and knowledge to community networking developers is an important part of the development of such communities. This paper reviews user agents, assistive and evaluation technologies in the light of the proposed WCAG 2.0 standards of the W3C WAI. It explores the ways in which developer concerns have been addressed in the proposals and foreshadows possible impacts these developments will have on the expansion of the international community networking movement.
http://www.it.swin.edu.au/schil/biographies/oliverburmeister.html | http://www.stanleymilford.com.au/